You arrive at a reservoir and there is no movement, so you decide to fish subsurface. My question is, what decides you whether to use buzzers,nymphs or wets? Is it dependant on the weather or time of year,or what? Also ,having decided,would you start off with a floater or intermediate?

Hi',RD. I don't profess to be an expert on fishing lakes. reservoirs etc; but I think you can approach all in the same way. If there is absolutely no sign of any activity at the surface, it makes sense to me to fish sub-surface. If the water temperature is 50/65 F, then it is at the optimum range for trout feeding. They will eat; and if they are not showing, then they are very likely to be after something anywhere in the water column from just sub-surface to the bottom. You could tackle this situation using a searching team of general purpose patterns that represent food which is available in season or, perhaps better still, all-year-round. Grhe, pheasant tail nymph, and shrimp, hoglouse, snail, caddis, damsel specific or suggestive patterns should find a fish or two.
I would try fan-casting from the bank, fishing in an arc, with a floating line and a team of light wets. A wind will move them around for you, or you could try a slow retrieve. Also try a count-down. If nothing doing in the shallows, try an intermediate and a count-down again a bit further out, covering the water with increasing length of countdown and variety of retrieve rate until you locate fish. If surface activity occurs, try to identify and copy what you see. That could be buzzers producing adult midge, sedges or some other winged insects or fry bashing. Could be daddy longlegs, heather fly or other terrestrials landing on the water. Or you could do what a lot do and go simple all-out lure pulling. TC

just depends, ive been places before that i know fish well on dries, and when u get there there there is absolutly no sight of any movemement atall, and ive still fished the dry there because i was confident and they still take all day, just because theres no movement on the surface doesnt mean that they wont feed from there

I agree, JR, about the dry fly working despite no fish seen moving; which is why I recommended floating line and a team of lightweight wet flies. They will fish pretty shallow. I regularly fish dry fly on rivers when there is no sign of a hatch, but that entails fishing hot spots. RD could also try a big dry fly on the point and a wet nymph or buzzer on the washing line and have two options. TC

I think it depends on the type of still water you are fishing.

But remember that probably 80% of what a trout eats, with the exclusion of big brown trout is chironomids in one form or another, and that means bloodworms, pupa and emergers, the most eaten being pupa, which for some reason are called buzzers - because they don't buzz?

So for me it is a heavy red buzzer or bloodworm on the point, a medium sized one on the middle dropper and something like a Fraser nymph or a Daiwl Bach on the top dropper. This would be a common searching style for myself.

Thanks for the helpful replies guys.