I have been experiementing with a combination of wet and dry flies after fishing a couple of places where I noticed that the fish were taking buzzers just below the surface but rarely taking flies from the surface.

I decided to try a shipmans buzzer on the top dropper as they have good boyancy and hung two small buzzers just below so that they kept their depth just below the surface. I fished a slow retrieve and have had a few sucessful days with this method and caught fish both on with the shipmans and the buzzers.

Does anyone else do something like this?

Nik,

Sorry to say but nothing new there ... we do it all the time on rivers with a nymph suspended below a dry pattern.

Many, many stillwater anglers suspend a buzzer below a dry pattern - good to hear that you have had success with the technique.

Kind regards

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Phil Holding
www.flytyingboutique.com
Airedale, North Yorkshire

Try putting your dry fly on the tail of the cast. This keeps the other flies up in the top layers better when the fish are taking the hatching nymphs just under the surface.

As spidersplus says nothing new. My basic cast for the past twenty years is a dry fly on the top dropper, wet fly in the middle and a nymph on the tail. Putting the dry fly on the tail when needed as above. It shows you are observing and thinking about your methods though which is a good thing.

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Don't worry, be happy.
Sandy
Carried it in full, then carry it out empty.

Me too, on a team of three the top dropper is a dry fly! Then a Spider pattern, followed by a nymph!

Some guys on Lough Conn used to fish on a team of 4, dry on top and on point with 2 wets between.

Don't be disheartened Nik - you can still rest assured that you came up with a great idea, even if other folk also came up with the same great idea. Bit like the invention of television, really...

Neil