Troutbitten

In this interim episode, Becky and I look back on what has happened in 2024 so far, and we set the table for what’s to come. We talk about Patagonia, videos, articles, podcasts, livestream podcasts, one-on-one sessions, hosted trips, guide season, the next Troutbitten Leader Sale and a Troutbitten beer.

Thank you for being part of this Troutbitten community.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | One-On-One Virtual Skills Sessions
READ: Troutbitten | The First Troutbitten LIVESTREAM Podcast On YouTube

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Here we are with our final installment, part seven of our series on critical nymphing concepts.

Almost all of our focus throughout this series has been on achieving dead drifts. We aim for natural looks that imitate what the real bugs do most. So we try to stay in one lane, we try to find the right speed and the right depth. Most of the articles on Troutbitten about nymphing also assume we’re aiming for dead drifts. It's the same with the videos. Why? Because dead drifts usually work best.

But in this episode, our topic is getting something other than a dead drift. How can we add animation to a nymph that seals the deal? Something that either grabs a trout’s attention and attracts it to the fly . . . or the chosen animation actually mimics something natural that the real bugs are doing at the moment.

We spend so much time refining presentations and trying to achieve perfectly natural dead drifts that moving the nymph a bit, animating the fly, is liberating. It’s fun.

But moving our nymph at random, moving it accidentally or relabeling drag as enticing motion doesn’t work so well. Stripping or swinging a nymph like a streamer doesn't work so well. More often, subtle motions add an extra spark to the presentation. These are mostly additions to a dead drift, and not a full abandonment of the dead drift principles we try so hard to achieve.

This is our topic for part seven, this season finale.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Crossover Technique
READ: Troutbitten | The First Troutbitten LIVESTREAM Podcast On YouTube
READ: Troutbitten | The Big Rig -- The Two Plus One -- Two Nymphs and a Streamer
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Super Pause
READ: Troutbitten | Natural vs Attractive Presentation

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This episode is about tension and slack. It's about how we manage fly lines and leaders on the water while nymphing.

Remember, each of these episodes — all of these concepts — apply to all styles of nymphing. So we might choose to lay line on the water with an indicator rig (and sometimes mend it) just like we might choose to float the sighter with a tight line rig.

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me to walk through the tight line advantage of keeping line off the water and what happens when we give that up. Fishing greater distances often requires laying line on the water, and how we manage that line, how we plan for it, makes all the difference between a great drift and a poor one.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | The Tight Line Advantage Across Fishing Styles
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing the Mono Rig -- Versatility and The Tight Line Advantage Taken Further
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Casting -- Five Tips for Better Mending
VIDEO: Troutbitten | The Hop Mend
READ: Troutbitten | Regarding Classic Upstream Nymphing
READ: Troutbitten | You Need Turnover


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This discussion is all about weight. It’s the fundamental factor in nymphing. Because as soon as you choose to leave the surface, once you clip off the dry fly and fish anything else . . . weight is necessary.

Even wet flies have some weight. They’re designed not to float but to break the surface with at least the weight of the hook. With streamers, of course, weight is required to get the flies to whatever depth is necessary — and we do that with all types of weight, whether that’s a sinking line, split shot or weight built into the fly.

Then of course, with nymphs, we need weight, just like streamers, to get the flies to some kind of depth and actually fish them.

You can’t avoid it. Weight is the fundamental factor. Meaning, it’s probably more important than the fly itself. More weight or less is more consequential than what dubbing, feather or ribbing is wound around the hook shank.

We use all types of weight, and there are good reasons for all of these: tungsten beads, split shot and drop shot. Our topic is how each of these weight choices, along with the decision for more or less weight, helps us match river situations and meet the trout with a presentation they're looking for.

This is a technical topic that is built on many Troutbitten resources that have come before it . . .

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | No Limits -- Use Every Type of Weight Available
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Weight In Fly Fishing: Beads, Shot, Sinking Lines and More
READ: Troutbitten | Series | Drop Shot Nymphing on a Tight Line Rig
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Don't Hate the Split Shot - Have a System
READ: Troutbitten | Pattern vs Presentation
READ: Troutbitten | Split Shot vs Weighted Flies

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This episode features what might be the most important concept of nymph fishing. There are three different ways to present a dead drifted nymph to the trout -- three ways to imitate what trout commonly see from the naturals. While trout eat dry flies in one plane (the surface) the complexity of currents underneath introduces more difficulty, simply because trout might be looking for food in multiple ways.

My friend, Austin Dando, and I break down one of my favorite topics in fly fishing -- the three ways to dead drift nymphs: bottom bouncing, strike zone rides and tracking the flies.

All three of these methods are viable. All of them produce. A nymphing angler dedicated to improving should consider what level to focus the presentation and how those nymphs might best look natural within that level.

This is a technical topic that is built on many Troutbitten resources that have come before it . . .

