Nymphing No-Nos
Mark Bachmann photo
SOMETIMES KNOWING what not to do can be more important than knowing what you should do. Over the years I’ve made my share of mistakes and seen others fail at nymph fishing only because of a few simple missteps. Below are five simple no-no’s that if avoided I believe will greatly improve your nymph fishing success.
#1: Don’t be afraid to use small nymph patterns!
For some reason most fly fishers pay close attention to the size of their patterns when fishing dry flies, but routinely grab the largest fly in their fly box when selecting a nymph pattern. It’s hard not to. Even after years and years of experience to the contrary, I still have to force myself to select a size 16 or 18 nymph instead of a size 10 or 12. It just seems to make sense that a trout will one, see a larger nymph easier than a small one, and two, find a larger morsel of food much more enticing than a small morsel. I mean who picks the smallest slice of cake on the dessert tray?
Ah, but trout, if nothing else, are creatures of habit, and when it comes to the size of natural nymphs floating by them, small and smaller is the rule, not the exception. As a result trout see way more small nymphs than large ones, and thus are in the habit of taking tiny morsels of food.
Trout also feed selectively when a specific food item is abundant. We know that’s true when fishing dry flies because we see the refusals when our flies are just a little too large. Well, the same selectivity occurs when trout focus their feeding on a really abundant food drifting below the surface. Their refusals of our oversized nymphs, however, go unnoticed and we have no idea our fly has been rejected.
While the large stonefly nymph looks tasty to us, the small size 18 mayfly nymph
in the middle bottom row is more often what trout are looking for. Rick Hafele photo
If you don’t think small nymphs outnumber large ones, I encourage you to take a few minutes and collect a good sample of nymphs out of a riffle in your favorite trout stream. Put what you collect in a white plastic tray with half an inch of water and look closely at how many different types of nymphs are present. Then look closely at the size of the most numerous ones. Now take one of your favorite nymph patterns for that natural and place it in the tray next to the real thing. I’ll bet dollars to donuts your fly is significantly larger than the natural.
The above stomach contents show that this well-fed trout had eyes only for little blue-winged olive nymphs (size 18) and small Mother’s day caddis pupae (size 16). Dave Hughes photo
I have found over and over again that using nymph patterns that match the size of the dominant natural nymphs present, even if that means using a size 18 or 20 nymph imitation, greatly improves my nymph fishing success.
Bottom line: Make sure your nymph selection includes patterns in sizes 16 and smaller, and then USE THEM.
#2: Avoid “Rootitis”
Rootitisis one of the most common afflictions of beginning nymph fishers, and it will seriously limit your success. How do you know if you have rootitis? If you find yourself parked in one spot fishing nymphs for 30, 20, or even ten minutes without getting a strike and not moving, you have rootitis.
Looking at the insect life in a stream will keep you from fishing for a while, but it usually proves to be time very well spent. Rick Hafele photo
Rootitis occurs because the water you’re fishing looks really fishy, and maybe you have even taken good fish there before. But one of the secrets to better nymph fishing is making sure your fly gets in front of more fish. Because you can’t see exactly where the fish are at —at least not typically—you need to carefully cover a piece of water and then move to another piece. That could be taking just a few steps upstream, or lengthening your cast a few feet to drift your fly in different water, or walking upstream or downstream some distance.
There are no rules about how long is too long. For myself after six to eight good drifts of my nymph through a specific current seam or holding lie without a strike, I pick another lie to cover with another six to eight casts. By covering water and then moving you are increasing the chances of your fly passing near a fish. Always keep looking for the next fishy spot to cover with you nymphs, and thus avoid rootitis.
#3: Change patterns that aren’t working
This problem is sort of like rootitis in that you are continuing to do something that isn’t working. With rootitis you are continuing to fish the same water. In this case you are continuing to use the same fly pattern.
