Oops, wrong picture
I have to admit, I am a dry fly bigot. That’s the way I like to fish, and more often
than not, that’s the way I do fish.
That being said, I’m the first to admit there are methods
which may be more effective, much more effective. The folks who fish competitively, in
international competitions, don’t fish with dries. They fish with nymphs.
Perhaps to a person, they use a method that can generally be called Euro nymphing. What is Euro nymphing? It consists of using a long rod, and fishing nothing but a long mono or flouro leader. Sound familiar?
I don’t suggest that all competitive fishers should switch
over to a fixed length line rod (it’s probably illegal within their self
imposed tournament rules). What I do
suggest that many of the techniques the competitive fisher folks use are
directly applicable to our chosen way to fish.
Much of the time, the Euro nymph folks fish their extended
leaders using a straight line. No
suspended indicator, no split shot, using a relatively lightly weighed
fly. They use a couple feet of bright
colored line inserted in the leader to help manage the drift of their fly/flies
and help detect takes.
If you’d like to pick up some tips to try, it’s worthwhile
to read up on the systems and methods used by the competitive fishers. You might pick up an idea or two to try next time you are wetting a line.
