News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
When most folks think of nymph fishing they think of fishing the bottom with indicators, heavy flies, add-on weights and possibly a small dropper fly.
For many, casting this type of hardware is not nearly as pleasant as using a light, delicate dry fly. Some folks limit themselves to being dry fly purists. But there is an alternative - a style of light, shallow nymphing in which subsurface flies cast as easily as the most delicate of dry flies.
Shallow nymphing takes advantage of emerging insect behavior. By varying the presentation slightly, these methods can be used to imitate a wide variety of insect species as they release from the bottom and begin their journey to the river surface.
Before I decide it is time to use these methods, I generally like to see some fish showing on the surface - although the feeding does not need to be especially heavy in order to be successful.
These methods are probably most effective at those times when you would expect dry fly fishing to be marginally successful - times when only a few fish are showing sporadically, or when they are holding a little deeper than might be considered ideal.
At these times fish may not be focused on the surface feeding because they are successfully capturing nymphs on their journey up from the river bottom.
I use several methods to rig shallow nymphs. Probably the most common is to trail a small, unweighted nymph behind a standard dry fly. The dry fly acts as a strike indicator while the nymph fishes just a few inches below the surface. You will take fish on either fly. During caddis hatches on the Deschutes we find that this set up catches fish about half on top, half subsurface on the trailing nymph.
Because we are showing both stages of the insect's life cycle at the same time, our overall catch rate is increased dramatically.
Add a slight amount of weight to the nymph if you want to fish it just a little bit deeper. The weight is usually nothing more than a metallic beadhead or one or two turns of very fine lead wire under the nymph body. It casts without any effect on your style, though it may be enough to throw the dry fly indicator off course and cause it to drown.
When we are fishing lightly weighted flies as an alternative to the dry fly indicator, we sometimes use a small bit of yarn about the size of a pea.
This method is especially effective in shallow riffle water and on slower moving small streams. On the Crooked River we commonly fish tiny scud patterns this way. On the lower Deschutes and Metolius we are very successful fishing up into shallow riffle water above the deeper runs with beadhead pupa patterns during caddis hatches.
As you become more accomplished with these shallow nymphing methods, your pleasure with the style will increase. Even though there is an indicator or indicator fly involved, most takes will be just under the surface. Gradually, your attention will move from the indicator to the area around it. Eventually you find yourself using the indicator only as a method to focus your attention to where you should look - most takes will be detected before the top fly or indicator show any response on the surface.
It is extremely rewarding when a fish is caught with this extra element of subtlety involved. In the swift-moving world of the river you seldom get a 100 percent clear view of the fish under water. What you see is shadow or a half-hidden movement; there is often nothing more than intuition that tells you a fish has taken your fly.
A fish caught when you saw nothing but the slightest flash of a fish under water is a rewarding fish indeed.
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