Troutbitten

Fishing a nymph under a dry fly is rarely as simple as adding a nymph and casting it out there. Some forethought into what your objectives are, measured against your options for rigging and fly selection, goes a long way toward filling the net with trout.

Do you want to fish the nymph or the dry? That’s the first question to ask. Each dry dropper style allows for the opportunity to catch trout on both flies, but only Light Dry Dropper is tuned for fishing the dry fly at its best.

While Standard Dry Dropper and Tight Line Dry Dropper are great for fishing the nymph first, Light Dry Dropper is perfect for offering the dry fly as a primary choice. And sometimes, the frequency of takes on the added nymph is stunning.

With this Skills Series on the Troutbitten Podcast, my friend, Austin Dando, joins me to dissect this Light Dry Dropper style.

Because “fishing dry dropper” can really mean a lot of things. And each of these styles has many moments when it's the clear winner.

In 2019, I published a full series on these Three Styles of Dry Dropper on the Troutbitten Website. You can find them here:

READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Light Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Standard Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Tight Line Dry Dropper

This podcast series is an excellent companion for the article series.

Because “fishing dry dropper” can really mean a lot of things. And each of these styles has many moments when it's the clear winner.

So, the next time someone talks about dry dropper fishing, ask them what style -- because there's a lot of room for variety.

More Resources:

READ: Troutbitten | Dry Fly Fishing -- The George Harvey Leader Design
READ: Troutbitten | One Great Nymphing Trick (One Seam)
READ: Troutbitten | Recognize A Dead Drift
READ: Troutbitten | That's Not A Dead Drift

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With season four of the Troutbitten Podcast, we're back to the Skills Series format, with tightly packed, tactical episodes that cover one topic in depth. This season, we're digging into the three styles of dry dropper.

This first episodes is an overview of the three styles, along with a good discussion about why and when  we enjoy fishing dry dropper in the first place.

Dry dropper sounds like a great idea. Just add nymph below a dry fly and catch fish on both offerings, right? But it's not that easy. And there are some real consequences. I argue that it's impossible to fish both flies perfectly, so by recognizing three distinctly different styles of rigging and fishing dry dropper, we make choices -- what fly will we prioritize and how will we get great drifts?

In 2019, I published a full series on these Three Styles of Dry Dropper on the Troutbitten Website. You can find them here:

READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Light Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Standard Dry Dropper
READ: Troutbitten | Three Styles of Dry Dropper -- Tight Line Dry Dropper

Now, with this Skills Series on the Troutbitten Podcast, my friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a deep dive beyond the framework of these styles. This podcast series is an excellent companion for the article series.

Because “fishing dry dropper” can really mean a lot of things. And each of these styles has many moments when it's the clear winner.

So, the next time someone talks about dry dropper fishing, ask them what style -- because there's a lot of room for variety.

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We’re in between podcast seasons and on a bit of a summer break. But I wanted to keep in touch here. I’d like to tell you more about the Troutbitten Project -- about all of the branches, what’s coming next and how all of this ties together.

Season Four of the Troutbitten podcast begins on August 14th. It’s a five-part tactical series on Dry Dropper styles. We followed the same platform — or style — in season two, when we covered the Nine Essential Skills of Tight Line and Euro Nymphing. These are compact, informational episodes that detail one narrowly focused topic. I’ll be joined again by my friend, Austin Dando, to build through the framework of this fun, effective style. And by the end of the series, you should have a thorough understanding of the three styles for dry dropper.

Maybe you’ve never thought of dry dropper this way. But the point is, there are three drastically different ways that we fish dry dropper. The rigs, the casting, the tactics and the intentions for each style are unique to each method. And sure, there’s some crossover, but in many ways, these styles are more different than they are similar. I call them Light Dry Dropper, Bobber Dry Dropper (or standard dry dropper for you purists out there) and Tight Line Dry Dropper.

READ: Troutbitten | Series | Three Styles of Dry Dropper

So that podcast series — Season Four — begins August 14th. But now’s a good time to mention that this full Dry Dropper series already exists on the Troutbitten website. The Three Styles of Dry Dropper is a four part series that I published on Troutbitten a few years ago. That series gets a lot of traffic every year, and I receive a lot of questions on the styles. So there’s more to be said, and I think it’s the perfect choice for our second installment of the skills series format on the podcast.

