Cowlitz Bottomfeeder
Life of the Party
Using a large dry fly as an indicator is often an effective way to fish the upper and lower parts of the water column. The hopper/dropper tactic is well known. On a popular lake, I noticed that Rainbows would occasionally come up and check out the indicator. I often considered using a foam fly with rubber legs as the indicator and yesterday I finally gave it a try. Four Rainbows ate the dropper and two ate the Chubby Chernobyl. I dislike tying a dropper on a barbless hook, because the dropper comes off in the net, so I cut the eye off a standard dry fly and lashed it to the shank of an intact hook before tying the fly.