How do you fish nymphs??

[mike_richardson]

Just wonder how all of you guy fish your nymphs. I am thinking i am doing it the stupid way but i catch a decent amout of fish. Basically i have my float attached to my tapered leader and leave about 1.5 times the water depth and then my fly. I place a splitshot (if necessary) at the water depth. If i use 2 nymphs i place the shot up a little bit.

I dont like to fish nymphs without a little float. I enjoy the excitment of watching it go under more than watching them take a dryfly. Call me weird.

My problem though is when i am fishing a deep hole no matter what mend i put in my line it seems like the trout are hitting my nymph but the float is too far down stream for me to notice quick enough.
I tried to hold my tip up higher, cast up stream. Stand in the middle of the creek and strip my line to get a good drift. but it seems like the nymph is too far up stream.

Any suggestions on what i am doing wrong. I catch fish like this but i know i miss double what i catch. any insight will help. thanks.

Hope you like the miniature chromer i attached. ;-)

 

[pcray1231]

"Check" the float. The surface water moves faster than deep water, thus your float travels downstream faster than the nymph (not to mention due to casting, the nymph often starts upstream of the float). "Checking" the float simply means periodically moving it upstream to line up better with the nymph. It can be done while mending, you just throw the mend a little further out so that it grabs the float too. Learning how much and how often to check it has to be learned based on current, depth, etc, but you'll get it pretty quick.

Keep in mind that when you do this, the nymph will go deeper too, so you might have to adjust distance under the float/weight as well. When indicator fishing, I tend to like a fair amount of weight, I want to make sure that line is tight to the float so that hits show up.

 

[afishinado]

I keep posting this link, but it's a good one:

http://stevenojai.tripod.com/nymph.htm

Also read the info below the diagrams. Useful info in there.

Try the rig below. Keep adding shot until you reach bottom. The good thing about it is that the weight can easily be ajusted by adding or subtracting shot, and you get snagged less with the shot riding on the bottom rather than you fly. Good luck.

 

[mike_richardson]

Thanks for the insight never saw the splitshot placed like that. Must be my old bait fishing ways are instilled too much. LOL :lol:

Hence why i caught a nice palomino on a BEADHEAD WAXWORM fly i made :roll:

 

[iceyguides]

a few suggestions 1.) "My problem though is when i am fishing a deep hole no matter what mend i put in my line it seems like the trout are hitting my nymph..." if you know the trout are hitting your nymph, then set the hook! You can watch for irregularities in the sink rate/direction of your leader on the way down to cue you in on strikes faster. A lot of nymphing is about speed of detection and timing of the hook set. 2.) The first solution is more of a quick fix. The real issue is probably line control, weight, casting, your leader, and technique. You mentioned trying to keep your tip high and the line off the water. You might not know it but that's called high sticking/euro/czech nymphing. It's very effective. Youtube videos can probably do a better job of explaining it than i can. Split shot: the rule is the faster and deeper the water the closer your shot is to the fly and vice versa. You also mentioned a tapered leader. Most guys that fish only nymphs use a straight leader (non tapered). Monofilament is buoyant. Tapered leaders get progressively thicker towards the butt and therefore progressively more buoyant, which is exactly what you don't want when trying to get your nymphs to the bottom and keep them there. The last thing i can suggest is trying different casting strokes. You might want to get a book or video by joe humphreys. He's a famous nymph fisherman who invented, or is at least famous for, checking his cast. I've never had much luck with mastering his technique, but i get the concept and attempt my own version. The gist is that you want to get your nymph to the bottom asap. I cast the fly, not to a spot on the waters surface, but to a spot on the bottom. Look over the water, envision a spot where the trout are holding, then drive the nymph into the water a few feet upstream. It's not like dry flies where a delicate landing is important so you stop the rod short. Cast downward and shoot the nymph to the bottom right away. I hope some of this has helped. Take away what you can, experiment, and create your own system. The trout will let you know when you're doing it right.

 

[afishinado]

My deep fly rig is usually the "Czech" rig as shown in the link. Sometimes on the point (end fly) I will substitute the point fly for a few shot for adjustability, especially in areas where the water flow and depth are variable.

BTW, make sure you put an overhand knot at the tag end of the line to keep your shot from sliding off. Good fishing.

 

[gfen]

afishinado wrote:
I keep posting this link, but it's a good one:

Just make it your avatar.

BTW, I saw your leader gif posted elsewhere, they did give credit to you but I'd throw your name and email into the gif anyways.

