Caught a real thumper yesterday on my local river while fishing heavy nymphs short style ,the thing is he was foul hooked down low behind the gills, I figure he took the dropper which registerd as a take I struck hard and nailed him with my point fly, I didnt set eyes on him for about two minutes as he bored deep in the heavy current infact I thought I was into a kelt for a while. have any of you had similar experiences with tungsten nymphs.

__________________
When you can see without being seen,strike without knowing why,and guess correctly where the best fish lie,they have taught you all they can.
(T.C. KINGSMILL MOORE)

Yes, I've had it happen occasionally. I'm with you, I suspect most often it's a case of the fish taking one of the higher nymphs and then dropping or throwing it, only to be nailed by the point nymph on the strike.

Also, I occasionally foul hook suckers and chub. I suspect this happens for a different reason, suckers especially tend to congregate in deep holes and in schools of 10 to 100 fish. My theory is that the nymphing rig drifts into a pod and just gets tangled in all the fish. Of course, this registers as a stop-hit and so I strike and drive the hook right into one.

It does give about three seconds of holy moses, I've got a big one. . . Followed by that feeling that something isn't quite right.

Grouse

I think I foul hooked more salmon and sea trout this last winter, whilst fishing for grayling, than I have ever legally caught the tourists. On the Tweed I changed down to a duo of size 16 PTNs with a weighted bug in the middle and the salmon and sea trout just started eating them.