Dry Fly fishing is almost never dry.

Photo: Richard Faulks Trout and Salmon Magazine

Photos by Don Stazicker

The Floating Fly is what we all love to use, however “one major conclusion from our four years of photo and video research is that dry fly fishing is almost never dry”. 

The natural is dry, the artificial not.

When we are looking at and recording the dry fly, defined as an artificial fly that is perfectly dry and sits on the surface and completely above it, our long series of experiments showed conclusively that this just does not happen. All flies penetrate the surface when cast in normal ways and environments, however good the caster and however skilled the tyer. Because of that they are, paradoxically, preferentially taken by trout because the trout identify them as less likely to escape, and therefore vulnerable, and therefore providing more nourishment for less energy spend, and less risk of energy waste. Therefore the success of "dry fly fishing" in catching trout is actually reinforced by our failure to fish the fly as we intended…dry: floating, yes, dry no. Vulnerability successfully suggested every time.

Over the last century and a half, millions of hours have been spent by fly-tiers trying to make artificials look as if they are about to fly away—precisely the opposite of what the trout is looking for. Instead, the key to successful fly design, and to presentation, is to suggest vulnerability.

Consequently and in a related logic, there is a clear tendency evident from our filming for trout not to divert too far from their central feeding line to intercept fully hatched duns. This is in contrast to their willingness to travel several feet to a nymph or to a fly identifiable by its prey image as having a failed to emerge or become trapped.  

The last word on the perfect dry fly to imitate the dun is, that it is broadly speaking unachievable within the presentation skills of the normal fly fisher. It cannot, in practical terms, be sustainably presented on, rather than in the surface, above the trout’s mirror, because it will penetrate the film… and even if you could achieve that, you could be doing something else more likely to be effective because it better suggests vulnerability. 

Only if you have stood with cameras beside the landing zone and had your friend cast his perfect fly hundreds of times as perfectly as he can, do you get to understand how far short of perfection we fall. Most of the time the fly lands with some kind of a splash that mashes it into the surface. Even when it does not splash down, its weight, which is 3 to 4 times that of the natural, presses any bits of it that stick out, down through the surface. The hook is going to stick through the surface, whatever your partner does, unless his pattern is one of those upside-down duns which we find mainly don't work. 

So, effectively, the trout is never going to see an artificial that is only a set of foot-speckles, and will always see something sticking down through the surface

As mentioned above, trout that are on the fin and feeding on nymphs, emergers, failed hatchers and casualty duns will, our videos show, travel many feet to take a nymph, quite a way to take a failed hatcher, that is trapped with identifying bits visible in or below the mirror: but not very far at all to take a hatched dun. This is for two good reasons. Firstly, the trout will have wasted energy swimming over to inspect many such things in its life so far, only to have them fly away. Secondly, if it is floating past on the mirror and outside the trout’s window, any distance to the right or left of it, the fish will very likely not be able to pick it out because of its the narrow angle of vision from high in the water and intervening bubbles and flotsam. Under water video shows this clearly. It will not identify itself as fitting a prey image by coming into the window for inspection, unless the fish expends energy taking its window to the possible prey for a better view. 

So, if you have a perfect dun to offer the trout, you had better cast it with supreme accuracy: for all practical purposes, within a corridor about as many inches either side of the fish, as the fish is deep. It needs to drift down within the diameter of the trout’s window. 

Make no mistake, we are not saying that trout do not eat duns, of course they do. They just do not necessarily eat them preferentially or go out of their way to intercept them. If they come pretty much straight down the food lane and appear at the forward edge of the Plain Sight Zone of the window no fish is going to fail to eat them. Sure, trout will eat the hatched dun if they don't have to swim too far for it, and they will eat your artificial one too as the real thing, if it gets cast close enough to their feeding line and it floats high enough. But mostly it won’t, and they won’t.

Our approach to fishing with floating flies in and on the surface is a non-binary approach: not perfectly dry (unachievable) and not fully wet (undesirable)—in a word, suggesting maximum vulnerability. And we want where possible to make the fly sit in the film and move in a way that the most common prey items move, so as to get the trout’s attention and demand a rise. Several new fly designs have resulted, of which the class leader is:-

Pop Up Emerger: The close turns of wire at the bend of the hook are crucial to the correct behaviour of this fly.

This pattern has been extremely successful in hatches of upwings in the UK and on the spring creeks of New Zealand and Montana. What is amazing about it is that, if cast in a way that allows it to drop from a height, or in close quarters with a tuck cast, it penetrates the surface and sinks to an inch or two – but then pops back up through the surface and sits there, held by the CDC wing. This really gets the trout's attention. Basically, we think it succeeds at least partially in representing the one thing that it is hard for the angler to achieve – a nymph rising up and ecloding through the surface. The cherry on the cake came when we filmed this fly from under water. We saw, every time it was cast the right way, as it penetrated the surface a flash of light from the silver coating of air surrounding the CDC wing. That flash popped back up to, and through the surface, leaving the fly, sitting in the film with the abdomen sub-surface and the wing supporting it clearly visible above the surface. In practice, it works a treat: it gets the trout's attention; it performs an action that the trout is looking for; and then looks for all purposes like a delayed or failing emerger as it comes down into the window, its CDC wing appearing over the edge of the window as normal. There was only one possible name for it: the "Pop Up Emerger". 

Ah, I nearly forgot the 11 questions!

1. Choice of equipment: Rods, reels, fly lines, fly floatants, clothes, glasses and other useful items?

Rods; 3Wt-5Wt, 6’10”-9’, Orvis Helios 3F, Sage TXL, Hardy Zenith Sintrix. There are some brilliant less expensive rods, but a very few of the latest high end rods will put the fly where your eyes put it every time. Must be non-flash.

Reels; Orvis Mirage, Lamson various. Must be non-flash.

Fly lines;  Airflo Dry Fly Elite, Rio Gold. The loop must not unroll flashily towards the fish, so dark in colour.

Fly floatants; Loon Lochsa, Dry powders.

Clothes: Dark, Camo.

Glasses: the best polaroids.

2. Leader material, build up, length and knots? 8’ Polyleader light trout, plus minimum 7’ Trouthunter Fluoro tippet, usually 5X. Longer stronger tippet rather than thinner and shorter.

3. Approach and stealth?

As close as possible. Avoid noise, wave-pushing, and skylining.

4. Reading the water.

We treat extensively of this aspect in “Trout and Flies, Getting Closer”.

5. Casting ability; which casts are essential?

Dump, Side, Bounce-back, and Tuck (we find it hard to deploy the Reach without causing drag to set in early through exerting a straightening pull on the leader).

6. Entomology, what should we know?

How species behave. Which species do trout get selective to, in response to that differentiating behaviour. How do different species most often get to be vulnerable. Terrestrials are a whole diverse subject too!

7. Rise forms: Can they tell us something?

Some simple things, but not as much as earlier writers said - and the human eye can’t see them clearly enough to interpret.

8. Fly selection, Size, shape, materials, which flies are essential?

Whatever suggests a vulnerable form of what is currently in the fish’s larder.

9. Presentation and drifts?

Drag free, and learn about refraction or you will line fish.

10. Upstream or downstream?

Upstream for preference, but whatever it takes to get the fly over the fish accurately and drag-free. We fish a great deal perpendicularly across-stream.

11. Fighting fish?

Keep them upstream, use the middle power bend of the rod, don’t use silly little nets.