Dry fly only guys....let's talk.

[dudemanspecial]

To paint you a picture, I usually fish the Little J or Spring Creek.

I have never been particularly great at dry fly fishing. Mainly because I have not spent enough time doing it. I have always tried to be a nymph until I see risers guy, but that usually turns into me fumbling to switch leaders and rushing to figure out what's going on and not being very successful.

I am on the verge of making the decision to fish only dry flies the rest of the year. It's time I get good at it and I figure go big or go home.

How do you handle a day of fishing if you stick with drys only? Do you avoid fishing particular times of the day? Do you catch enough fish to keep things interesting when there are no bugs coming off? I don't need to catch 20 fish to be happy, and I am prepared to get my butt kicked in this endeavor, but I also fear that I will lose interest if I spend 8 hours on a river and get skunked too many trips in a row.

I guess what I am asking is if you only fish on top, please share your wisdom with me.

Yes I would absolutely love to meet you on the river sometime. I'll buy lunch.

 

[joebamboo]

I absolutely love dry fly fishing. However, because the hatches are so unpredictable, I am wise enough to have both the dry and nymph arsenal with me at all times. Changing tippet rather than a whole leader works quite well. Tippet rings make it even easier!

 

[sixfootfenwick]

To paint you a picture, I usually fish the Little J or Spring Creek.

I have never been particularly great at dry fly fishing. Mainly because I have not spent enough time doing it. I have always tried to be a nymph until I see risers guy, but that usually turns into me fumbling to switch leaders and rushing to figure out what's going on and not being very successful.

I am on the verge of making the decision to fish only dry flies the rest of the year. It's time I get good at it and I figure go big or go home.

How do you handle a day of fishing if you stick with drys only? Do you avoid fishing particular times of the day? Do you catch enough fish to keep things interesting when there are no bugs coming off? I don't need to catch 20 fish to be happy, and I am prepared to get my butt kicked in this endeavor, but I also fear that I will lose interest if I spend 8 hours on a river and get skunked too many trips in a row.

I guess what I am asking is if you only fish on top, please share your wisdom with me.

Yes I would absolutely love to meet you on the river sometime. I'll buy lunch.

I'm not a dry only guy but I can offer this advice, both the creeks you mentioned have decent early season Caddis hatches.


I would try swinging and twitching Caddis flies with a tag of about 12-14 inches with a true classic wet fly(like a hares ear or Adams).

You can dead drift the Caddis along, then swinging it at the end of the drift with the wet, then twitch it back to you going upstream.

You should catch enough fish to keep you interested and practicing in the early season.

In the late season don't overlook beetles.


All these flies I'm mentioning don't require you to be perfect on your drift to have success, until you get perfect.

 

[WeekendNacho]

Maybe instead of going full on dry fly, start taking advantage of using a dry dropper regularly if you haven't already. I got into fly fishing only late into the season last year (so take my advice with a grain of salt). I hardly ever saw risers in my limited experience. However, while fishing dry dropper I was still able to catch a decent amount of fish, and would still get significant hits on my dry as well.

 

[redietz]

Also, if you don't like changing leaders, consider using dry flies that can also function as wets. Renegades and Elk Hair Caddis flies can function as either, often on the same drift. Cast a quarter upstream, dead drift until it's below you, give it a slight tug to pull it under, and then swing it. Or add some shot in front of it and fish as a wet if you haven't had any action to it as a dry. Remove the shot when fish start rising.

 

[krayfish2]

To paint you a picture, I usually fish the Little J or Spring Creek.

I have never been particularly great at dry fly fishing. Mainly because I have not spent enough time doing it. I have always tried to be a nymph until I see risers guy, but that usually turns into me fumbling to switch leaders and rushing to figure out what's going on and not being very successful.

I am on the verge of making the decision to fish only dry flies the rest of the year. It's time I get good at it and I figure go big or go home.

How do you handle a day of fishing if you stick with drys only? Do you avoid fishing particular times of the day? Do you catch enough fish to keep things interesting when there are no bugs coming off? I don't need to catch 20 fish to be happy, and I am prepared to get my butt kicked in this endeavor, but I also fear that I will lose interest if I spend 8 hours on a river and get skunked too many trips in a row.

I guess what I am asking is if you only fish on top, please share your wisdom with me.

Yes I would absolutely love to meet you on the river sometime. I'll buy lunch.

That would be like saying "I will only play golf when it's 82-83 degrees, humidity less than 42%, under 27% cloud cover and wind must be less than 5 mph"

Don't do that to yourself! Be proficient at as many methods as possible. Dry is just one and can be improved upon without squashing out the other methods. Dry fly has it's time and place but it's only part of fishing.

