Having spent the cold months learning the basics of casting and pulling lures, and through the spring learned to fish buzzers, I've now moved onto attempting to master dry-flies.

The venue is a well-stocked 7acre syndicate farm-reservoir that has a strong catch-and-release ethic, with most fish around 3lb and a good head of bigger fish up to over 15lb, mostly rainbows but with browns coming to the fly as well. So, largely educated resident fish.

I'm using an Airflo floating line, with the usual problems of a tendency to snake if left out on the water so, once the fly has settled, I begin a slow figure-of-eight retrieve, to keep the line straight.

I've been getting plenty of takes on dry flies, but estimate that I'm only hooking around one in ten.

As a lover of centrepin-trotting, I admit that I'm sometimes a bit too quick to instinctively react to an explosive take with an immediate strike, but I do try to restrain myself with a 'one-two-three-strike', especially if I can see a fish slowly up through the water to a rising to the fly.

In fact I've tried various timings but without significantly increasing my take/hooking ratio.

I've also wondered if something like the angle of strike might have an effect, eg instead of striking side-ways, striking upwards.

Or perhaps, the force of the strike, a gentle lift instead of a whack!

Or perhaps something else subtle, or glaringly 'self-evident' that I've not yet considered?

OK, the frustration of missing takes is one of the things that pulls me back to the lake to fish more often than my wife (or other sane person) would think reasonable, and once I'm hitting most takes I'll probably get bored and go and try driving myself crazy fly-fishing for mullet.

But I'd like to hear views from those who have already cracked it as to what other ingredients in the mix are likely to improve conversion of takes into hook-ups when fishing dries.

Rod length/action, line rating, length of leader, angle of strike, rod held low or high............ or something else I've missed and need to think about.


(I did try a buzzer around 18" below the fly and savage takes on the buzzer resulted in a lot more hook ups, but that's cheating! )

The most talked about issue in dry fly fishing is when to strike.Trout come at flies in different ways so there are no hard a fast rules.

The rule of thumb is to say "One ,two ,three" between the fish taking the fly and you lifting the rod into the fish. This makes sense on a river as the fish usually commits to the take, if it delays the current will have taken it's meal downstream, so pausing until the fish turns down with the fly would be my advice also.

On a still water the fish usually has time to look, change it's mind, or sample and reject the offering, so normally the strike needs to be speedy. There is a major problem with this statement, and that is that it is not always true and it can depend on how the trout takes the fly.The delay method may have to be employed.

My rule of thumb on a still water is; If the fly is sipped from the surface strike quickly and if the trout comes over the top of fly pause till it turns down then lift. If it is taking sedge you usually don't get an option they will grab and go.

All of the above may give your dry fly fishing a kick start but you can practice for years and not master this style of fishing as it is the most skillful, but doesn't that just make you want to have a go.

BK

I always figure of 8 my flies back in order to keep in contact, by doing this it always me to feel the weight of the fish before lifting in to it.
By using this method you may fond you not missing 9/10 but the fish are missing the fly 9/10, or possibly even trying to sink it before devouring it.
I often get this and if it does happen I leave the fly static for 5-10 seconds and if the fish wasn't pricked 9/10 it does come back for a second try!!

Good luck and tight lines

As one who has spent the last couple of years on a fishery where you can see every take, perhaps the following is worth considering. If you use leader in excess of 6lb, generally many fish will rise in the water to 'inspect' the fly, spot the leader, and the resultant boil as it makes off looks like a take when in fact it's really evasive action! Also, repeated use of leader sinkant is imperative as the least hint of floating leader near the fly has the same effect. As I say, I speak from repeated observation - and I fish dries absolutely static, and can say almost categorically that if the trout takes the fly in, you should get it - it almost hooks itself. The ones you think you've missed are 9 times out of 10 b*****ering off because they've seen something suss!

Thanks for opening another can-o-worms Cravencast.

Bearing in mind there are some big fish in the lake, and the syndicate has a largely catch-and-release ethic with an encouragement to bring fish in quickly to avoid over-stressing, it's generally frowned upon to go down lower than 8lb.

I was using an 8lb fluorocarbon tippet of 0.225mm, but found some 4X Grand Max Soft-Plus fluorcarbon tippet material in The Friendly Fisherman at Tunbridge Wells at just 0.185mm for 8.2lbs.

Thin and supple (for a fluoro), the only problem is that, despite being heavier than water, the weight of the line is too little to break the surface tension by itself.

Frequent application of sinkant, well-laced with washing up liquid is needed, along with a short jerk once the line has settled, just enough to break the surface tension without sinking the fly (hard to get just right all of the time).

But you are right, the fly is often inspected by a slowly rising trout, which turns away contemptuously.

I'm tempted to go down a diameter (0.165mm for 6.6lb bs), but I feel that I really need to possess myself of a 3/4wt rod to balance the light tippet, and then there's that problem of overcoming the surface tension which I would imagine would be more problematical at an even lower diameter.

Hmmmm!

Maybe that's part of the problem.

Instinctively quick strikes tend to occur with the more explosive takes.

The gentle takes are the ones that I'm managing to resist the urge to strike immediately.

I shall work on that

(I had a similar problem when I converted to using circle-hooks when fishing spoons for pike, remembering not to strike or pull on a take was not intuitive!)

Ive been fishing all my life and i still miss takes and get the timing wrong when dry fly fishing. I think the reason for this is that it depends on exactly how the fish takes your fly.

well this is what i put my rubbish timing down to

I found when fish the rivers you need to wait 1 sec for trout to take your fly from the surface but with grayling your strike needs to be instant.

Andy