hi
I know to most of you this will seem like a silly question but when fishing a dropper- is it tied to the hook bend or better to do a water not and have it coming from the leader?
cheers

If you tie it to the bend of the hook, this is known as 'New Zealand style' and is more popular with river anglers, for example when fishing a nymph under a dry.

When fishing stillwaters, I just use a two-turn water knot to attach my dropper length to the main leader, dampen the knot with saliva before slowly tightening down.

The Pirate.

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Hi', BW. If there was a definition of a dropper somewhere, I suppose it might be that a dropper is a short length of leader material, suspended from the leader, part way between the point fly and the loop that connects it to the fly line, and to which a fly may be attached.
The attachment to the hook bend of a point fly is an extension of the leader.
Like Pirate says, it's the New Zealand nymph connection.
Some anglers, very few, tie on a fly, then tie a second length of mono to the eye of the fly, and then tie on a second fly, and so on. Sort of two, three or more flies in succession, but not on droppers.
Dropper lengths may be made when joining two or more lengths of mono to make a leader. Or a straight through length of mono can be used, and dropper lengths tied in as Pirate says, where you need them. TC
PS The second way is generally quicker to tie up.

as above, but always use the tag pointing to point fly, NOT one pointing to rod
regards
bert

Yup I agree, the other way around is a recipe for disaster.

The Pirate.

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I was interested to see this - I tried this once , i.e attaching subsequent flies to the eye of the previous, mainly because I was not confident with the knot on the bend of the hook. It appeared to work in that I actually caught something! I had no idea that anybody apart from a novice like me would do this. I suppose the New Zealand method might give better presentation - is this why so few people tie onto the eye?

HI',DW.
NZ style is a dry fly supporting a nymph attached to the dry fly hook bend, which usually results in the dry fly sitting horizontal or hackle up, body down if it's an ordinary hackled dry fly, depending upon the balance of the buoyancy of the dry with weight of the nymph. Big Klinks usually sit as designed.
If the nymph was tied to the eye of the dry fly hook, I suspect it might pull an ordinary hackled dry fly into a head down, tail up position, with the collar hackle looking like a parachute hackle, if you see what I mean. Try that tie up, and let us know. It will keep the thread going. Cheers, TerryC

if fishing new zealand style and you tie your own flies add a loop of mono/fluoro to the dry fly to tie the dropper onto, this may help with presentation of the dry (there was a letter about in TF a couple of months back)

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Thanks Terry and Redneck and sorry if I've hijacked the thread.

I do see what you mean Terry. I think my lack of subtlety worked for me previously. I was fishing a large booby cormorant with a small black and peacock spider underneath so the balance was ok. I was trying to fish the spider static a couple of feet down. I think it was Redneck who advised me of New Zealand style as a solution as I was having a few tangles when trying to use a washing line. In the event the fish were taking the cormorant instead.

I have recently been using droppers instead of New Zealand (or modified NZ?) style - not sure whats better. I suppose they are just different techniques for different occasions. I can see the advantage of being able to easily add and change flies at the end of the leader though as long as you can keep the balance. I don't yet tie my own so I can't do as Redneck suggests. Maybe I should have more confidence in tying to the bend of the hook as lots of people do it.

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