Being semi-productive at it will require the following:

* Pick 2-3 streams and learn what insects they holds. Plenty of literature about PA stream hatches. This will include you doing a little reading or possibly video watching so that you can get familiar with the traits of each hatch. Showing up at 7:00 a.m. to fish the sulfur hatch is pointless just like showing up at 5:00 p.m. to fish the trico hatch would be pointless. Learn what the bugs hatch, behavior or the adults / when the egg laying occurs.
Example would be you taking position in a pool waiting for a hatch....but that particular hatch is a clinger. Being at the tail of the pool, you might see a couple of duns. Up at the head of the pool, it's 100x the hatch activity. A few fishermen recognize this but ALL of the fish recognize it and move accordingly.

* Casting proficiency. Be able to hit a small target at 20', 30' and 40'. Accuracy is much more important in the dry fly game. Learn to drive a tight loop through the wind, check it and have it drop like a feather. You're going to also want to learn a lazier open loop that lands soft with slack. Line management is huge but I think it's easier than nymphing because you can see everything. If you can drift an indicator with the foam, you can do it with a dry 👍.

* Observation, observation observation! Spend more time looking than casting. Find the fish, figure out which direction he's facing, figure out what stage / species of insect he's eating and maybe most importantly, figure out where you have to cast from to get your best drift to that fish. You can have the right fly on the perfect leader but if you're not getting it in front of that fish correctly, he won't eat it. Sometimes you'll see fish feeding and it takes you 45 minutes of casting before you realize he's only feeding to the right because the sun is blinding his left eye 😂. 5 minutes of very intense observation might have taught you that before you even made a cast.

Those 3 things can benefit you in all aspects of fly fishing but are critical to the dry fly game. Give me a shout or any of the other forum members if you need any hands on help. Lots of knowledgeable / helpful guys on here.

 

[Tigereye]

Old school indie nymphing. 7 1/2 ft tapered leader (3x or 4x);

knot to 6" tippet ( 4x or 5x);

fly #1;

6" tippet (4x or 5x) tied to bend of hook of fly #1;

fly #2.

1 or 2 small split shot above 1st leader / tippet knot.

Indicator of choice 11/2 × depth up from split shot. ( ideal with 9 ft rod)

When hatch starts, remove indie and flies. Tie on 18" new tippet and fish. Easy peasy

 

[pcray1231]

Agree,

In a full year, I probably fish dries 60 or 70% of the time I'm fishing. It's what I like. And I think when and where I'm out most often, it's the most successful method. But I agree, don't take a "only this way" stand.

I do most of my nymphing in winter and early spring. During warmer months, I'll nymph when the conditions call for it, or throw streamers in high water, etc. But why are dry flies most succesful? Because I choose where to fish and when, and I artificially target times and places when I think I'll do well with dries. Maybe not fully on purpose, for that purpose. But think about it.

What does a day in May look like? If it's sunny, the big water is often slow during the day, nomatter how you choose to fish. Sure you could nymph away and pick up a few. But I wanna be there when the gettings good, not when it's slow. You'll find me choosing a brookie stream instead. Where dries outfish nymphs pretty regularly and the heat of the day is the hot time. The fish hit anything within 5 feet of them. If they aren't spooked. But you can fish dries from further away, around more obstacles, etc. You just can. And you catch more fish on dries in such streams than you can on nymphs. There may be a deep pool where you gotta tie on a dropper, but 95% of it is dries.

Then the day wears on, afternoon clouds are forming, thunderstorms or not, there's always more clouds in the later day. You know that big stream is gonna turn on at some point, you can feel it, and that lure is strong. Why am I catching 6" brookies when I could be on Penns or the LJR, it might start early tonight! I probably jump the gun and get there a little too early, making sure I'm "in time" for the fun. So I may start with nymphs. But soon enough you know exactly what's gonna happen. Bugs will start poppin, rings will start to appear. And when that happens dries are the most effective method once again (yes, can lump in emergers, floating nymphs in the film, etc. with this). It really, really helps when the actively feeding fish tell you they are feeding, show you exactly where, and on what, lol. I've nymphed through a hatch, and caught fish doing so, and probably have a better shot at the biggest fish, but I will catch more if I switch to dries, I can see the refusals and follows, and aside from catching more, it just feels like constant action. I'm throwing a fly to a place I know there is a feeding fish...

Come later summer, those big streams turn off quite a bit, and if there is a hot period, it's pushed to right at dawn and dusk. I start fishing those small streams a lot more... In terms of numbers of fish caught, July or August is probably #1 for me. They're mostly 6" brookies, lol. But get an inch of rain in early August and I'm dying to hit the blue lines like right now, and can top 100 on a good day.

