Day 6, 2022 – Feb10th
The Set-up(Long)
Nymphing happens to be at the bottom of my fly fishing techniques or forms. Starting with my most favorite; dry fly casting. The dry fly cast is just so special, and there is always room for improvement. Nothing feels better IMHO than standing in the middle of the Henry’s Fork, Railroad Ranch section(AKA “The Ranch”) casting an X-caddis up and across to a rising rainbow at dusk. !2′ foot leader with a 3′ terminal 5.5X Trout Hunter tippet. Thank God for 5.5X! An 18″ rainbow can easy break-off 6X on the take. If you have been there and had that happen, you know what I’m talking about. One head shake and it’s over. The odds of surviving the take, with tippet in tact drastically improve by fishing my 3wt. True, it is controversial to fight a big fish in moderate current with a 3wt. In fact, members of my fly fishing club have accused me of killing big fish by using my 3wt; they claim it takes me longer to land the fish. I absolutely disagree!!! One of the most underrated skills in all of fly fishing is that of “fighting a fish”. If you are exclusively a trout fisherman, you need to have fought and landed a large number of 18-24″ fish. If you are using a 3wt, you learn to put the butt section into the fish. I put a huge bend in my rod, when fighting a big fish, but it is designed for that. Add some saltwater fishing to your trout practice and you will really learn how to fight fish. You will learn what it is like to go deep into your backing. For me it was fighting big jacks on the beach in Florida at first light as they were pounding a mullet school. Thankfully they were inside the second break, so only a 45-50″ cast with my 10wt Scott STS. Fishing a floating puglisi in red. Cast into the center of the school and bam! after one strip a 16lb jack slams your fly and when he feels the sting, he is off like a freight train! That’s when you realize that you may need to tighten your drag or get spooled! Then you are thinking, ok, was that 12lb tippet? or 16lb? Yeah, it was 16. As I’m pondering the drag setting, meanwhile, the fish has already peeled off 50 yards. So I tighten the drag on my Galvan T10. Galvan drags are super smooth and it is really easy to set it exactly where you want it. Now the fish is slowing, starting to tire. But you are now at 80 yards and you figure it is time to start fighting the fish. This is where you put the bend to the rod. That bend pressures the fish and you are hoping to turn his head. This can take some time and several tries, as he makes several more runs. Finally you begin to get backing back on your reel and eventually line. Fighting a big fast fish teaches you how to fight a fish, and the skill will help you fight a 22″ trout with 5.5X tippet. It turns out I also have a Galvan Torque on my 3wt and I need it!
The 3wt is also superior at dry fly casting accuracy, with the exception of big bugs like foam hoppers and salmon flies. I need that accuracy at the Ranch. I also need the tippet protection when a big fish slams my size 22 baetis sprout. I had that experience last October. I was fishing with the Three Amigos (i’m one of them) and was casting a size 22 sprout using a 12 ‘ leader and 3′ of 5.5X. Of course I was casting my 3wt. I needed casting accuracy and tippet protection. I had a big head sipping in front of me. I needed to land gently about 3′ above. It was a 30′ cast which is kind of the ideal distance for me. I have enough line out to put some momentum into fully laying out that 12’ leader. To my surprise, the third cast where the fly tracked perfectly in his lane, got the eat. I set probably too hard, but thanks to my 3wt, the light tip absorbed that shock and off he ran. The big fish are smart and often try to go downstream. This is where you have to use side pressure to try and turn that head. But, with 5.5X tippet, you have 4lb breaking strength, you realize that you can’t apply too much pressure. You have to gain as much line as you can when they are resting and let them run, when they want to run. Anyway, I landed that fish. I can tell you without a doubt, I would have broke that fish off on the 5wt and maybe have a 50/50 chance with my 4wt.
So this is what dry fly fishing is about. For me, the best part, the thrill if you will, is seeing the eat. From sipping a midge to slamming a hopper. I don’t care! I get so excited watching the eat and timing the set. There is a lot of skill involved as you are perfecting your set. It’s all about the take and the set. All forms include fighting the fish and netting the fish, but my next favorite form after dry flies, is swinging soft hackles. I love that eat too. Soft hackles are easy to cast and I typically use my 4wt. Streamers come next for me and there are two basic approaches, swinging and stripping. Of course there a a few strips in swinging, but the streamer moving down and across covers a lot of water. Of the two, swinging streamers is my favorite. A streamer take is similar to a soft hackle take. For me takes on the swing are more exciting, whether streamers or soft hackles. My least favorite is nymphing. I have not taken up euro-nymphing but I suspect I would like it better than indicator nymphing, but not as much as fishing streamers.