 

[afishinado]

gfen wrote:

afishinado wrote:
I keep posting this link, but it's a good one:

Just make it your avatar.

BTW, [color=CC0000]I saw your leader gif posted elsewhere, they did give credit to you but I'd throw your name and email into the gif anyways.[/color]

Dang that patent office!:evil:......lol. No big deal. I posted it to share. Lol...let's see if some "expert" uses the formula and names it "The Joe Expert Leader" and writes about it in a mag or book.

BTW, posting your e-mail on the Net is NEVER a good idea. Jay taught me about "bots".

 

[jayL]

afishinado wrote:

BTW, posting your e-mail on the Net is NEVER a good idea. Jay taught me about "bots".

They can't crawl images. That's why "captchas" are put on some websites. You'd be safe putting it in the image.

 

[troutslammer]

i would add more weight to the point fly and space small split shots up the leader to get down quicker end keep the indie more directly above the fly

 

[PennKev]

i would add more weight to the point fly and space small split shots up the leader to get down quicker end keep the indie more directly above the fly

I agree. I've found that staggering shot along the leader is a big help when my indicator and flies ar not drifting "together." I think the shot along the leader prevents a belly or bow from forming and makes it easier to tell what is going on. I also believe that the staggered shot helps in situations where the current flows at a noticably different pace on the surface compared to the bottom. It controls the speed of the indicators drift to a degree and slows it from getting too far ahead or behind.

From what I understand, the centerpin guys have this figured out pretty well.

Kev

 

[afishinado]

When I use an indy, I often stagger the shot keep my tippet more vertical (similar to centerpinning). But at some point, in deeper/faster water, given the amount of weight needed to get your flies down, using an indy becomes impractical. The indy would have to be huge to float all the weight.

By putting the shot on the point helps with strike detection since when a fish hits the fly, the weight is behind and its just flies and tippet between you and fish. One other thing about using trailing shot, the fish sees the fly before the shot.

 

[tim_y]

When going deep, I often use the bounce rig as shown in the diagram. I prefer this because I carry about 4 sizes of shot on me when I fish, it's easier to change weights than having to re rig my point fly. Recently, I was fishing, saw my indicator dip, a nice bow shoot out of the water, set the hook and lost him all in under a second. The belly created by my split shot gave him enough slack to delay my indicator - it makes you wonder how many missed hits we never even know of. I went off track here, but if its deep water, I normally ditch the indi.

 

[LorenWilliams]

I'd like to know where it says you need to use 3 flies to be Czech Nymphing?

 

[afishinado]

LorenWilliams wrote:
I'd like to know where it says you need to use 3 flies to be Czech Nymphing?

C'mon Loren, you lurker you;-)...give us the real poop on nymphing.

 

[LorenWilliams]

Czech Nymphing, its predecessor Polish Nymphing and all other "... nymphings" are theories of fishing weighted flies. Number of flies, leader formulas, types and amounts of colored mono (if any at all) and the flies themselves are largely irrelevant and very personal.

CN refers to fishing the flies more or less under your rod tip--most closely akin to our high sticking. It's a close game. You can do it with one fly or 10 flies--if the fish will let you.

For some reason we (meaning Americans) are always looking for the short cut, for the formula, for the definition. I think much more is to be learned by studying the theory and the process. But that takes time and energy

Too many guys trying to make a quick buck writing articles if you ask me....Misinformation is running rampant.

 

[Weesh]

"You can do it with one fly or 10 flies--if the fish will let you."

Ha ha, 10 flies.....I have a hard time fishing 2 flies without getting tangled.

 

[wetnet]

LorenWilliams wrote:
Czech Nymphing, its predecessor Polish Nymphing and all other "... nymphings" are theories of fishing weighted flies. Number of flies, leader formulas, types and amounts of colored mono (if any at all) and the flies themselves are largely irrelevant and very personal.

CN refers to fishing the flies more or less under your rod tip--most closely akin to our high sticking. It's a close game. You can do it with one fly or 10 flies--if the fish will let you.

For some reason we (meaning Americans) are always looking for the short cut, for the formula, for the definition. I think much more is to be learned by studying the theory and the process. But that takes time and energy

Too many guys trying to make a quick buck writing articles if you ask me....Misinformation is running rampant.

Great history lesson! Doubt it will help much for the original poster. A little More? I'm having fun with the deep pocket pools with the lesson you gave me. Slower deeper pools I'll be asking you for help again. I've got streamers later this year to conquer.