 

[Mrangler]

Dry dropper would be the way I would go. Also use emergers. For the most part it is a dry that sets more flush with water. x-caddis, emergers and parachutes would be a good start.

 

[dudemanspecial]

Thanks for all the input so far. Really good stuff here.

To try to reply to some of your comments:

I actually do dry fly fish on the brookie streams up at my camp (near Benezette) and do pretty well. Brookies seem pretty eager for a dry and I do enjoy that type of fishing.

I am relatively educated on the bugs on Spring and Little J. Of course there is always more to learn. I do a fair amout of tying. I have not bought a fly in years.

Last season I started getting away from using a euro nymphing setup and used more conventional rig with a regular leader that I use for both nymphing and drys. I have found that I like fishing with fly line and really don't notice much difference in catch rates.

I use a dry dropper setup pretty much exclusively when I fish for stock trout so I am versed in that style of fishing. I have never had luck with it on wild brown streams.

My frustration mainly lies with the brown trout streams like the Little J and Spring. It is a bit of a drive for me so I cant just go after work, but do get out there a fair amount of weekends. I just can't do well with dries there.

I get in this rut where I just nymph all the time because that is all I can get them on. Then when the dries pop off I switch and I don't know if it is a confidence thing or what, I just can't catch them.

 

[dudemanspecial]

Agree,

In a full year, I probably fish dries 60 or 70% of the time I'm fishing. It's what I like. And I think when and where I'm out most often, it's the most successful method. But I agree, don't take a "only this way" stand.

I do most of my nymphing in winter and early spring. During warmer months, I'll nymph when the conditions call for it, or throw streamers in high water, etc. But why are dry flies most succesful? Because I choose where to fish and when, and I artificially target times and places when I think I'll do well with dries. Maybe not fully on purpose, for that purpose. But think about it.

What does a day in May look like? If it's sunny, the big water is often slow during the day, nomatter how you choose to fish. Sure you could nymph away and pick up a few. But I wanna be there when the gettings good, not when it's slow. You'll find me choosing a brookie stream instead. Where dries outfish nymphs pretty regularly and the heat of the day is the hot time. The fish hit anything within 5 feet of them. If they aren't spooked. But you can fish dries from further away, around more obstacles, etc. You just can. And you catch more fish on dries in such streams than you can on nymphs. There may be a deep pool where you gotta tie on a dropper, but 95% of it is dries.

Then the day wears on, afternoon clouds are forming, thunderstorms or not, there's always more clouds in the later day. You know that big stream is gonna turn on at some point, you can feel it, and that lure is strong. Why am I catching 6" brookies when I could be on Penns or the LJR, it might start early tonight! I probably jump the gun and get there a little too early, making sure I'm "in time" for the fun. So I may start with nymphs. But soon enough you know exactly what's gonna happen. Bugs will start poppin, rings will start to appear. And when that happens dries are the most effective method once again (yes, can lump in emergers, floating nymphs in the film, etc. with this). It really, really helps when the actively feeding fish tell you they are feeding, show you exactly where, and on what, lol. I've nymphed through a hatch, and caught fish doing so, and probably have a better shot at the biggest fish, but I will catch more if I switch to dries, I can see the refusals and follows, and aside from catching more, it just feels like constant action. I'm throwing a fly to a place I know there is a feeding fish...

Come later summer, those big streams turn off quite a bit, and if there is a hot period, it's pushed to right at dawn and dusk. I start fishing those small streams a lot more... In terms of numbers of fish caught, July or August is probably #1 for me. They're mostly 6" brookies, lol. But get an inch of rain in early August and I'm dying to hit the blue lines like right now, and can top 100 on a good day.

This is exactly the type of information I am looking for thank you. When I go to the Little J or Spring, I always make a day out of it. I get there at sun up and fish until sun down. I see intermittent rising fish from time to time and I can never catch them. So I nymph all day and yes most times it slow. Then it picks up, and then when the trout are going crazy I tie on a dun or spinner and cast over them and it is futile.

 

[flyguyfishing]

Ants and other terrestrials are around for many months of the year. Fish the banks.

Caddis flies and midges are also decent for surface fishing without them hatching in big numbers.

If you want to catch as many fish as possible, then you would not want to use only dry flies. I spend many days fishing dry flies knowing I could catch more with nymphs.

I rarely use nymphs on small mountain streams and only use size 14 or bigger dry flies.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[rrt]

You got a lot of good posts here. I think if you do what posts 2, 6, and 8 suggest, you'll do well, though for me, post 8 would take too much of what energy I have left at 73.

