Having just started grayling fishing, which predominantly means watching for takes rather than feeling for them (long and short nymphing). For those of you who fish nymphs regulary on stillwaters, do you see or feel majority of your bites? If watching for bites are you watching the bow in the line between the rod tip and the water or some other indicator?

Cheers

Mark

Hi doc,
I do watch the loop of line at the rod tip,but if you are fishing the nymphs slowly i try to watch the end of the fly line more now,if it stops,dips,or anything unusual i lift.When you get the hang of it you will be surprised how many times there is a fish on the end.
Good luck gary.

Thanks Tailingloop.
The problem i find with watching the end of the flyline is i can't see it, especially when it is 25-30 yds out. Have used bright minicoms but still difficult to see. Any suggestions?

Have read of these - you can make a high vis 'indicator' that you put into you leader set-up - there are degrees of sophistication - see what suits you best!

French Nymphing

indicators

or for a more interesting read

Fly fishing?[B]

Tight Lines.

I may have mentioned Loon Strike Out in one of those threads.

I'm the wrong side of the big 60 and I find it invaluable on rivers for spotting takes. It's not a float..just a small pice of high viz yarn that I loop into my leader about a foot from the fly line. I can see it go under or shoot upstream quite easily, even from some distance.

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Roy

I am surprised you need to fish 25-30yds for grayling. I tend to try and find a shoal much closer and once you have managed that can fish literally on top of them without spooking. Then watching the line dip is far easier.

Spotting takes whilst grayling fishing is slightly different to doing it stillwater fishing.

Salmo Trutta is dead right, grayling fishing is generally at much closer range than 25 yards, often as little as 3 or 4 yards and the secret is keeping in contact with the flies which can be quite hard work involving retrieving line and holding the rod high. If you do this keep your eye glued to the end of the fly line which can be hi-viz or use an indicator. Any check, sideways movement or unnatural behaviour of the line or indicator needs a strike as does any flash or movement in the water near the flies.

On stillwater, you again need to keep in contact with the flies but takes are often less easy to see as you do fish at longer range. If there is no surface drift your line should be straight and you will feel takes as much as see them. If there is a surface drift it will put a bow in the line and a straightening of this bow is often the indication of a take. As you tend to see or feel stillwater takes late you need to be smart on the strike as the fish may already be ejecting the fly.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

What i meant in my first post was bite detection on stillwaters when nymph fishing. I have fished stillwaters for the last 20 yrs and have relied on feeling most of my bites when nymph fishing. Now that i have started grayling fishing where you see most of your bites; it has got me thinking, how many fish must i be missing when only relying on feeling for bites on stillwaters? If you only striked at those grayling bites that you felt you wouldnt catch many at all. Does this translate that we on hook a small percentage of fish on a stillwater when only feeling bites?

In regards to watching for a straightening in the bow of the flyline. When this happens i usually feel the bite as well because for the bow to straighten it has to be fixed at one end (i.e.the line in your hand, therefore you feel it) and there will be considerable drag on the flyline.

I think it is fair to say that in any form of fly fishing, the angler probably has far more fish take the fly than he suspects, which is one reason, I feel, for pulling flies being pretty successful in producing firmer takes than those which occur when fishing static or slowly. There is little to help the angler when a cruising fish takes as it approaches the rod tip, for example. Not many trout, in my experience, hook themselves on static wet flies, but a fair number do when mouthing flies under retrieve.
Think of salmon fishing, also. I am honest enough to say that over 95% of the salmon I have caught on fly have hooked themselves, as I never pull salmon flies, unless in the very rare position of having to back-up on a slow stretch of water. Of course, the current in a river helps set the hook when a salmon arrests the fly. TC