River Dry Fly Fishing

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Game Fishing

River

Trouting Angler File

Name: Andrew Ryan Occupation: Instructs at Clonanav Fly Fishing Centre and runs courses on all aspects of fly fishing Location: Clonanav Fly Fishing Centre, Nire Valley, Ballymacarbry, Clonme, Co Waterford, Ireland Telephone: 00 353 (0) 52 36141 E-mail: andrew@flyfishingireland. com Web: www.flyfishingireland.com

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Part Two – Fishing The Dry Fly Andrew Ryan continues his series with a look at how you catch wild river trout on the dry fly.

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egular Irish Angler readers will remember that in last month’s issue Andrew dealt with upstream nymph techniques for river trout fishing in Ireland.

This month he reveals his dry-fly techniques for Irish rivers. Further articles in the series will include fishing the dry fly with a nymph dropper, and streamer fishing. So keep buying Irish Angler and you’ll soon improve your river fly fishing skills!

Anyway, back to this month. Dry-fly fishing is often seen as one of the more difficult techniques for river fishing. In some respects it is more demanding than wet-fly fishing but it is a very enjoyable and visual style of catching trout. The great pleasure and satisfaction comes with spotting the trout, casting to it and having it take your fly.

Fishing with the dry fly first began on the Hampshire chalkstreams in the south of England.

The first mention of the dry fly in print is in the issue of The Field dated December 17th, 1853. In an article bylined ‘The Hampshire Fly Fisher’, the writer says: “On the other hand, as far as fly fishing is concerned, fishing upstream, unless you are trying the Carshalton dodge and fishing with a dry fly, is very awkward.”

Carshalton is now a suburb of London but in those days it boasted some good water and the ‘Carshalton dodge’ was the first name by which false casting was known. For such an important development, an unknown angler to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude discovered the false cast very quietly.

Back then, anglers did not have the hi-tech

R

equipment and fly materials that we have today – but many of the problems that were encountered then still exist today.

Your dry-fly fishing can be broken down into seven important variables and stages, from choosing the correct fly to choosing the right leaders and tippet material. Also, you will have to learn how to read the water, position yourself, cast and strike. Finally, you will also need to possess the right type of tackle.

Choice of fly is crucial for dry-fly fishing. The fly need not match exactly what is hatching but it needs to be similar to the real thing. This will help entice the fish to eat your artificial.

During a thick hatch of fly the trout have plenty of real insects to choose from, so yours needs to be a close enough imitation to fool the fish.

There are a few schools of thought with regard to ‘matching the hatch’. Some anglers like to match the insect that the fish are feeding on exactly. I find, however, that a slightly larger or different fly will bring out the greed in a trout and make him choose the artificial over the natural insect.

This is a matter of trial and error and a lot depends on the river that you are fishing and how regularly the trout are fished for.

Personally, I tend to use a core of tried and trusted favourite dry flies. This selection covers a broad range of insects and stages of the insect life cycle. These flies, displayed in this article, can be used in various sizes and often with different body colours, thus encompassing a broad range of insects.

Early-morning Early morning dry fly on the Suir.

➜

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Game Fishing

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Leaders And Tippet Materials

Anglers often tend to overlook the importance of a correctly tapered leader.

Tapering the leader ensures that your fly will land softly on the water and be presented properly to the fish. There is no point using the correct fly if it lands in a heap in front of the fish! No matter how good the fly is that you are using, the leader has to be up to scratch in order for it to be successful.

I use knotless tapered leaders as they offer the best turnover and are the easiest to use. You can, of course, also tie up your own leader and step it down with varying thicknesses of nylon. This is time consuming and the end result is never as good as the knotless version.

Within the broad range of leaders available on the market today there is great variance in the quality and steepness of the taper. I use some of the US brands and prefer Rio leaders and tippet. It is very supple, with lots of stretch and high knot strength.

The standard length of such leaders is nine feet.

This I find is too short. I always add a tippet or two to give extra length and more delicate presentation.

A typical leader that I fish with is as follows: to a 9ft tapered leader to 6lb (4x), I add three feet of 5lb nylon (5x), then two feet of 3lb mono (6x).

This gives me an overall leader length of 14 feet, which will turn over perfectly and present the fly to the fish. However, knotless leaders are more expensive than tying your own, so adding a long tippet to a tapered leader will ensure I don’t use that many of them.

In effect, I change the tippet regularly – but rarely the expensive part, the tapered leader that you have to buy from the tackle shop. This saves me money!

Flat, slow water requires small flies and long leaders.

Anglers often don’t realise how important it is to taper your leader.

Doing this ensures the dry fly is presented perfectly.

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Reading The Water

Most of the time when dry-fly fishing, reading the water is easy. You fish where you see trout rising. However, I do advise anglers to walk a stretch of river before fishing it. I have often seen anglers concentrating on a small number of rising fish, only to realise that just around the corner there were far more fish rising and that their efforts would have been much better spent there.

You do need to know how to read the water if you want to dry-fly fish when there aren’t any trout rising. A rule of thumb is to always fish the foam lines. Foam lines are channels and currents that can easily be seen by a line of bubbles or foam running down the river.