 

[Drifly]

I can count on one hand the # of time when I’ve been unable to find a fish feeding on top somewhere regardless of “hatch” underway or not. But always keep a nymph rod available in the car.

 

[wildtrout2]

I can count on one hand the # of time when I’ve been unable to find a fish feeding on top somewhere regardless of “hatch” underway or not. But always keep a nymph rod available in the car.

That's been my experience most of the time. I do fish when stream temps are warmer, so that probably plays a role too. I never seem to see multiple trout rising in the same pool, usually a single rise here and there. Mountain freestones are funny.

 

[Nocktavius]

Fast water is your friend for dry fly presentations on these storied central PA limestoners. It also seems that 9 times out of 10 what seems to be a bite on adults is really an emerger bite. Swinging wets and dry dropper are usually the best tactics when the water is boiling up there. If you wanna fish the duns find those little rain drop like splashes in the shady protected bits during the day when you think you should be nymphing.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Agree,

In a full year, I probably fish dries 60 or 70% of the time I'm fishing. It's what I like. And I think when and where I'm out most often, it's the most successful method. But I agree, don't take a "only this way" stand.

I do most of my nymphing in winter and early spring. During warmer months, I'll nymph when the conditions call for it, or throw streamers in high water, etc. But why are dry flies most succesful? Because I choose where to fish and when, and I artificially target times and places when I think I'll do well with dries. Maybe not fully on purpose, for that purpose. But think about it.

What does a day in May look like? If it's sunny, the big water is often slow during the day, nomatter how you choose to fish. Sure you could nymph away and pick up a few. But I wanna be there when the gettings good, not when it's slow. You'll find me choosing a brookie stream instead. Where dries outfish nymphs pretty regularly and the heat of the day is the hot time. The fish hit anything within 5 feet of them. If they aren't spooked. But you can fish dries from further away, around more obstacles, etc. You just can. And you catch more fish on dries in such streams than you can on nymphs. There may be a deep pool where you gotta tie on a dropper, but 95% of it is dries.

Then the day wears on, afternoon clouds are forming, thunderstorms or not, there's always more clouds in the later day. You know that big stream is gonna turn on at some point, you can feel it, and that lure is strong. Why am I catching 6" brookies when I could be on Penns or the LJR, it might start early tonight! I probably jump the gun and get there a little too early, making sure I'm "in time" for the fun. So I may start with nymphs. But soon enough you know exactly what's gonna happen. Bugs will start poppin, rings will start to appear. And when that happens dries are the most effective method once again (yes, can lump in emergers, floating nymphs in the film, etc. with this). It really, really helps when the actively feeding fish tell you they are feeding, show you exactly where, and on what, lol. I've nymphed through a hatch, and caught fish doing so, and probably have a better shot at the biggest fish, but I will catch more if I switch to dries, I can see the refusals and follows, and aside from catching more, it just feels like constant action. I'm throwing a fly to a place I know there is a feeding fish...

Come later summer, those big streams turn off quite a bit, and if there is a hot period, it's pushed to right at dawn and dusk. I start fishing those small streams a lot more... In terms of numbers of fish caught, July or August is probably #1 for me. They're mostly 6" brookies, lol. But get an inch of rain in early August and I'm dying to hit the blue lines like right now, and can top 100 on a good day.

Apart from the "agreed", I count 5 paragraphs. Been a lone while since we saw someone get "Pcrayed" on here!

 

[tomgamber]

Never know until you try.

 

[Prospector]

Lots of people seem to like dry-dropper so I assume it’s very effective. But I’ve never caught a fish on a dry-dropper rig. In fairness, I probably have only tried it 3 times for 15 total minutes. I’m either wet or dry but not both. I assume I’m missing the boat.

One observation, I believe most dry/dropper rigs have the wet tied off the bend of the dry fly hook. I tried that when I fish multiple wets and I have found I break off that wet fly far more often than when I tie droppers above the point fly.

Do those of you that tie the wet off the dry fly bend, break off that wet fly, let’s say every 3-4 strikes?

 

[turkey]

Didn't read all of the above posts but "dry fly only" success, in my opinion, is all about being in the right place at the right time. Pick your spots, so to speak. That comes with learning your "local" streams, the seasons, the bugs, flows, how weather affects things, etc. It takes time and experience. Even then, it's not always an exact science. The learning curve can be shortened by sharing the stream with experienced anglers. Speaking from personal experience, I'm fortunate enough to recall more than a few occasions when I was blown away by anglers from this forum that opened my eyes to solving tough situations. Take your time, enjoy success and lack of success as learning opportunities, and embrace the process. If it was easy, everyone would fish dry flies exclusively. When it all comes together, you won't forget it.