what is the correct tippet length range between the two flies?
could you place the flies 4+ feet apart or is this too long?
ive never fished it before, i will be giving it a go at the start of the season

If I recall Oliver Edwards' comments on this corrrectly, he said 2ft distance. I presume you could use a length to suit the water but be wary that your dink doesn't catch on the bottom and pull your klink under every cast.

__________________
Now sporting a respectable hair cut for a limited time only!

It varies depending on the river that you are fishing. For most medium sized to large rivers - a distance of about 3ft between dry fly and nymph will be about right. This allows the dry fly to "lead" (i.e. travel ahead of) the nymph. This provides the take detection. Match the weight of the nymph to the depth of the water so that it hits fishing depth within about 2-3 seconds of landing. This means that you can keep your casts short and hold all of your fly line and leader off the water right up to the dry fly.

When I use a trio setup a usually have about 4 feet between dry fly and point fly. I vary the position of the dropper depending on whether it carries a soft hackled spider pattern (12 - 18" below the dry) or a small pheasant tail/hare's ear nymph with a 2mm tungten bead (24 - 30" below the dry). This tends to match the feeding depth of fish for drowned adults/failed emergers (spider pattern) or pre-emergent nymphs (small bead head).

In very tiny rivers or fishing in shallow runs - it might be a duo setup with as little as 12 - 18" from dryfly to point fly.

Again - I'll plug my DVD that covers these setups as well as reading the water and controlling the drift etc. Its home made but has received 100% positive feedback from all purchases. PM me for details and see here for some comments:
River fishing DVD

sounds good to me, i mite be dropping you a PM when i find out my bank balance lol! is she still 14 squids?

Yeah - price is 14 squidders including delivery.

Forgot to mention above that my point fly on the TRIO is often quite heavy (maybe a 3 or 3.3 mm tungsten bead - or in extreme cases 4mm). I also tie some specialised klinkhamers that can stand up to repeated casting in broken water.

Tying details are in post number 7 in the following thread:

New Zealand Style?

Picture below (this one has thorax of dyed olive squirrel body fur):



Let me know if you'd like to see photos of dropper and point fly options and if you've any questions about the tying.

The simple answer is there is no answer. It depends where the fish are in the water column vrs how strong the current is vrs the weight of your nymph vrs the depth of the water. If you are still with me.....
The shortest i have even gone to is about 2 ft just pre hatch and at the hight of summer or when Grayling fishing it can be as much as 20 feet.
Go figure.......
Some folk i know fish the nymph as little as 6 inch and are convinced the fish come up for the dry but end up taking the nymph instead. If that were the case i would just fish the dry.
Okay then 4 ft

What I think actually happens is that the fish misses the dry but the line gets into it's mouth as it turns down and the point nymph is drawn in.

__________________
Roy

Interesting one this. Do you guys also experience fish hitting your line below the dry when rising for the dry, hence nudgin' the dry out of position slightly so refusing to take?

For me its a searching method in fast broken water, at the slightest hint they are coming up for the dry i will change to one dry only. I would not fish this method in the middle of a hatch.
If its slower water i am really fishing/searching with the nymphs and the dry is an indicator only.
Maybe they do hit the line below, i dont know, its effective anyway in some situations.
I dont know if that answers your question?

I am convinced on some occasions that then fly has been nudged out of position. Tried putting the dry on a dropper, but this seemed to reduce the bite detection aspect when the nymph was taken. It doesn't happen too often (neither does catching fish presently), but just wondered if people had a experienced/resolved this.