Yuku free message boards

I don't enjoy fishing with split shot or heavily weighted flies--this is fishing with a fly, but it is not fly fishing or fly casting. It is a convenient method for fast prospecting and timed drift boat trips with people who can't cast anyhow, or at least not well enough to do it together two in a boat. It gets the fly down quickly, eliminating the need to read and judge current, then position oneself accordingly to cast and mend line so the fly goes where it needs to be. On small streams, it is like worm dunking of childhood--a noble practice--but again eliminates the need of fly casting, and the rod could just as well be a streamside sapling. It is a good way to catch fish, but it in the grand scheme of things, it is an unconventional fly-fishing method. Thus, instead, I often use the fast sink tip and very short leader, sometimes as little as 1 1/2' and feel that in general it is more effective--and certainly more pleasant in casting and rigging tackle--than chunking lead around.

Putting a bobber (excuse me, strike indicator) on a leader is another uncoventional method as far as I am concerned, again a spinfishing adaptation for people who don't read current well enough to mend line, follow the drift and know exactly where the fly is to detect takes via the conventional method--which is paying attention to what you are doing. The so called light takes that a bobber reveals are of little interest to me anyway--it's harder to hook fish through a bobber, the more so since people start relying on the bobber and let the line go wavy/slack to the rod tip. They have no idea where the fly is and might as well set the rod on the bank and read a paperback. Put the fly where it needs to be by a conventional method and you needn't worry about the nuisance taps because the fish will slaughter the fly and be securely hooked when you lift up. To do this--it is the conventional method--you must be able to read current and cast accurately to the spot, not where the fish is, but the spot in the current that will then swim the fly, with appropriate stripping or mending, to the fish.

As for "unconventional techniques," the truth is that the "dead drift" or "natural drift" is the most overrated method in fly fishing. Insects move--crawl, swim, wiggle and so on. Dead drift is thus the most unconventional method as far as fish go, the upstream cast and float being worst of all, since it places the fly facing the opposite way (downstream) that live insects typically face (upstream) when riding the current downstream. Live presentations beat dead drift much of the time, and only people who don't catch fish consider them "unconventional" any more, along with, probably, the Englishman whose club and beat more or less dictate upstream casting.