I've just got back from a very enjoyable day's trout fishing on the Yorkshire Esk, but I encountered two problems which I would like some help with.
1. For a tippet I was using a 4 foot length of Rio Powerflex, 3.4 lb. tied to the end of a furled leader, with a dry fly on the end of it. Despite repeatedly degreasing the last eighteen inches of the tippet with fullers earth mixed with detergent, I completely failed to get the end of the tippet to sink. Quite a few fish were rising in the slow pools. I am no expert at fly fishing, but I could see that the floating tippet next to the fly was a complete giveaway, and this was borne out by the fact that although I had at least a couple of dozen takes, every single one of them came within a second or two of the fly alighting on the water. I got no takes when the fly was drifting down on the smooth water, despite drag-free drifts.
When I got home I degreased a short length of the tippet I had been using and dropped it in the sink. It sank!
Can anyone help with this?

2. Second problem. Despite getting over two dozen takes I only connected with five fish -all small. I just couldn't hit them. I tried striking fast, delaying the strike a bit, delaying the strike a lot, but still kept missing them, despite using an Oppo with its hook hanging down below the surface , which is supposed to aid hooking. Where did I go wrong?

Alan

I can help with the fact that your leader isnt sinking i think. You can buy tungsten putty from tackle stores. Roll this onto your leader i do it about 6 inches from my fly (but its your choice)and the leader sinks like a stone . Experiment with different amounts of putty so that your fly doesnt sink as well.

Hope this helps

Dougie

Sounded like a pretty good trip to me for this time of year!

There are those for and against sinking the leader / tippet, long debated subject on here - the jury is still out. Missing takes is good fun, as long as you get a few.

Sometimes the fish are just bashing the fly and not actually taking, if you offset the point a little it might help snag a few more when they are taking but are flighty (twist the point out of line from the shank slightly)?

__________________

Help fund the WTT study of the Softmouth

You may have accidently got floatant rom your dry fly on your tippet. I as a rule of thumb now put floatant on my dries with my right hand and de-greaser with my left!!

Thanks for the replies fellahs. There must be someone out there who can sink the end of their tippet and is prepared to reveal how it is done!

Alan

Hi

A couple of things that may help:

Firstly what size hook/ fly were you using if you connected with small fish it may well be the missed rises were even smaller and the hook was to big?

Secondly I have tried all sorts of potions to degrease lines and I am one of those that beleives that at times it matters a lot. A method I use that sometimes helps is instead of using say 4 ft of copolymer tippet I use 2ft of drennan subsurface green in say 4 lb then a 2ft tippet of copolymer or flouro. I find that the drennan will almost always sink and gently takes the tippet below the surface...

Andy

Becks and Brown Trout

I read somewhere of tying a couple of overhand knots in the tippet to help take it under.

__________________
"Take not out your 'ounds on a werry windy day" Surtees.

Bill, I can see how your knot idea might work but I would be reluctant to try it as it would surely weaken the line.

Andy; many thanks for your reply and for providing a practical solution to the floating tippet problem. I will get some Drennan subsurface green and give it a try. I also thought of rigging up a wet fly on a dropper about a foot up from the dry fly. Something not too heavy, like a spider pattern, that would take the tippet just below the surface without submerging the dry fly on the point.
Your idea about the fly being too big for very small trout to take seems very likely. I was using a size 14. One of the trout that I managed to hook had the hook outside its mouth. The fish I hooked were between 6 and 7 inches in length. Their mouths were big enough to engulf the fly, but the fish I missed could well have been smaller.

Alan

Some suggestions for floating tippet problem:

As already mentioned, being obsessive about only using the same hand for applying floatant and your other hand for degreasing is obligatory

If you are only using very short drifts, a fly on the dropper can be OK - but it very quickly drags the fly unnaturally (which is usually a bad thing). The same can apply with anything else that sinks the leader very aggressively.

If you really can't sink it (and it seems to be a problem for the fish) - go for a "fly first" presentation (i.e. Parachute cast straight downstream to the fish and then lower the rod tip so the fish sees the "fly first" and the leader afterwards)

Another option is a longish leader (lets say 13 to 15 foot) cast directly up over the head of the fish in a plum straight line from downstream (can eliminate micro drag if you are lucky). A friend of mine does this a lot with a floating tippet section to great effect.

Finally - you can try an "everything off the water but the fly" approach. You'll need a supple French leader type setup and have to cast with the wind at your back (i.e. move your feet!). Hold everything off the surface right up to the fly - as long as its not too windy there will be no drag and no tippet on the water.

Missing takes:

As already mentioned - perhaps a smaller fly (certainly an oppo is a biggish beast - particularly once it is out of the fast popply water). Big klinks and other bushy things often are not at their best in slow, flat glides. Some of the boils or rises to your fly might have actually been last second "refusals" as the fish turned down. A smaller, more sparse dressing in that kind of water could generate more positive, confident takes (that are easier to connect with). Also, with smaller fish, the smaller fly might fit in a bit more easily!

The second thing I would ask is how much fly-line you had laying on the water when you were striking? The more line on the water, the less easy it is to overcome the surface tension and connect (and also the more likely the fish is to feel the weight of it as it takes - and spit the fly out before you've managed to lift enough line, overcome the stretch and set the hook). Try getting much closer (crouch down, move quietly) and hold as much line off the water as possible. Referring back to the "all the leader off the water" approach - this can also be excellent for immediate "contact" on the strike (also removes any chance of the fish feeling the weight of the fly line stuck in the surface of the water).

Hi Ryeman,
IMHO For the size of the fish you were fishing for and the fact that it was a flat pool, I would say that your 0.13mm dia slightly shiny Rio tippet was not the ideal choice.