Here’s the point: everything at Troutbitten ties together. None of it stands alone. Troutbitten started as a fishing blog eight years ago. Then it became the place where I published my tactical articles and best stories. Because as the traffic grew, ad revenue from the site added up to more than I could make with magazine placements and book contracts. By following that route, I maintained the copyright to my own works, so I can still do things like this — taking the Dry Dropper Styles series and building a podcast around the topic.

It ends up that the choices I made years ago, fortuitously setup everything that Troutbitten has grown into. And because it’s so much more than a website now, I refer to all of this as the Troutbitten Project.

The website, the podcast, the YouTube channel and the shop -- all of it ties together . . .

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Hey Troutbitten friends, 

Season three of the podcast is finished, and season four begins in just a few weeks. But in this time off, I have something special for you.

I was recently a guest on the Wade Out There podcast with Jason Shemchuk. We had a fun discussion about family, kids and fly fishing. Then we got technical about streamer tactics, presentations and efficiencies.

Jason started Wade Out There in 2019 as an author and artist focused on fly fishing for trout. He recently published episode 100 of the podcast, and I’m happy to be his first repeat guest. That’s the conversation I’m sharing here.

You can find all of Jason’s excellent work over at WadeOutThere.com. And you can easily find his podcast series through any service or podcast player.

So I hope you enjoy listening to my talk with Jason Shemchuck.

I’ll also be back next week in your podcast feed with a short episode about the Troutbitten project.

So until then . . . fish hard, friends.

 
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Versatility is a Troutbitten mantra. It’s the way we fish. In fact, it’s why we fish a fly rod, because whatever way the trout wish to feed, we can show them flies that represent that food form.

And while some anglers hit the river with one thing in mind, with one fly box and one set of tools, it’s our ability to adapt, to adjust and modify our approach, that makes a lifetime on the water so interesting. Sure, we focus on our favorite tactics, and we may spend the next half a year just perfecting our dry fly game in tight cover. But once these skills are learned, then knowing that we can throw anything at any time, having a full set of skills at the ready, is a rewarding and enjoyable approach to fly fishing for trout.

Pursuing this kind of versatility also keeps us in the game for a lifetime. We are forever working on the next idea, refining new casts and another approach. Eventually, we develop such a facility with these skills that we begin to combine them, breaking free from the common and standard approach and landing on new ways to get a dead drift or move a streamer. Creation becomes the goal. Design becomes our drive. And experimentation leads to more answers that lead to more questions.

All of it is our reward for being a versatile angler.

But of course, nothing comes easy either. The beginning angler should probably refrain from branching out too much at first. Because too much versatility becomes confusing. It leads to frustration. There are stages. There are tools. There are systems for being versatile on the water. And there’s a time for all of it.

So that’s what we’re here to talk about tonight. Here for our season three finale is a full house: Austin Dando, Trevor Smith, Josh Darling, Bill Dell and Matt Grobe.

We Cover the Following

• Is versatility the opposite of specialization?
• Learn it all, then use it all
• The fly rod is supremely versatile
• Do you need a lot of gear to be versatile?
• What is a versatile fly rod
• Carrying systems
• Knowing when to change
• Finding a good reason to change
• Have a plan and test it
• Versatility within one style
• How versatility solves the daily mystery

Resources

READ Troutbitten | Fly Shop Fluorocarbon Too Expensive? Try Invizx
READ: Troutbitten | Use a Versatile and General Fly Rod
READ: Troutbitten | Find Feeding Fish
READ: Troutbitten | Look for the Changeout Spots
READ: Troutbitten | Find Your Rabbit Hole

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I've been building the Night Fishing for Trout Series here on Troutbitten for many years. It's an ongoing series of chapters that cover some of what I’ve learned about trout after dark.

But I’m careful with that word “learned.” Sure, I’ve come a long way in the fifteen years or so that I’ve spent night fishing. And time on the water has taught me things both by fish in the net and through repeated failure. I’ve gone through a period of time where I dedicated a few years to night fishing as my primary motivation, fishing after dark at least once a week, even through the winter months, and spending a lot more than that under the dark summer sky.

What I’ve learned is often very different than the stuff that’s supposed to work. And then again, some of it matches up pretty well.

