Figure Skating: 3 Ways to Move a Dry Fly to Get More Strikes

A big fish smashes a waking fly on a down-and-across presentation. All Photos: Kubie Brown

Everything in the dry-fly fishing world seems to revolve around the dead drift. It’s drilled into our minds from the very first time we pick up a fly rod that dry flies must drift at the exact pace of the current and that it’s crucial for the bug to remain still. We’re taught that if a dry fly makes even the slightest movement as it drifts—the dreaded “micro-drag”—trout won’t eat it. Yet the reality is that this isn’t always true.

While certain insects or insect stages, such as mayfly spinners, are completely motionless (because, you know, they’re dead) not all live bugs hold still in the water. Like any other creature that suddenly finds itself in a river, most insects will splash, struggle, and swim once they land on or emerge from the water’s surface. (The exception, of course, are mayflies waiting for their wings to fill and dry.) Since trout are predators that are attracted to movement, there are times when imitating this struggle and adding a little motion to your flies can catch you more fish.

The author caught this beautiful cutthroat on a skated foam pattern.

Skating Flies

Skating dry flies is a classic method that salmon and steelhead anglers have used for almost two centuries. It consists of casting down and across the river and then swinging a dry fly on a tight line across the surface, creating a wake behind the fly to draw a strike. Skating flies is a fantastic method for catching large, anadromous fish, which will smash waking bugs out of pure aggression. And when conditions are right, skating dry flies also works incredibly well for trout.

While you can catch trout on classic salmon and steelhead dry flies like a Bomber or Water Walker, use smaller patterns for trout fishing. My favorite patterns for skating are bulky dry flies with prominent hackles that make an impression without being too obvious. Flies such as the Stimulator and Elk-Hair Caddis are ideal, as are large attractor patterns, such as the White Wulff and Yellow Humpy.

The wake is what draws attention to a skating pattern.

Trout will strike skated dry flies out of hostility or curiosity, as well as from hunger. Generally, the technique works best during the early morning or late evening before a hatch, when there isn’t a specific hatch happening, or even after a hatch has ended. During these times, trout will strike out of pure reaction, as they’re already looking toward the surface and associating it with food. This classic down-and-across method is also a great way to find active trout on big water or to pick up a few fish you may have missed during a hatch.

But this isn’t the only way to skate flies. You can also cast a dry fly either upstream or across the stream and then skate it purposefully by raising your rod tip and flicking it rapidly back and forth to create a skittering, skating action that zigs and zags across the surface of the water. It’s a fantastic technique during a hatch of large insects such as green drakes, golden stoneflies, or plus-size caddis. These bigger bugs often have a hard time taking off and will skim, skate, and skitter along the surface as they try to take flight, triggering trout into feeding. By raising your rod and wiggling it as your fly drifts, you can imitate this skating action and end up with some absolutely smashing strikes.

Twitching a hopper or stonefly pattern is a great way to draw a trout’s attention.

Getting Twitchy

Twitching your fly on the surface of the water can be a great way to get stubborn trout to take your fly, especially on highly pressured waters. While every other angler is dead-drifting flies over the fish’s head, making trout wary of non-moving bugs, suddenly adding a sign of life to your fly can completely change their minds. However, for it to work you must be choose the right imitation and be precise with your twitches so that they look natural.

Twitching a dry fly is all about subtlety. Don’t make it pop or splash on the surface like a mouse or topwater streamer. Instead, try to create the slight ripples of a small insect that’s trying to swim or fly away. It’s a delicate art that’s done by making a subtle flick with your rod tip or exaggerating a mend to barely put tension on your leader and fly. This creates a gentle ripple that draws attention to the fly. It’s a tricky method to master, but when you get it down, it can make all the difference in the world, especially when you’re fishing in low, clear water. In such conditions, trout will often warily track drifting flies for a long distance before finally deciding to either eat the bug when it moves or turn up their noses at it when it doesn’t.

A trout warily tracks a fly making twitching subtly in clear water.

Large mayflies such as drakes are fantastic bugs to twitch, especially when you’re fishing during the dun stage, as are caddisflies and stoneflies. However, the kings of the topwater twitch are undoubtedly terrestrials. Grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, ants, damselflies and dragonflies are all bugs that struggle, flutter, and twitch whenever they fall in the water, so trout will almost expect a little bit of movement whenever they’re feeding on them.

Stripping and Ripping

Ripping a dry across the surface of the water goes against all the presentation instincts we develop as dry-fly anglers, but it sometimes produces explosive strikes from aggressive trout. It’s a technique with limited application, though, working only with certain fly patterns under certain conditions.

The best time to strip and rip a dry fly is during a hatch of large insects. Salmonflies, golden stoneflies, and even cicadas all crash into the water like a shot down P-40 and then struggle and splash while they try to get back in the air. You can imitate this action with large, foam fly patterns like the Chubby Chernobyl and the Flutter Bug. Splash the flies down hard into the water and then make them twitch, pop, and chug across the surface with sharp upstream mends and hard quick strips. It’s an awesome way to connect with aggressive trout that are hunting for big bugs, especially during windy days when the insects are being blown around and there’s a lot of chop on the water.

Making a big wake works well in choppy water and on windy days.

Stripping large dry flies across the surface is also a great way to fish during late evening, early morning, or even at night. During these low-light conditions, trout feeding on the surface will rely less on sight and more on sound, and the commotion created by a stripping and ripping dry fly can draw big trout to the surface.

Put a Little Life In It

To be sure, there’s a reason why the dead drift is so ingrained in fly angling culture—because it works. If you’re splashing, skating, and twitching your dry flies every time you go fishing, you’re going to catch fewer trout. However, when conditions are calling for it and the trout are in the right mood or just when nothing else seems to be working, adding some movement to your dry fly can be a game-changer. It can turn a good day of fly fishing into a fantastic day of catching trout, and all it takes is knowing how and when to make your move.