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Nymphs: Three Ways to Dead Drift: Bottom Bounce, Strike Zone Rides, Tracking
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Locating the Strike Zone -- Tight Line Skills #6
READ: Troutbitten | The Water Column and the All-Important Strike Zone
READ: Troutbitten | Drop Shot Nymphing Series
READ: Troutbitten | Tight Line and Euro Nymphing: Leading vs Tracking vs Guiding the Flies
READ: Troutbitten | That's Not  a Dead Drift

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In the third part of this critical nymphing concepts series, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of fishing with a suspender.

We cover the following

• Indicator styles and why the type matters
• Not all indicators are created equal
• Choosing tight line or indy, or combing both
• What you lose by adding and indy
• What you gain by adding an indy
• Complications of an indy style
• What is commonly missed when using an indy
• Reading an indicator
• A few more tips  . . .

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | It's a Suspender, Not Just an Indicator
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Nymphing Tight Line to the Indicator Style -- Tight Line Advantage to the Indicator
READ: Troutbitten | The Backing Barrel Might Be the Best Sighter Ever
READ: Troutbitten | Tight Line to the Indicator -- a Mono Rig Variant
READ: Troutbitten | Your Indicator is Too Big
READ: Troutbitten | The Dorsey Yarn Indicator -- Everything You Need to Know and  a Little More

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In this second episode of our Critical Nymphing Concepts series, my friend, Austin Dando, and I walk through the idea — the concept — of having more influence or less over the flies. Meaning, who or what is in charge of the nymphs? Is it you or the river? And do we want to have more influence over the flies or less? What looks more natural? Which choice — which method — fools more trout?

We cover the following

• What is influence and what's in charge of the nymph's path?
• Does less influence look more natural?
• How weight and tippet diameter relate to influence.
• Why taking dry fly principles to the nymphs underneath leads to big mistakes.
• How slack hurts or helps the drift.
• The principle of slipping contact.
• Good and bad things about more influence.
• Good and bad things about less influence.
• Better systems for each method.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Tight Line and Euro Nymphing: Tracking the Flies
PODCAST: Troutbitten | #7, Nine Essential Skill for Tight Line and Euro Nymphing | Guiding the Flies
READ: Troutbitten | Tight Line and Euro Nymphing: Leading vs Tracking vs Guiding
READ: Troutbitten | Slipping Contact -- Tight Line and Euro Nymphing
READ: Troutbitten | Tight Line Nymphing With an Indicator
READ: Troutbitten | Your Indicator Is Too Big

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This Season Ten skills series is about the critical concepts of nymphing. In seven episodes this season, we're covering the what and the why of nymphing. The techniques we work on are physical skills necessary to get great drifts and fool fish. But these nymphing concepts are about putting a reason behind everything we do.

Why do we make the changes? How do we adapt to meet the preferences of trout for the moment? This is the other side of the coin. And once you put all of this together, you have a full picture of what it takes to regularly catch trout on a nymph.

Importantly, these concepts apply to all nymphing styles, tight line, indicator or otherwise.

Episode One covers the three most important questions in nymphing.

My friend Austin Dando joins me this season to walk through these concepts.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Three Nymphing Questions to Solve Any Problem
PODCAST: Troutbitten | #1, Nine Essential Skill for Tight Line and Euro Nymphing | Angle and Approach
READ: Troutbitten | The Water Column, and the All-Important Strike Zone
READ: Troutbitten | When Drifting Low Isn't Low Enough

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For this final episode of Season Ten and of 2023, we wanted  to have some fun. In this episode we walk through a bunch of Troutbitten . . . terms, words, sayings, phrases . . . and talk about what all of this means. Let’s call it a Troutbitten glossary.

If you’re lucky enough to have your own group of long-time fishing friends, then I’m sure you have your own phrases too — your own idioms and ways of talking about things. It’s all a lot of fun.

Long-time listeners understand what it means when Austin says he could have caught a lot more trout — if he really wanted to. Most of you also understand what it means to play bartender for a friend, and you know how many inches a trout should be to fall under the Troutbitten classification, Whiskey.

Our lingo is part of the Troutbitten culture. Here we go . . .

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | History
PODCAST: Troutbitten | The One With Sloop, Stories with a Fishing Friend S7 Ep12
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Fishing Buddies S5 Ep12

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We’re here to talk about bad habits — things that aren’t personal style but just bad form. These are bad habits that come with a consequence. These are, quite simply, mistakes. And in every case, there’s a much better way to do things.

We meet anglers from all over the country and the world, we often see these bad habits from good anglers. And inevitably, these are some of the key things that hold people back from going further — from catching more trout.

These are deal breakers --  bad habits that come with consequences, and habits that, once changed, open up new avenues and better opportunities.

Our intention here is to be helpful and not critical. We want to point out some of the worst habits that we see most often — the mistakes that a lot of good anglers still make and that hold them back. And these are mistakes — it’s almost right and wrong.

I always say there are no experts in fly fishing. So we are not experts. But all of us here are experienced. In fact, we’re experienced enough to have gone through many of these bad habits on our own and have corrected them. Our goal is to share a few of these habits and highlight what might go unnoticed by a pretty wide segment of our friends.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | All the Things
PODCAST: Troutbitten | The Inefficiencies that Waste Your Fishing Time - S3,Ep2
READ: Troutbitten | How Many Effective Fishing Minutes?

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Orvis