Then, after over a decade of night fishing as a solitary endeavor I met my friends Josh Darling and Trevor Smith, who join me on this podcast episode. These guys somehow found that same rare drive to search and discover after dark, and it’s more than just a passing fad for them. They’ve dug deeper into the shadows than anyone else I’ve met. I Iearn from them. They are my trusted fishing friends. Their experience becomes my own. Their reports, their observations, are nearly as valuable as having my own boots in the water. These guys night fish, and they fish hard.

So for this podcast episode, our goal is to provide an overview, some kind of path down the lonely, dark and wonderfully mysterious road that is night fishing.


We Cover the Following

• Motivation
• Places
• Planning
• Moonlight, Starlight and City Light
• Headlights, Flashlights and Glow-in-the-Dark stuff
• The tactics of drifting and swinging
• Water Types
• Fly Types
• Big Trout and Finding the Right Locations
• Fighting Fear
• Accepting the Mystery
• The Rods and Lines

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Night Fishing
READ: Troutbitten | Night Fishing for Trout -- People, Places and Things
READ: Troutbitten | Night Fishing for Trout -- Moonlight, Starlight and City Light
READ: Troutbitten | Night Fishing for Trout -- You're Gonna Need a Bigger Rope
READ: Troutbitten | Night Fishing for Trout -- Spaces
READ: Troutbitten | Hell-Hot Sun and the Strawberry Moon

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So, you know how you see something from far away and it looks really great? It’s almost perfect. But if you look a little closer, even from a long distance, you might start to find a few things that aren’t quite right. But it’s good . . . it’s still pretty good.

When you get even closer, you notice more problems. And when you’ve been around it for a long time, you can’t help but see many, many things that could be better.

Well . . . that’s the fly fishing industry.

And I don’t just mean the companies and the big names either. I mean the whole thing: the full scale, from Instagram hashtags and big internet groups to the few anglers that hang out at your local bar. The industry trends, these habits, these practices — some of them just seem wrong. And the gear, the ads, videos and articles, — a lot of it kind of steers people in the wrong direction.

So we thought we’d have a little fun with this and call out as many issues as we can fit into one podcast.

Yes, we’re here to criticize and complain a bit. But it's all in good fun. And quite honestly, I think most of the things we’ll bring up could certainly benefit from a fair dose of constructive criticism. Think of this as a cleansing. It’s a chance to bring everything out into the open — from the dark corners and into the sunlight.

I'm joined by my friends Josh Darling, Austin Dando, Trevor Smith, Matt Grobe and Bill Dell.

We Cover the Following

• Purists. Elitism
• The warm water police
• Spot burning
• Weather complainers
• Marketing to lifestyle anglers
• Mean people
• Euro anything
• Cheap gear
• Telling anglers to be specialized
• Leaky Waders
• The squeezing fish hold
• The knuckles hold
• People who comment without reading article, watching full video, or listening to whole podcast
• Club Fishing
• The assumption that "experts" knows more than you about fishing
• Anyone pretending that catching fish doesn't matter

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | What to Trust
READ: Troutbitten | Use a Versatile Fly Rod
READ: Troutbitten | Holding a Trout -- Their Heart In Your Hands
READ: Troutbitten | Angler Types in Profile -- Goldilocks
READ: Troutbitten | Why Wild Trout Matter
READ: Troutbitten | Posted -- Club Fish -- 2065

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What might commonly be referred to as a junk fly makes its way to the end of my line pretty often. And for certain times of the year, through the summer and through the winter, I lean on junk flies as my go-to staples.

But my understanding of junk flies has evolved over time. I get it now. You can’t just put any kind of bright, flashy materials on a hook and fool trout. There’s a reason why trout eat these flies. And there’s a reason why these patterns shine for so long and then fall off at the end of a season. There’s also a huge difference between the way stocked trout respond to some junk flies vs the way wild trout respond.

We fish junk flies because they are fun. Because trout move to them more than other flies, sometimes. And because we can often see the fly in the water, allowing us to sight fish and learn something different. 

What is a junk fly? Why and when do they work? These are the questions for this podcast. 

I'm joined by the Troutbitten crew: Matt Grobe, Josh Darling, Trevor Smith, Bill Dell and Austin Dando. 