This is the main feeding line for fish, and where these bubbles and debris float down so do the insects. This is a natural place for trout to hold position, waiting to pounce on the next insect that

Andrew Ryan’s Favourite Irish Dry Flies

Black Gnat

CDC Emerger

Elk Hair Caddis

Hook: Tiemco 102Y, sizes 15 to 19 or similar fine-wire hooks Thread: Black Body: Black Fly-rite Underwing: Foam packaging from the inside of a Jiffy envelope Overwing: A few strands of Pearl Crystal Hair

Hook: Tiemco 102Y, sizes 17 to 19 or similar fine-wire hooks Thread: Black Body: Fly-rite, can be used in various colours Wing: CDC fibres from two feathers

Hook: Tiemco 102Y, sizes 13 to 19 or similar fine wire hooks Thread: Black Body: Hare’s ear dubbing Body hackle: Ginger cock Rib: Silver wire Underwing: CDC fibres Overwing: Elk hair fibres

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floats past. A good phrase to remember is: ‘Foam is home – where you find foam you will find fish’!

Other trout-holding areas are under overhanging branches, at the tail end of currents and in small pockets of water.

These areas are always worth a cast with a dry fly. The best fly for ‘prospecting’ – fishing areas and hoping a fish will come up to the fly – is the Twinklehammer or Klinkhammer.

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Stealth And Positioning

Wading is essential if you are to fish the dry fly successfully. Most rivers are very overgrown and it is difficult to fish the better pools and runs without getting down close to the water.

If you are right handed, always wade up the left-hand side of the river as this keeps your fly line out in the centre of the river when you are casting and away from ‘fly-eating’ trees!

Wading with care is important, as you do not want to spook the fish ahead of you.

Careful, quiet wading will ensure that you do not scare the fish upstream of you.

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Casting

It is perceived that when dry-fly fishing a lot of false casting should be done. This is incorrect, as false casting over trout tends to put them down.

True, it does help dry the fly but a false cast once or twice every few minutes should suffice.

Much of the material used on modern flies is water repellant and therefore they float much better.

Accuracy is key to good dry-fly fishing.

On its day, dryfly fishing can outscore any other tactic.

Red Spinner

Twinklehammer

Hook: Tiemco 102Y, sizes 17 to 19 or similar fine-wire hooks.

Thread: Black Tail: Micro Fibbetts Body: Rolled dyed CDC feather Wing: Two CDC feathers

Hook: Any Klinkhammer-style hook Thread: Black Body: Lureflash twinkle Post: Two CDC feathers Hackle: Parachute style, with badger or grizzle hackle

Flies supplied by Donegal Fly Fishing Co

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Game Fishing Stephen O’Dea with a fat Suir trout.

I regularly see anglers missing fish because it is a total shock to them that a fish has come up to their fly. Instead of lifting up the rod and setting the hook, they stand there with a surprised look and don’t set it at all!

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Correct Tackle

I use a 9ft 5-wt rod for all my dry-fly fishing. It is a medium tip actioned rod, which absorbs some of the shock when setting the hook – essential while using fine tippets.

For smaller rivers an 8ft rod is better as it allows you to fish beneath overhanging branches.

I always use a weight-forward line. These are far easier to shoot out on forward casts. The popular belief is that a double-taper line is better suited for dry-fly fishing, as it lands better on the water.

This is not the case because the front sections of both fly lines are the same and land on the water in the same way. Weight-forward lines are easier to retrieve and shoot, so therefore are better suited to dry-fly fishing.

You need to be able to put the fly exactly where you want it in order to entice the fish to your fly.

Trout tend to be lazy and are often not willing to move any great distance in order to take the fly.

As well as casting accurately, a drag-free drift is crucial. A drag-free drift allows the fly to drift naturally and not skate along the surface, something that makes it look unnatural.

A good drift can be achieved by mending the fly line after the fly lands, or better still by using a reach mend when you cast.

Reach mending is a casting technique used to put a mend into the line, giving a little more time for the fly to float without dragging and therefore giving you more opportunity to catch fish.

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Setting The Hook

After you have done all of the above, hopefully a fish will take the fly. It would be a pity to miss the fish when he takes the fly just because you don’t know how to set the hook properly!

Line control is a major factor in this. While your line is floating back down towards you, retrieve it at the same speed as the water flow in order to stay in contact with the fly. Only have a minimal amount of slack line when you set the hook.

There are many schools of thought on when you should strike. I find for trout fishing it is best to strike immediately and give the fish no chance to spit the fly out.

Confidence plays a major part in hooking fish too. If your fly is the correct one and you are casting towards plenty of trout, you should be of the mind-set that a fish is going to take the fly.

You should be keyed in and concentrating on the fly and ready to strike the moment the fish rises.

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Too many anglers miss fish that rise to their dry fly.

You need to watch your fly all the time – and learn how to time your strike perfectly.

What You Will Need

To finish off this article I have compiled a list of the tackle you will need to catch a few fish.

You will first need either an 8ft or 9ft rod, rated for a 5-wt line. This line should be a weightforward model, a floating line obviously!

Your leader should be between 10 and 16 feet long, using a knotless tapered leader with an added tippet on the end.

You will also need some floatant, some Snake River Mud (to sink the last few inches of the leader) and a few spare tapered leaders. Your spools of tippet should come in varying sizes, with 3lb, 4lb, 5lb being ideal. Plus, you will need a box of flies. Good luck!

The author with a fine daytime trout on the Suir.