Issue with Breaking Off Second Fly

ifsteve

ifsteve

Steelhead
So a while back I posted a thread about how guys tie on a second fly. Here's a link to that.

ifsteve

Thread 'Another Two Fly Question'

So since my other one had some interesting stuff thought I'd post part 2. The question here is about how you rig the two flies. Yes there are other ways but these two are probably used 96+% of the time. And to be more clear I am talking about fishing a lake with a floating line and indicator system.

I could have just added this to the end of that but its a big enough issue that I wanted to make sure to bet plenty of feedback. So here's the issue. Before I even posted this thread I was having a problem breaking off the bottom fly especially when it was tied to the eye of the hook of the upper fly. So I have been paying REALLY close attention to how I have been tying that dropper tippet to make sure I was getting good knots and when I trimmed the tag end that I wasn't somehow also knicking the original tippet.

Just finished a trip to a MT lake. Day one I was using just one fly so no issue but yesterday morning there was a small midge hatch and I wasn't getting bit on my beadhead jig PT like the day before. So decided to tie on a dropper to the eye of the PT. I only got two bites the rest of the morning. Both fish broke off and on inspection it was the lower fly AND there was no evidence of any of the tippet from the dropper fly. This has not the first time this has been happening. Using 3X RIO Super Strong Fluoro and wasn't have ANY issue breaking off fish the day before on the same tippet material (so I know its not the material).

So the only explanation I can come up with is that when a fish is hooked on the dropper that while fighting that fish the two knots in the eye of the upper fly are rubbing on each other and causing the line to fail. The problem I have with that explanation is that every time it has been the dropper that has failed. If the original knot was the one worn through then I'd lose both flies and that is not whats been happening.

Anybody had this issue or got some explanation?
 
First of all, I'm jealous that you're hooking fish large and strong enough to break 3X. I didn't reread the link so I don't know what knot you're using to attach the lead hook and the tag of the dropper; could that be your issue (even though you are being careful)? I use non-slip loop knots for the three attachments when fishing a dropper and haven't had the issues you're having (but maybe my trout aren't tough enough).

Good luck!
 
Maybe that's part of the issue. For the two fly setup both knots on the upper fly hook eye have been improved clinch.
 
I’ll be the first to admit that I rarely fish a double nymph or dry dropper rig but the bugger/soft hackle trailer gets a lot of use on certain waters. As I transitioned to pretty much 100% use of barbless hooks for freshwater flies many years back I needed to innovate a solution to a common issue with barbless hooks and two fly setups. A typical approach to attaching a dropper tippet to the point fly has always been an improved clinch knot around the hook bend. However with barbless hooks, that knot had a propensity to slip off the barbless hook point and I got tired of having to retie dropper tippets that just slipped away. The inspiration for the solution came from something common in the articulated fly arena—building the dropper tippet into a point fly when you create it.

When I tie a #10 or #8 bugger I will often include a dropper tippet as part of the fly. A long piece of tippet is threaded through the hook eye and both ends (one short/one long) laid back along the hook shank. If using a bead, the tippet is also threaded though the bead. It is secured with thread wraps before the remainder of the fly material is added. Although I do this mostly with buggers, I have done it with typical nymphs down to size 16. These pre-tied point flies are stored in small zip locks just like typical leaders. On the water, on the day one can choose what flies to add as droppers. The tippet will not come loose and can be trimmed away if need be.

There are two significant advantages to this approach. 1) It is a whole lot easier to pre-tie the dropper tippets in the comfort of the tying bench than with cold hands on a windy day on the water. 2) They don’t come off.
IMG_1202.jpeg
 
Mike Cline said:
I’ll be the first to admit that I rarely fish a double nymph or dry dropper rig but the bugger/soft hackle trailer gets a lot of use on certain waters. As I transitioned to pretty much 100% use of barbless hooks for freshwater flies many years back I needed to innovate a solution to a common issue with barbless hooks and two fly setups. A typical approach to attaching a dropper tippet to the point fly has always been an improved clinch knot around the hook bend. However with barbless hooks, that knot had a propensity to slip off the barbless hook point and I got tired of having to retie dropper tippets that just slipped away. The inspiration for the solution came from something common in the articulated fly arena—building the dropper tippet into a point fly when you create it.

When I tie a #10 or #8 bugger I will often include a dropper tippet as part of the fly. A long piece of tippet is threaded through the hook eye and both ends (one short/one long) laid back along the hook shank. If using a bead, the tippet is also threaded though the bead. It is secured with thread wraps before the remainder of the fly material is added. Although I do this mostly with buggers, I have done it with typical nymphs down to size 16. These pre-tied point flies are stored in small zip locks just like typical leaders. On the water, on the day one can choose what flies to add as droppers. The tippet will not come loose and can be trimmed away if need be.

There are two significant advantages to this approach. 1) It is a whole lot easier to pre-tie the dropper tippets in the comfort of the tying bench than with cold hands on a windy day on the water. 2) They don’t come off.
Click to expand...
Nice solution. I thought you were going to say you tie in an easy attachment point at the tail of the point fly, some kind of eye loop or a loop of mono or braid for something to tie the tippet onto.
 
I keep it simple, tying the primary fly with a 6 turn lubricated slip knot leaving a 12" to 18" tag end and tie the dropper to that.
 
You mentioned that "there was no evidence of any of the tippet from the dropper fly". This makes me think the 3x is not breaking, but rather the knot is slipping out of the eye. Could the knot be slipping out here?
1784744830228.png

Some hooks are notorious for having too big of a gap here.
 
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