Nymphing Technique.

Normally I fish nymphs with short casts either directly up stream or slightly to the side but still towards the current. Short casts, I've found, gives me all the control and contact I can wish for. These short casts are always combined with reach-mending, as this is by far the best technique to avoid having the fly line land over the fish.

I try to use reach mending in all my fishing at streams, since this technique gives me a tool to present the fly in the best possible way without having to mend with the line already in the water. 

However, at times the short casts do not suffice, mostly because the river is quite large and/or wading impossible. So when reaching fish in larger rivers it's necessary to cast sideways into the current. In doing so I always try to create a little curve on the line by techniques of mending, so that if and when dragging occurs it's directed straight downstream.



This can be done in an easier way than on the picture above, only I don't know how to describe this.

After mending I will have a curve that keeps the nymph drifting straight downstream whether my line pulls on it or not. By widening this curve you can affect the nymph in a manner that makes it move slightly faster than the current and as such not sink as fast. At the end of each drift when the nymph starts to rise towards the surface, due to the pull of the line, I try to wiggle the rod tip  ;-)  somewhat, so that the nymph gives a lively impression.



Realize that this technique, while it actually works, isn’t a preferred method if you want to fish your nymph in an absolute dead drift. The water on the surface moves somewhat faster than the water at the bottom of the stream, and as a consequence a drag free strike indicator means that your nymph is dragging. The optimal situation would in this case be to have an indicator that drags against the stream, pulled by the weighted nymph. In order to achieve an absolute dead drift you would have to mend upwards in the stream to avoid the fly line pulling on your nymph, i.e. the exact opposite to the above mentioned technique.

So, what triggers a strike whilst nymph fishing? Of course some of the obvious reasons are that a strike indicator disappears from the surface or that it just stops dead in the stream, but there are also more subtle indications. One indication that I started to use when fishing very fast water with the above illustrated nymphing technique was that although I couldn't always see the indicator or line tip it was easy to spot the point where the line curved upstream. This point of the curve also reacts to a fish striking the nymph by either slowing down or at times even as a jerk upstream.

I use a 10 feet #5 for nymphing in big rivers because it gives me more control but also because it is fast when striking, something needed when there's a lot of line out on the water. I stopped using braided / weighted leaders more than ten years ago since these seem to affect the drift to much and they are very irritating to cast with. Instead I prefer long, fairly thin leaders with weighted nymphs.

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 Tight lines!

 / Roger