I've found that dapping is an incredibly effective technique in small streams. And for some reason, I'm able to get much closer to the fish than I'd expect that I am able to. Some examples from my day with Swattie on Saturday are
here. The first photo he posted of a fish is one that came on a dap; the second photo shows me fishing the head of a pool, but the biggest fish that I saw on that day came from a bugger dropped two feet in front of me under the large rock. The photo attached here is the hole the first brookie came from, with some of my ugly markup.
First, if my memory serves me correctly, Swattie got hung up on a rock near the red spot to the left. He pulled his line out of the way so I could fish the hole. I thought for sure we would move a fish by casting to the head of the pool and dragging the bugger past the exposed root ball (along the orange lines) but that yielded nothing. Next, I thought for sure that we would move a fish under the big rock in the middle of the stream, which had the right side nicely undercut; the blue lines run parallel to it so thats where my next casts were. But that also yielded nothing. Swattie retrieved his fly and moved up to the next hole; I moved up to the green dot on the rock and dapped at the red X (X marks the spot right?). Second dap, a brookie charged out and inhaled the fly. Now you'd think with all that activity, the brookie would be spooked, but apparently not enough to put him down when that peacock herl flashed in his lair
Even small fish like that still spook me, although its almost like calling your shot when playing pool or basketball. There are times that I KNOW that if I drop a bugger right beside a certain rock, there will be a fish under that rock, and its rewarding to at times be right. Other times, I think I'm still right, but have gotten too close and spooked the 'lil fellows..