Started fly fishing in April this year and have caught a few on stillwaters and couple of small ones on the local river/stream. I think I need to start upstream fishing on the river to get better results. Never dry fly fished before so need some advice!

I have a #5/6 8ft rod with a braided loop floating line. So here are the queries:

I've read about the effect of the leader hingeing if tied to a braided loop. Is there a knot that could be wrapped around the loop to prevent hingeing?

I have 10lb flourocarbon, 8 lb mono and 4lb mono - would this be suitable for making up a tapered leader for the small river?

Do I need a tapered leader at all or would normal mono suffice?

No doubt this has been asked before but I'm wet behind the ears!!

Cheers

Bart

http://dryflyexpert.blogspot.com/ but i go against what Richard has to say about braided loops if the right ones are used and their fitted correctly

Neil

A few points of advice for river dries.

1)Avoid drag
2)Avoid drag
3)Avoid drag


Have a look at the articles by Jeremy Lucas in Fly Fishing and Fly Tying mag'.
Very well done.

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Cracking blog from dry fly expert. Opinions on lengths of leaders, whether tapered or not etc seem to vary loads!

Does anyone fish upstream with leader of uniform thickness, ie straight mono line or is that an instant no no in dry fly land?

My local river is only about 20' across with some decent pools but quite a lot of overhanging branches in the interesting bits. I can see a few snags coming but I'm determined to get the hang of this!

Bart

You'd struggle to fish with a level leader of appropriate diameter. At this time of year you may well be fishing with size 16 or 18 dries where the appropriate diameter of tippet would be 6x or 7x. I can't imagine fishing would too much of a joyous experience with even a breath of a downstream breeze with much more than 3ft of such thin material. Similarly, 'firing' a small fly into a tight corner, under a bush demands the kinetic ability of a tapered leader.

Leader length is determined by the circumstances and conditions in front of you and will undoubtedly vary during the day as you move from pool to pool or the weather changes or you're faced with overcoming some particular issue with drag.

Myself, I usually start out with a 9ft leader tapered to 5x and add appropriate tippet. If 9ft is too long I shorten it from the butt section. I attach the leader to the fly line using a C&F nail-knot tool and seal it with Zap a Gap.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

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I'd consider buying a furled leader off mrtrout on this forum. You can then add a similar length of straight mono, fluoro, copoly, whatever. Mucilin, or similar, on the furled leader, Leadasink, or similar, on the tippet, put it on, wipe it off, repeat as needed.

It helps enormously if there's an upstream breeze and the sun isn't casting your shadow towards the fish. This will happen about twice a year if you go every week . Take your time to get to a position where you can cast slightly upstream of rising fish without 'lining' them. A bit of slack in the line is advantageous, chucking in an upstream mend might buy you a second or two extra drift before drag sets in. Wait until your flies are well behind your target fish before lifting off as smoothly as possible (this is where Mucilin on the furled leader helps). Use the eyes in the back of your head to judge your back cast to avoid "tree trout". Don't have eyes in the back of your head? Me neither so tie some extras!

When the inevitable happens and you get a take just lift into it and try to maintain a modicum of pressure as the damn thing flick-flacks across the surface before bouncing away to freedom. Repeat until you are happy, insane, or it's too dark.

If there's nothing rising, add a small weighted nymph to the bend of a dry buoyant enough to keep it up and fish "The Duo". It's like upstream dry with stabilisers on. You have to use all the techniques for upstream dry so you can practice avoiding drag, lining fish, casting shadows and the rest. If you arrive at a steady riser it's a moments work to snip off the nymph and fish in a manner The Piscatorial Society would approve of. Those fish are still there even when they are not rising and eat most of their food without breaking the surface. The rewards can be surprising. Here's one from yesterday. I had one to the dry and six to various nymphs.



I still consider myself very much a beginner at this.

SharkeyP

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Stay at home the Trout obliges.

Now that's the kind of fish I'm needing!

Good advice guys. Thankyou for taking the time. Will look into a furled leader - don't know much about them - and will either go with that or a tapered number.

Looks like I'll have to get a new floating line or remove the braided loop to avoid the hingeing effect.

As soon as I'm successful I'll let you know. Don't wait up!!!

Bart

I can't for the life of me,understand what has a braided loop to do with hingeing.unless you have loads of unsupported braid before the loop.
If the loop is fitted properly.it should have no detrimental effect on you casting/fishing.

Jim

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3lbgrayling. Hoped you'd reply as I think your local to my area.

I read somewhere that a loop can cause hingeing and most people prefer to tie a needle knot to secure the fly line to leader . I've been using a clinch knot or loop to loop so far for wet fly downstream stuff but I'm completely new to dry fly upstream fishing. I take it I can attach a tapered leader to the loop then?

The best braided loops are the Roman Moser Minicons, I've used them in the past but now prefer to simply nail-knot the tapered leader to my fly line.

The benifit of the Roman Moser Minicons is that they are short, many of the braided loops on sale are 4" long or so and they are completely horrible. Why have fly line, 3 inches of braid then a loop to loop connection with a leader ... a recipe for poor energy transmission and hinging.

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]