Need Euro Nympher Mentor

[ryc72]

These videos helped me a lot...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ObcDRwrlbuo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7wwl1zPpNY

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=krs85oX5Hfk

If you really wanted to you could hire George Daniel and Dominick swentosky to guide for a day as well...I’m guessing that would help the learning curve quite a bit. Also with a long mono leader if you want to throw streamers, there’s no need to change your leader. you’d be surprised how far you could cast a streamer with some weight to it with nothing but 30lb mono and 5ft of tippet.

 

[wbranch]

ryc72 wrote;

If you really wanted to you could hire George Daniel and Dominick swentosky to guide for a day as well...

I'd rather tough it out by myself than pay anybody, no matter how good they are, $500 - $1000 a day for tutelage.

 

[moon1284]

How far can you throw a weighted streamer with nothing but mono?

 

[3sip]

Far. I've fished streamers with the mono rig and it's like casting a spinning rod almost. 30ft is about what I can cast accurately but can cast 50ft but not as accurate. I can nymph, switch over to streamers and with pre-spooled rigs it takes only a minute to switch them out. I don't fish dries with it but you can, I prefer standard fly line for dries.
It's a good fishing system and I catch considerably more fish with it than I did without it. I've fished my entire life mostly salt water and am new to ffing (4 years) and have used the mono rig for about a year. It's worth looking into.

 

[moon1284]

Got ya. Thanks.

 

[ryc72]

pretty far. i set up a 40ft 30lb mono butt section to a tippet ring and put 5ft of 3x tippet on it with a couple of shot and a lightly weighted streamer and i could cast the entire leader. i couldve cast further but it got awkward once the fly line started getting into my hands and guides. but i could properly cast and haul the entire 40ft of mono easily. and i dont consider myself a particularly good caster. im hoping to test the distance in the near future as i have another setup with over 100ft of the same 30lb mono on another reel. that being said, the 30lb mono isnt the easiest to strip and handle especially with wet hands but with some persistence and practice you can get pretty decent at managing the mono. but if you could find an opaque mono it pretty much kills the need for any sighter or anything. straight 30lb mono to a tippet ring then to tippet has worked just fine for me. i could nymph at a pretty good distance too. ive done the same with 25lb amnesia and that works pretty well too but its not opaque so you have to focus a lil harder visually.

 

[troutbert]

3sip wrote:
Far. I've fished streamers with the mono rig and it's like casting a spinning rod almost. 30ft is about what I can cast accurately but can cast 50ft but not as accurate. I can nymph, switch over to streamers and with pre-spooled rigs it takes only a minute to switch them out. I don't fish dries with it but you can, I prefer standard fly line for dries.
It's a good fishing system and I catch considerably more fish with it than I did without it. I've fished my entire life mostly salt water and am new to ffing (4 years) and have used the mono rig for about a year. It's worth looking into.

There is a name for this: Spin fishing with a fly rod.

I didn't come up with that name. I heard that around the mid-1990s.

People have been fishing with mono on fly rods and reels for a long time.

 

[afishinado]

moon1284 wrote:
How far can you throw a weighted streamer with nothing but mono?

^ Using a Belgian cast aka tension cast you can really fling them.

Like Troutbert said, mono rigs on a fly rod has been done for a long time.

When I was a little kid stream fishing for trout in the 60's, I can recall a bunch of old guys out on the stream with tattered vests and hats, and smoking pipes while fishing mono with their fly rods. Some used wet flies or streamers and many fished bait.

My best advice for anyone looking to try tightline nymphing is to go back and click on the three links posted by Rcy72 above from a George Daniel seminar and/or buy his book "Dynamic nymphing". Rig up and give it a whirl. No need to go out and buy special tackle right now. All it takes is a little practice to become fairly proficient.

Tight lines as they say...

 

[wbranch]

troutbert wrote;

There is a name for this: Spin fishing with a fly rod.

You took the post right out of my fingers! I was about to say the same thing. I can take my 12' match rod with my Plueger reel 8# braid with a piece of 4' 5X Uni knotted to the braid, two tungsten bead heads and cast 40' effortlessly and get a perfect 20' -30' drift.

This is basically what guys with fly rods and straight mono are doing with the pretense it is fly fishing. Sure it is.

It may be called fly fishing but in some states, I think PA is one of them, straight mono over 18' long doesn't meet the letter of the law for maximum leader length.

 

[ryc72]

I don’t believe that leader regulation applies everywhere in the state but only to specific fisheries...

https://pfbc.pa.gov/fishpub/summaryad/catchreleaseffo.html

 

[csoult]

I'm no expert but.. Tight lining is all about feel. The sooner you can feel the fly the better off you're going to be.

