hi everyone. iv recently got into upstream nymphing with a fair level of success however last night I drew a complete blank on my local river with the nymphs which is unlike my past experiences. what I want to find out is, is there a basic setup that is tried and trusted I.e. leader lengths, dropper points etc. or is it just a matter of what river you fish. I have also read that your heaviest fly should be on your middle dropper. what's the reason behind this. any help would be much appreciated

.I normally fish with 2 flies, the heaviest on the point and the dropper will be between 4 and 6 inches long,there is nothing wrong with having the heaviest fly on the dropper but doing it my way its a lot easier to cast imho.The length of my leader is normally a foot longer than the rod length.

yeh that's roughly how iv been approaching It with my leader about 10 ft a gold head on the point and another nymph about 2 ft above that. alot of times in faster water I am constantly snagging on the river bed though which is a right pain.

Use as short a leader as the fish will let you get away with. Unless your river has holes that are 6 feet deep or the fish are extraordinairly spooky, nymphing rigs that are 10 - 12 long are probably longer than you need. Also, excessivly long leaders delay the indicator reaction. See below.

If you're constantly snagging on the bottom, you're too heavy or you're not mending the line so the line drag is "towing" your flies so the points snag the first bit of bottom they touch. Occasional snags are good as that tells you're in the zone, constant snags are bad.

Fish can be sensitive to tippet size. Change down a size and see if that's putting them off. I'm always amazed by the guys who will use a 12+ foot leader claiming that it helps avoid spooking the fish, but then they use 6 pound tippet. May as well use steel cable.

If you want to be successful in river nymphing, and by that I mean catch fish, then use and more importantly learn to read an indicator. If you are waiting for the indicator to get pulled under as in your English stillwater fishing, then you're doing it completely wrong and you're probably missing 80% of the fish on a river.

The best indicators bar none are the Bighorn style yarn indicators. Plastic float types don't do it for me because they sit on the water instead of in the water. That makes a significant difference in presentation and sensitivity when you're trying to achieve as close as possible to a dead drift.

Hope something there helps.

on top of what FG says, you have to experiment with depth. If you're constantly snagging bottom, loose some weight. If you're fishing weighted flies in slow to moderate drifts, then go to unweighted and add a tiny split shot. I prefer unweighted flies most of the time and add shot to the line. That lets me vary the depth a bit.

You also vary the distance between the indicator and the shot or top fly. In slower water I'll start with the same distance between the indicator and shot as the depth of the water or depth of the fish. In faster water I'll make is 25% longer to start. From there, modify the depth according to how things are drifting and how the fish are reacting. You normally want the shot and fly to be ticking along the bottom and not hanging up.

I fish a heavier or bigger fly on the top and then hang a dropper off it's bend. The dropper will almost always be very light and unweighted, often a size 16 or 18. You use the front fly to set the depth and the dropper is along for the ride.

Thanks
Rick

thanks guys. both brilliant replies with plenty of info. iv been using indicators that float on top of the water but I also have a set of fulling mill indicators. I'm sure you know the ones I mean. I only use the floating ones because it is easy to manage te depth control. I do however understand how this can affect the presentation of my nymphs. is there an easier way to use the filling mill indicators I have, the only way I can see of changing the depth is to set up again whereas the others jus slide up and down. thanks again guys

Gerry

Take a look at the czechnymph.com site.It will give you some valuable guidance.Another good insight is via wileysflies.com.Vince Wilcox is a very innovative fisher and tyer.Have a browse through and check out some of his aricles and tutorials.Yes he is in the US but no matter it works here just the same.

JP