Three easy steps to covering the entire water column.
Like most people, when I started out Czech nymphing years ago I used bomber flies that were packed to the gills with lead wire wraps and I simply drug them across the bottom. Not that this wasn’t effective, because it still outperformed my standard indicator rig in most situations. But as time has gone on, I have had the pleasure of learning more refined techniques along with developing a weighting scheme that covers all my bases.
One often overlooked aspect of a trout’s anatomy is that their eyes are naturally positioned for them to be looking up. So when people are dragging their flies across the bottom, they are actually not presenting their flies to most trout. Not to say this won’t catch trout, but there is a better way. In this article, I am going to go over three ways to improve your presentation and to get your flies into the right water column for longer. This will in turn present your fly to more trout and improve your catch rate.
You will find competitive fly fishermen with the same pattern tied with different sized beads. They see the importance of fishing throughout the entire water column. I recommend having a variety of weights for some of your confidence mainstay patterns. I further recommend starting each area you are going to fish with a lightly weighted fly and then gradually tying on a heavier fly as you work your way down through the water column. This is by far the easiest way to present your fly throughout the entire water column.
But who wants to continually have to change their flies every 10 casts or so? This brings us to our second technique, which is changing your casting angles. Starting with a light weight fly, cast your fly so that it enters the water at a shallow angle. In order to do this there are multiple ways, but the easiest I think is lowering your casting angle. This can be accomplished by having your rod tip travel more horizontally to the water and closer to the water’s surface than your normal tip path. As compared to an oval cast for example.
The third technique once you get a few drifts through that water column using a horizontal approach, would be to utilize a tuck cast. This will allow your fly or flies to enter at a more vertical angle. Thus lessening the amount of tippet which is in contact with the water, and cut through those faster layers of water. By lessening the amount of tippet on or in the water, one reduces the amount of friction and increases your rigs ability to get to depth before friction with the tippet starts pulling your rig downstream. One has to remember the higher and faster you stop your rod tip. The more your rig will tuck and kick back slightly giving your rig a bit of slack to obtain depth.
These are three ways to present your flies to more trout throughout the water column. Just remember to work top-down. If after conducting both casting techniques you are still not ticking bottom on the last third of your drift, switch out one of your flies for a heavier fly and cycle through the two casting methods again until you are successful. In future articles, I will go over techniques on how to achieve and maintain good contact with your rig throughout the drift.
May your lines be tight and your drag humming.
Eric Poppitz