 

[PennKev]

csoult wrote:
I'm no expert but.. Tight lining is all about feel. The sooner you can feel the fly the better off you're going to be.

While you can often feel the takes with tight-line set ups, you shouldn't rely on feel when fishing the flies. If you can feel the weight of the flies, that usually means you are leading them too aggressively, or the flies are too heavy, or both. Feedback should be primarily visual and strikes usually can be seen before felt. There are exceptions of course. You can jig streamers on a tight line and actively leading flies is an established method. However, there is a lot of misconception about "tight line" techniques, the amount of tension on the leader being one, and the weight of the flies being another. While removing slack and sag in the leaders is beneficial and important, you can over do it and hurt your presentation. The goal should be removing slack, not bossing the flies or trying to maintain constant contact via feel. There is a narrow margin between those things. If you think these methods work well when you are fishing a lot weight and keeping to your leader truly "tight", trying backing off on both a little and I think you will find that your effectiveness increases yet again.

 

[ryansheehan]

csoult wrote:
I'm no expert but.. Tight lining is all about feel. The sooner you can feel the fly the better off you're going to be.

Kev beat me to the punch but you need to know when to "break" contact too. You can still detect strikes even when slowing down drifts with no lead. If you're feeling the fly the entire time you're going too fast, especially if you can't use weight.

 

[outsider]

I had 2 mentors, my father and his friend Bob. In 1966 +-, at the age of 15, Bob took me to the Bushkill Creek below Ressica Falls in late May or early June when the big stoneflies were hatching. The rocks were covered with nymph shucks. We started at the Chapel Pool. Bob gave me a large stonefly nymph and a split shot. He told me/showed me how to fish it. Hold your arm and the rod straight out after you cast upstream. Gather in the line as your rod follows the fly. You will feel it bouncing on the bottom, and you will lose some flies. He called it a dead-free drift. And catch fish we did. This still applies today, staying in connection with the fly. Although my first love is fishing a dry fly, over the years I caught most fish on a nymph. Simply more opportunity.

 

[afishinado]

"Feel" is involved at times. I fish weighted flies but I may add splitshot to my nymph rig. I do both or either depending on conditions.

In heavy water I often take off my point fly and add weight (splitshot) on the point. I discovered a long time ago, the weight at the end of the rig is more sensitive to feel because the flies are in front of the weight making a direct connection to the fish. Plus the shot rides the bottom rather than a fly causing less snags. Finally, it is easy to add or subtract shot to fine tune the rig.

With my weight on the point (now called a dropshot rig) I will add shot until I feel it ticking on the bottom during the drift. If one were to use this rig striking by sight instead of feel, they would automatically strike at ticks on the bottom if the sighter or indy moved. You can get a feel for the bottom as well feel strikes from fish when flossing the rocks with this rig.

 

[PennKev]

afishinado wrote:
I discovered a long time ago, the weight at the end of the rig is more sensitive to feel because the flies are in front of the weight making a direct connection to the fish.

I agree. I'm totally convinced that droppers fished above the weight, whether it be a heavier fly or split shot, are vastly superior to flies trailing the weight in the manner that most anglers have traditionally set up their nymphing rigs. I've almost totally switched to a drop shot rigs.

 

[csoult]

PennKev wrote:

csoult wrote:
I'm no expert but.. Tight lining is all about feel. The sooner you can feel the fly the better off you're going to be.

If you think these methods work well when you are fishing a lot weight and keeping to your leader truly "tight", trying backing off on both a little and I think you will find that your effectiveness increases yet again.

I find the opposite to be true, but I am a novice at it.

 

[dc410]

I have found that being flexible and willing to change your rig to meet the existing depth of water and flow rate are critical. Sometimes tight lining, sometimes indicator nymphing, sometimes shot added, shot taken off, drop shot or no shot. If you continue to fish varying depth and flow conditions with the same set up all day you will catch a fair number of fish in certain areas and swear other areas are void of fish (even if you know they are in there). If the fish are looking up put the dredging nymphs away and fish some soft hackles higher in the column. I’m getting better at it but still have a whole lot to learn. I have over many years learned the hard way that fishing in a rut is not the answer to success.

 

[reelinron]

Posts 31 to 38 really helped me understand some things, thanks guys.

Ron

 

[LongLineRelease]

troutbert wrote:


There is a name for this: Spin fishing with a fly rod.

I didn't come up with that name. I heard that around the mid-1990s.

People have been fishing with mono on fly rods and reels for a long time.

Decades ago in his book, George Harvey wrote about a streamer fisherman who used only mono to good affect.

There’s nothing new under the Sun.