We Cover the Following

• Defining a junk fly
• Is it always a nymph?
• Why do trout eat junk flies?
• How do trout respond differently?
• The Bait and Switch
• Are they dirty flies?
• Is it cheating?
• Does it take less skill to catch trout on a junk fly?
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Super Fly -- The Story of a Squirmy Wormy
READ: Troutbitten | Mop Fly Thoughts

 

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We all miss fish and lose fish on a fly. Why does it happen? Is it an accident? Is it avoidable? And how can we improve our hookup and landing ratio on the water?

If you’re at the point where you’re worrying about why you are missing and losing fish, then really. . . you know you’re already doing a lot of things right.

Fooling trout is the hard part. Fly fishing is not easy. And trout — especially wild ones — are not forgiving. They don’t grant you much grace. And rarely do trout take lousy presentations. So if you trick a fish into taking your fly, then pat yourself on the back. And when you start to fool them often enough that you notice a trend of missing or losing fish, then again, just know that you’re doing a lot of things right. Convincing trout that a fake fly is the real thing is tough. The rest? Well, it all comes a lot easier.

So, of course we want to land our trout. Missing and losing fish is frustrating after a while, because we sense there’s more that we can do to keep fish buttoned up. And really . . . there is. There are observable causes for trout missing the fly, just as there are mistakes we make on our end that result in another miss or a lost trout.

Like everything else in fishing, there’s a lot of nuance to this topic.

Reasons and strategies for missed and lost trout change whether it’s dry flies, nymphs, wets or streamers. Maybe a trout refuses our dry fly in a quick swirl as it rejects the pattern in a last second decision. It looks like the trout ate, so we set the hook and even feel the hook touch the fish, but we still miss it. This is not a hook setting error. It’s a presentation error. The fish refused the fly.

The same happens with our streamers. And this is where I think we see it the most. When trout charge the streamer and maybe even strike it — but if they don’t eat it, then no amount of perfecting the hook set will catch that fish.

So there’s a lot to see and understand, and this conversation helps bring a lot of that to light.

We Cover the Following

• Future podcast season plans (listener question)
• The difference between missing and losing
• Slack!
• The inevitability of missing and losing fish
• Barbless flies, small flies
• Hook set speed and length
• Late sets
• Why bad drifts create a lot of misses
• Differences between missing fish on all the fly types
• The Phantom hook set
• . . . and more

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You can’t really learn a river until you’ve learned to fish. You need some confidence in your skills to cover a section of new water, to fish it well and then walk away with some opinions about what that river holds rather than asking questions about your techniques and decisions.

Learning a river comes by dedicating your time. You must give a part of your life to a river to learn it from top to bottom. And yes, it takes seasons on the water just to crack the surface. (And it probably takes a decade or more to crack the code.)

But for many of us, for those who live a fly fishing life, who dedicate our free time to pursuing trout and learning the game, the questions that a watershed asks are seductive. Why do you find fewer large trout in the lower island section in the fall? What river conditions are required for trout to move to the shallows and comfortably feed after dark? When should you expect the Sulfur hatch, and are there two sizes or just one?

These questions have answers. And the more we fish one waterway, the more details we discover, the more data we enter into a catalog of knowledge about a favorite trout stream.

Rivers are an ever-changing, complex ecosystem of life, water and land. They are influenced by weather, surrounding community development and sometimes the anglers themselves. Nothing is static. Nothing is truly predictable. But there’s also no denying the habit of trout. And once you spend time wading with these fish, observing their habits and watching how the changes affect their behaviors, then time itself finally stacks in your favor. The observant angler becomes part of that ecosystem. And we begin to predict the paths of trout by instinct.

Achieving that level of knowledge is a rare reward. But it is attainable. And the journey toward that knowledge is a respectable pursuit.

I’m joined again by the Troutbitten crew, Trevor Smith, Matt Grobe, Bill Dell, and Austin Dando. I can tell you that each of these fishermen know their local waters exhaustively, from to deep to shallow, from bank to bank, winter, spring, summer and fall. They know the rhythms of their waters. 

We Cover the Following

• Listener question about dry flies on the Mono Rig
• Research via maps, books, etc.
• Trout population and species
• Learning the flows
• Exploring from the mouth to the headwaters
• Season changes and migratory habits
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Dry Flies on the Mono Rig
READ: Troutbitten | The Last Good Island
READ: Troutbitten | Save the Discovery

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