We all have favorite flies, go-to patterns, that we put on when we don’t have a good reason to choose something specific. These patterns have proven themselves effective time and again, and we fish them with confidence. But don’t let the habit of choosing certain flies become a rut. No matter how good a particularly fly pattern might be or how much confidence you have in it, there will be times fish just won’t take it.
Once you have a good collection of naturals in a tray of water, drop your nymph patterns into the water next to them. You’ll likely be shocked at how much larger your patterns are than the naturals. Rick Hafele photo
Like rootitis there are no hard rules about how long you should fish a fly before changing patterns. I’ve had some fly fishers tell me that if they haven’t had a strike in ten minutes they change flies. I generally stick with a pattern longer than that. But if you haven’t had any success after an hour’s time, it’s time for a change. That’s when I recommend you put your rod down and spend 20 or 30 minutes looking around and in the stream for clues about what fish might be seeing and eating.
Pick up some rocks in a riffle and see what nymphs are crawling around and shake some streamside trees or shrubs to see what adult insects fly out. The time spent looking will help a great deal in deciding exactly what that next fly pattern should be and give you confidence in it when you tie it on. This also gives you a chance to see the naturals up close so you can check their size, and thus avoid no-no #1.
#4: Get your nymphs to the bottom
Skip and Dave both mention the need to fish nymphs deep, which means near the bottom whether you are fishing in water two feet deep or ten. I want to emphasize this even more by saying: If your nymph isn’t hanging up on or bumping the bottom at least once every five or six casts, you are not fishing deep enough and need to add more weight to your leader. I don’t mean that you should lose a fly every five or six casts, but you should be feeling your fly hit the bottom. Occasionally it will get snagged, and some snags will result in a lost fly. If you want to improve you nymph fishing however, as they say, get use to it!
More than once I’ve fished a section of stream with nymphs without hardly a strike, and then re-fished the same water after adding one or two more split shot to my rig. The increased success after adding the split shot was surprising. The same water that produced zero fish suddenly produced a half dozen. Remember, ninety percent of the time when fish aren’t feeding in or near the surface, get your nymphs to the bottom.
A natural nymph and its imitation. Rick Hafele photo
#5: Fish nymphs with as little line as possible
One of the main challenges of nymph fishing is detecting a strike and then setting the hook before the fish spits out your fly. All successful nymph fishing tactics maximize these two factors. No matter what tactic you are using, you will be more effective at detecting a strike and hooking fish if you shorten the amount of line you have on the water.
Strike indicators have gained acceptance and popularity because they make detecting strikes much easier. None-the-less it is much easier to see your indicator, and know when a fish has wiggled it, if it is ten feet away instead of thirty. When nymphing without an indicator, high sticking or Czech nymphing for example, you are relying on feel to detect strikes. In this case it is even more important to have as little line as possible on the water. With Czech nymphing there is no fly line on the water.
Once you see or feel a fish strike, a short line will also greatly increase the number of those fish you actually hook. For every foot of additional line you have out beyond your rod tip you are increasing the lag time between seeing or feeling a strike and pulling the fly tight in the fishes mouth once you react. I’ve watched fish from underwater (a wetsuit, mask and snorkel are great learning tools) suck in an angler’s nymph and spit it out so fast I wasn’t sure I saw it. After watching the speed at which a trout can spit out a fly, I’m convinced that even the best nymph fisher misses many, many fish.
With nymph fishing you need to do everything you can to increase your odds of hooking fish. Fishing a short line is one of the best and easiest ways to do it. By short I mean a cast of fifteen feet or less and ideally less than ten feet. Sometimes to reach the water you want to fish you’ll have to cast further, but if you focus on fishing nymphs with short casts you’ll see your success improve significantly.
If you avoid these five no-no’s, I’m confident you’ll see your nymph fishing success improve.
Good luck and Happy Casts!
From the June/July 2011 issue of HookedNow, the new online e-zine by Dave Hughes, Rick Hafele, and Skip Morris.
