pointers for dry flies

[ortiened]

Hello all,
I am new to this site and have really enjoyed reading some of the other posts. I currently do a lot of nymph and streamer fishing for native brookies in small mountain streams. I wanted to start trying dry flies but don't know much about it. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

ortie

 

[nealfish]

Fly Tying Made Clear And Simple by Skip Morris and
Tying Dry Flies Revised Edition by Randall Kaufman
are the two books i learned from.
i found the adams and the Elk Hair caddis to be easy enough flies that i use almost religiously. if you decide against the books youtube is a sparkling wealth of fly tying instructional videos that should definitely be checked out. do you have the materials like dubbing, hackles, dove winds, and elk hair?

 

[YoughnessMonster]

If you are inquiring about what type of flies to use when targeting brook trout or actually tying dry flies for brook trout? Didn't know if you had a typo in your post. As far as what type of flies to use its hard to go wrong with stimulators and elk hair caddis for starters. I've had most of my success with brighter colors such as yellows and oranges.
Good luck!

 

[ortiened]

Thanks
Yes my question was about learning to use dy flies. my biggest problem with using dry flies is keeping them on the water. thats prob why i never really got into it. I really enjoy using buggers and nymphs just thought seeing a fish take a fly on top would be a blast. thanks in advance

 

[nealfish]

imagine you are fishing a nymph, with the exception that it will remain on the top water. keep the fly as natural in the water as possible without letting it get taken by the drag. youtube "Fishingintelligence" as an account, hes got some videos.

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, especially for native brookies, dry flies are EASIER than nymphs, not harder. They float right over cover! Work upstream, cast upstream, let it float back to you. With native brookies in infertile headwaters, I generally do considerably better with dries than I do with nymphs, for the main reason that the fish will hit anything, but with dries, it increases your range. You can fish from a little farther away.

My only hint is that it can be tough to dry the fly in tight places. You can't just open up with backcasts galore. Instead of backcasts, grab the fly and blow. Also, generous use of floatant.

Along the same lines, pick a robust, well dressed, high floating fly. This isn't the place for no hackles and such. And pick a fly that you can see easily, like a white or pink post on a parachute, or wulffs with the white tipes, etc. Will make things much easier when fishing with odd lighting in heavy currents.

Size range on the fly anywhere from 10 up to 16 or so. This isn't the place for midges either. By far, I use 12's and 14's the most. Go bigger if you're really trying to miss the dinks and only hook the decent fish. Go smaller if you're missing everything and want to hook a few, regardless of size.

 

[Foxgap239]

+1 to what Pcray says. Although most of my bigger brookies lately have been taken on nymphs and the streams are quite small.

 

[ortiened]

Thanks to everyone for contributing. just a few final questions. What are the best dry flies to start out with. Or does it depend on the time of the year? also nealfish, i watched some of the videos you reccomended excellant learning tool thanks

 

[Foxgap239]

ortiened wrote:
Thanks to everyone for contributing. just a few final questions. What are the best dry flies to start out with. Or does it depend on the time of the year? also nealfish, i watched some of the videos you reccomended excellant learning tool thanks

Attractor Flies are good flies to use year round. Things like Stimulators and Wulffs are great year round patterns. Mainly because fish will take them, they float very well and best of all, you can see them. If you buy your flies instead of tying them, you will be able to buy these almost anywhere.

 

[Swattie87]

As long as the water is warm enough to get them to look up (anything above 42 or 44 degrees usually works in my experience) they're usually not very picky. As pcray mentioned it's usually more important that the fly floats well in high gradient Brookie water, and that you can see it as opposed to a specific hatch matching pattern. Typical good choices would be Wulff's, Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulators, and Adams. Maybe thrown in a couple of your favorite terrestrial patterns too. Size 14-16 being about ideal IMO.

My Brookie box is tiny and usually only has Adams Parachutes, Royal Wulffs, Flying Ants, and light EHC in sizes 14-16 each. I'll throw in a few tiny BH Buggers for underneath work if it's cold, or for really deep holes when they're otherwise hitting on top. If I can't catch em' on those, I conclude there's no Brookies in that stream and move on to the next one on my list.

 

[pcray1231]

My go to is the Parachute Adams, well dressed, with a sizable white post. That said, humpies, wulffs, stimulators, and the like all are perfectly valid.

Stimulators may float the best, and dry out easily. But in my experiences, tend to be harder to see, and with the long shank I just miss so many fish.

I'm not a huge fan of the Elk Hair Caddis for this. Maybe I'm just a bad tier. But for me, they float great for a while, but once you get em soaked, I have trouble getting them dried out again. I have the same issue, to a lesser extent, with the humpies and wulffs.

Standard catskill style ties float well and dry well, but I want a white or pink post for visibility, and even if you wing em, the wings often land facing downward for me.

So all of the above will work just fine, but that's why I settled on the Parachute Adams. Floats well, easy to see, post always faces up, dries easily with a good blow. Your mileage may vary.

 

[pcray1231]

Last tip. Move fast! You can cover miles of water fishing like this. If you snag up on branches and such, so what? Walk up to it, retrieve your fly, and move onto the next hole. Throw 3 or 4 casts without a hit? Yeah, it's possible if you worked that water for a while you may coax another one out. It's likely that if you threw on a nymph you might pull another from the deep part of the hole. But in the time you take to do that, you coulda caught 3 or 4 more by moving upstream and catching the dullards.

And in these streams, the "dullards aren't necessarily the dinks.

 

[ortiened]

Thanks again i am so glad i found this site i will keep everyone updated as to how i am doing. I appreciate all the info

 

[nealfish]

im glad i could help. to get this straight though, ive heard a lot of other posters mention they only carry dries and mabey some buggers. you can catch trout on dries in winter? (ive only fished wild native brookies in the summer due to the distance from my house)

 

[Swattie87]

Yeah, you can catch them in Winter. Warmer days help, especially if you are talking dries. I am still doing better subsurface (small BH Buggers) right now, but I got a couple on dries last weekend.

 

[Fishidiot]

nealfish wrote:
you can catch trout on dries in winter? (ive only fished wild native brookies in the summer due to the distance from my house)

Yes (especially this winter).
I generally fish low and slow for brookies when temps are very cold but when the creeks are above about 40 degrees (or even lower) brookies will certainly rise. I've found that during winter brookies are usually laying low in slower, deeper areas and I usually target them with nymphs. Don't hesitate to try a dry fly in winter however.

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, I've had days in the winter on little brookie streams where dries were still most effective. That's virtually every day in the spring/summer, but in the winter it may only be about half the days. I do carry nymphs.

I may make a trip or two to brookie streams this time of the year, but I don't start focusing on them until about June, as the super hatches on the big streams begin to fade.

 

[stevehalupka]

I enjoy hiking into quality streams and exclusively fish class a or b's and with dry flies only. I seek these streams out for challenge. Anyone can roll cast nymphs and even dries into tight spots, but making a 30 foot back cast while on your knees with a 2 wt. and getting a rise at the head of a pool just does it for me... nike baby.

if you are in the sw region and would like to fish sometime, drop me a pm. Once you go dry for freestone wilds it will become a smalltime obsession.

this type of fishing also gets you ready for fishing dries to limestone and spring creek wilds. You learn how to become stealthy and make precise casts which are needed in some streams like letort, spring, etc.