08-06-2006, 04:58 PM
The answer to hard strikes/no hookups is to envision how a fish eats the offering you're presenting.
It's a slow-moving insect or crustacean, so it's not going to get away. The fish doesn't have to be fast or agressive. (In fact, he may swim along behind it for quite a while before he acts.) So he swims up behind it and just sucks it in by inhaling water and, presumably, the bug, then turns away. It's their natural way of feeding.
But the fly isn't free to be sucked backwards; it's tethered by your line. So you feel the hard strike as the fish inhales, but when you set up there's nothing there at all.
And, as you've observed, it happens most often when the fish are in a neutral mood. On days like that, almost all the fish in the lake seem to behave the same way.
The solution, unfortunately, is harder than the diagnosis. Some recommend dropping your rod tip as soon as you feel the strike. That permits the fish to eat the fly a second time. But that's a counter-instinctive reaction I've never been able to master.
Another approach is a small dropper. I've had the best luck on trout with a Rickards Stillwater nymph about 3 feet back.
But the best way is to tether the fly so that it CAN be sucked backwards: Put a large styrofoam strike indicator at about 1.5X the depth you want to fish, and add weight to the tippet above the fly. Now move along slowly, and when the fish hits, the fly is suspended from above, not ahead. It's free to move backwards, either along the pendulum line or by the submerging of the indicator, or both. This permits you to fish different depths, too, by slowing and letting the fly sink, then pulling it upwards.
Try it and see if it doesn't up your odds.
[signature]
It's a slow-moving insect or crustacean, so it's not going to get away. The fish doesn't have to be fast or agressive. (In fact, he may swim along behind it for quite a while before he acts.) So he swims up behind it and just sucks it in by inhaling water and, presumably, the bug, then turns away. It's their natural way of feeding.
But the fly isn't free to be sucked backwards; it's tethered by your line. So you feel the hard strike as the fish inhales, but when you set up there's nothing there at all.
And, as you've observed, it happens most often when the fish are in a neutral mood. On days like that, almost all the fish in the lake seem to behave the same way.
The solution, unfortunately, is harder than the diagnosis. Some recommend dropping your rod tip as soon as you feel the strike. That permits the fish to eat the fly a second time. But that's a counter-instinctive reaction I've never been able to master.
Another approach is a small dropper. I've had the best luck on trout with a Rickards Stillwater nymph about 3 feet back.
But the best way is to tether the fly so that it CAN be sucked backwards: Put a large styrofoam strike indicator at about 1.5X the depth you want to fish, and add weight to the tippet above the fly. Now move along slowly, and when the fish hits, the fly is suspended from above, not ahead. It's free to move backwards, either along the pendulum line or by the submerging of the indicator, or both. This permits you to fish different depths, too, by slowing and letting the fly sink, then pulling it upwards.
Try it and see if it doesn't up your odds.
[signature]