Nice cast!
Stillwater indicator watchers: What's your approach?
- Thread starter Matt B
- Start date
Matt-
One of the reason my blood worms are unweight is to achieve a thin profile - thread or flashaou bodies with a thin wire rib.. If realy concern about how fast your flies get to the bottom a small swivel (and yes I know Ira does like them) between your leader and tippet might help.
A little test you might find interesting is to drop your fly of choice (with leader attached) in a bucket of water and time the length of time it takes to sink to the bottom. If you are fishing say 12 feet down just multiple that time by 12 or so to see how long you might have to wait. It may take a little time to break the surface film tension after which even an unweighted fly sinks pretty quickly.
curt
One of the reason my blood worms are unweight is to achieve a thin profile - thread or flashaou bodies with a thin wire rib.. If realy concern about how fast your flies get to the bottom a small swivel (and yes I know Ira does like them) between your leader and tippet might help.
A little test you might find interesting is to drop your fly of choice (with leader attached) in a bucket of water and time the length of time it takes to sink to the bottom. If you are fishing say 12 feet down just multiple that time by 12 or so to see how long you might have to wait. It may take a little time to break the surface film tension after which even an unweighted fly sinks pretty quickly.
curt
dep
Steelhead
tip down! lower to the water line
Are most of you guys movers or just watchers?
I tend to cast out, maybe watch it sit for five minutes or so at the most, then a start to move it, hand twist, slow strips etc.
I have a hard time just sitting there watching it for a long time even with a good chop.
SF
I tend to cast out, maybe watch it sit for five minutes or so at the most, then a start to move it, hand twist, slow strips etc.
I have a hard time just sitting there watching it for a long time even with a good chop.
SF
15+ years ago I didn’t have a single tungsten bead in my giant box of chironomids and had no trouble touching bottom in the deepest parts of pass lake. Often I fished a brass bead top fly and an unweighted blood worm. No swivel and straight 4x to top fly and 5x to bottom at the time. If the bite was really good I figured it took one minute to get to depth in 20-22’ FOW because that’s about as quick as I would generally need to set the hook. If the line is slack, a bare hook will get ya down there IMO. Tungsten certainly is nice, but a lot of fish were caught before it was popular.
I am never sitting still.
See above.
No doubt that old patterns worked, and that lots of fish were caught before tungsten, but you can’t deny that tungsten makes things better.
1. Tungsten puts your flies in the zone faster.
2. Tungsten gives you a better understanding of the exact zone you are fishing in, because it will stretch your leader out more true to the depth you set your indicator.
3. Tungsten holds your indicator more securely so you can notice micro takes more effectively. This means that lower weight doesn’t pin your indicator in a specific orientation allowing the indicator to move more with wind and waves.
4. Tungsten flows off my tongue better than Brass
Every fly in my box now has a tungsten bead. For 3 of those reasons anyway. My point was: worry not Matt, your flies are very likely getting down, tungsten or not.No doubt that old patterns worked, and that lots of fish were caught before tungsten, but you can’t deny that tungsten makes things better.
1. Tungsten puts your flies in the zone faster.
2. Tungsten gives you a better understanding of the exact zone you are fishing in, because it will stretch your leader out more true to the depth you set your indicator.
3. Tungsten holds your indicator more securely so you can notice micro takes more effectively. This means that lower weight doesn’t pin your indicator in a specific orientation allowing the indicator to move more with wind and waves.
4. Tungsten flows off my tongue better than Brass
On two pole lakes you can do both at the same time!
at 32' I fish with the bobber right under the rod tip.
Crawbugger
Steelhead
There’s a lesson in there.
When I'm anchored, I often fish 2-poles. Sometimes both poles are floating lines with indicators but more often I fish one indicator rod and the other a sinking line from an I-line to a type-7. Last Monday, the lake I was fishing often has a big eddy (okay, lake = reservoir), I cast out the indicator rig, it swings. While this rig is swinging, I cast, count down and strip the full sinker. No doubles last Monday. @Old406Kid's three techniques ----^ didn't work at all.
To answer the OP question: I typically don't let my indicator sit still for very long. If there's no wind, no current then I do a bit of twitching (and this depends on the fly or flies as I work jig patterns much more so than midges). There's a however here, if I'm fishing still water with two indicator rods, one of them may well be static while I slowly work the other rig in.
To answer the OP question: I typically don't let my indicator sit still for very long. If there's no wind, no current then I do a bit of twitching (and this depends on the fly or flies as I work jig patterns much more so than midges). There's a however here, if I'm fishing still water with two indicator rods, one of them may well be static while I slowly work the other rig in.
for me, it's always when I take a swig of beer.If you want your indicator to go down look over at your buddy for a second.
Still no luck, get a sandwich in your hand.
Last resort and usually a sure thing, take a leak.
or, after 10 seconds of staring at it when I lose interest.
While fishing one of our area Cutthroat lakes I stumbled onto a quirky 'method'.
A breeze came up in the afternoon and blew a belly in my line so I made a frustrated mend that moved the indicator a foot or two and it was fish on.
The 'method' gave me the giggles as it continued to repeat itself on almost every mend.
When I came to shore a fishless, gear guy that was watching me from the bank asked alot of questions and said he thought he just might take up fly fishing.
A breeze came up in the afternoon and blew a belly in my line so I made a frustrated mend that moved the indicator a foot or two and it was fish on.
The 'method' gave me the giggles as it continued to repeat itself on almost every mend.
When I came to shore a fishless, gear guy that was watching me from the bank asked alot of questions and said he thought he just might take up fly fishing.
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Thanks. I appreciate everyone’s input. My takeaways for this are to be patient and be confident that your flies are getting down, but that tungsten is a preferred way to a bit of extra insurance for getting to the zone quickly and keeping a straight line connection from flies to indi.
Slightly ashamed to admit that I didn’t know this.
That said, I don’t do this sort of fishing in FF only waters (or really anywhere) much, if ever.
Still, good to know in case I get a hankering to go.
