For many of you seasoned fly fishing vets out there, the following isn't going to come as a surprise, so just ignore the strange metaphor I came up with and skip a couple paragraphs down for the meat and potatoes. For everyone else, I'm going to try and equate two different types of fly fishing to football and hopefully impress upon you the importance of nymphing and why you should be nymphing 90% of your time on the water.
Dry fly fishing is what immediately comes to mind when you picture fly fishing. It's your flannel clad Brad Pitt gracefully orchestrating his fly line on the Blackfoot. Those sexy little loops laying parachute adams a foot above a boil on the water. You get the picture? So dry fly fishing is a lot like Tom Brady... super sexy, get's all the highlights, and... gets punked big time unless you have those big nasties blocking up front. In this metaphor, the big nasties (aka linemen) are in the trenches with the defense trying to let Tom Brady get a couple tapes on the highlight reel. None of the glory, none of the highlights, just grabbing other grown ass men and trying to titty twister them into the ground. If Tom Brady is throwing dries, your lineman are actually your nymph game, making the play happen every single down, 3 yards and a cloud of dust. It's a dirty, nasty, ugly way of fishing, but we love it and it's your best bet to consistently playing fish.
Okay hopefully I didn't lose you with that one. What I'm trying to say is nymphing, or fishing flies below the water, will generate fish for you on a consistent basis 24/7 365. This is because 90% of a fish's dietary needs are met subsurface, whether that's taking the nymphal form of a bug or some other type of meat in the water. There's obviously a more nuanced approach you can take with hatches and bait fish, blah blah blah, but if you're new to the sport hopefully the lightbulbs starting to go off.
Now that we can all agree nymphing is cool as balls, I'm going to show you a detailed view into a setup that Bryce and I have been pretty much exclusively fishing for the last year or so. Heavily influenced by Kelly Galloup and George Daniel / the competitive fly fishing scene here it is:
Rods: I fish a longer, lighter rod when nymphing to aid in strike detection and tippet protection. I run an 11 FT Syndicate 2 WT. Totally awesome, affordable nymph rod.
Fly Line: Both Bryce and I run the RIO competition nymph fly line. You can also get away with a 1 WT fly line, as long as the line isn't so heavy that it's actively pulling your leader back towards the top eye. If you don't feel like dropping a paycheck on a long ass rod and the fly line, don't fear! We both started out fishing a standard 9 ft 5 WT with a normal fly line. You will need to add about 12-16 more feet of 20lb maxima chameleon. Reason being, you don't want any of your heavier fly line out of the reel. Remember, we're not casting with this rig, we're allowing the weight of the flies and split shot to propel the line forward.
Leader: The leader in this set up is about as simple as it comes. It's 3-4 feet of 20 lb Maxima Chameleon, blood or nail knot, 2 feet of 12 lb Maxima Chameleon, knot, 1 1/2 feet of 10 lb sighter material, knot, 1 1/2 feet of 8 lb sighter material with a tippet ring tied on with a fishermans knot at the end. Another bonus is, unless your fishing competitively, the addition of a tippet ring allows you to use this leader over and over. I've been using the same leader for over a year now, which is legit af.
Tippet: This section of our rigs was taken almost completely from Kelly Galloups Drop Shot System (I'll post a link shortly). I've just substituted Kelly's Perfection Loop (I think that's what he uses) for a double surgeons knot. I run about a 2-4 feet section of 5x tippet off the tippet ring, use a double surgeons to tie on a 12-18" section of 5.5x. I clip the top tag and leave 6" on the bottom tag for fly numero uno. I then double surgeons a 12-18" section of 6x, cut the top tag off again, leave 6" on the bottom tag for fly numero dos, and then tie an overhand knot near the bottom of the remaining length of tippet. I then attach split shot above the overhand knot to act as my anchor. If you don't want to use split shot, simply omit the second section of tippet and tie your anchor fly directly to the bottom of the piece of 5.5x. Another important note: Tapering your tippet is not necessary, i actually use straight 6x a lot of the times I use this rig, especially when I'm trying to cut down on micro drag and increase my sink rate.
Benefits:
The aggressive taper allows you to really shoot your flies into the water column, increasing sink rate and fly connection.
Maxima Chameleon, even the 20lb, carries vibrations extremely well. I routinely feel takes and bottom from the split shot all the way through to my fly line greatly increasing strike detection and control.
Tippet Ring allows for an extremely quick and easy rig change, gone are they days of retying leaders on the stream. Simply snip off the tippet and tie your tippet back on.
I rarely lose flies anymore. The setup has your bottom fly riding about 6" above the bottom, meaning your split shot is the most likely to get snagged AND that bottom fly is floating right over the nose of hungry fishies.
I no longer have to worry about tying the same fly in a hundred different weight variations and I don't have to sacrifice one anchor fly to fish a smaller one in a deep pocket. If i want to fish two size 20 midge patterns in a 6 foot deep run I can.
It's a bitchin rig brother.
Cons:
You can all but forget about throwing dries or dry dropper with this setup as is. You'll be burying your dry into the water or wrapping yourself up like a christmas ham. The little star underneath the picture above denotes my adaptation for a functioning dry dropper / nymph rig. It's still not great but the overhead casting turnover is improved.
As with any tightline setup, you'll need to get in relatively close to your target for this setup to work. You certainly won't be nymphing 30+ feet away from you. If you're hitting a wide open river like the WB of the Delaware, you're much better off with a dry dropper rod or your standard indicator rig.
Additional Info:
If you're not familiar with the Tightline / Euro style of nymphing, check out a couple of these resources to better understand how to fish and cast this rig:
Dynamic Nymphing by George Daniel
Modern Nymphing by Gilbert Rowley featuring Devin Olsen and Lance Egan
Modern Nymping: Elevated by Gilbert Rowley featuring Devin Olsen and Lance Egan
Troutbitten.com a blog by Domenick Swentosky ( Seriously his nymphing and rig setup is such an amazing resource)
Hope ya'll got something from this rig setup, take a peak at the inaugural podcast and standby for some awesome guest blog posts by the mayflymaster himself, Sean Thomas.