It is great having a quiver of fly rods. Kind of like a golfer having a full bag of clubs, each fulfills a specific purpose. I have fished Scott fly rods since I moved up from my beginner rod. My first was an STS. At one point I had four of them, a 4, a 6, an 8 and a 10. I caught a lot of sea trout and bonefish on my 6wt, it was also my streamer rod in fresh water. It was a good rod for salmon in Alaska too. And redfish on my and black drum on my 8wt and big jacks and tarpon(have yet to land one) on my 10wt. The STS was a great rod, but a bit heavy but really good at fighting fish. You could also throw some big flies with ease. About 10 years ago, after moving to the Salt Lake City area for an incredible job with Adobe, I decided to shop for “newer” Scott fly rod. The Scott G series had just come out and it was getting rave reviews. But new means pricey and my MO especially when I was poor was to buy used rods on eBay. Then I read somewhere that the G Series was just a refinement over the G2, so I was looking for G2 reviews and came across this article from Vail Valley Anglers, They said, it was their favorite dry fly rod ever! So I bought a G2 883/4 which is an 8’8″ 3wt in four sections. Four sections is by far the best for travel I’ve found and I travel with rods quite often. Well, I loved that G2 and went right up Provo Canyon right after I got it and was fishing just below the Deer Creek dam. There are some big fish in there. It was winter, January, I believe and I was nymphing midges. Yes, a 3wt casts small nymphs nicely. Don’t ruin it with a giant thing-a-ma-bob! Anyway, my fish was an 18′ brown. Wow! I was bit blown away, but the G2 handled it well!
After that, I was sold on G2s! Now I have my 3wt but also a 9′ 4wt, a 9′ 5wt and a 9′ 6wt. My 6wt is my least favorite. I use it for casting big streamers and tandem streamers. I use a sink tip line to get them down, but it does not cast well. I’m going with a more modern streamer line to see if my impression improves, otherwise I may get a faster rod like a Centric.. The 5wt is the utility rod. It casts dry/dropper rigs very well. It is great for casting smaller streamers like buggers and leeches and it is a good nymphing rod, especially with big flies like salmon fly nymphs. The four weight is also a utility rod. I cast leeches, smaller nymphs and smaller foam bugs with this rig. And as I said before, the 3wt is an incredible touch rod for casting dries, especially when fishing light tippets.
When it came to saltwater, I knew I wanted a faster rod. Three reasons 1) Big fish, heavy tippets 2) Casting big flies, and last but not least 3) Wind! I chose the Scott Meridian. It had recently come out and I splurged and bought a 7wt new at Western Rivers Fly Fisher in Salt Lake City. I Liked the Meridian and my friends suggested having a 7wt and a 9wt rather than a 10wt. The 9wt is perfect for permit, big snook and juvenile tarpon. So now I have a 9wt Meridian as well.
The Main Story
The set-up above was admittedly long. Today was a nymphing day. I knew this when I arrived at the parking lot. My car was the first. Surprising, because it was almost noon and I was not expecting to be first. So I knew that I was hoping for a midge hatch, but expecting to nymph, particularly because I wasn’t expecting the hatch until the heat of the day which was about 30 degrees and not for another hour or so. Finally, I decided I might want to swing some soft hackles, or some leeches. The 4wt fit the bill for all three. Prior to seeing rising trout, my best option was going to be nymphing. I chose a smaller, bobber style indicator and I knew I would be tying on a midge, but I needed a heavier fly to anchor it, a tungsten bead nymph that would sink quickly. I’m not embarrassed to say that I use a tippet ring. It is so darned practical! For nymphing it allows me to easily tie my tippets on. Coming off the bottom of the ring is the heavy fly and coming off the side as an outrigger is the smaller fly with less weight. I just love the way this rig fishes. So easy to make changes. In fact I can quickly cut both tippets off at the ring and go with a lighter tippet for dry flies. Today I decided on a size 14 frenchie soft hackle with a barbless jig eye hook as my heavy fly.. The nicest looking one in my box was tied by a friend of mine named Troy and I thought it would be cool if I caught fish with it. He gave me the fly on a stream we were nymphing last fall in Yellowstone. My feeling was it was still early for BWO midges to be active, but they hatch intensely in early April, so we were only 2 months away. Anyway, it was a very cloudy day and the frenchie made sense because of the dark body tied with pheasant tail. It has a hot collar which is an effective attractor.
I took some videos that sort of chronicle the day below:
. I was only a few casts in when I got my first eat. As I landed the fish, I realized it ate the frenchie. It was a nice 16″ brown:
The hole just kept working, fish after fish. All took the frenchie!
In total, I caught 8 trout in one and a half hours. A guide friend told me many years ago, “two fish an hour is a reasonable and fewer can be painful, four fish an hour is great and any more that that is memorable”. Six were rainbows and two browns. It turns out the were fairly stacked in, inside the seam. I explain in the video below:
