After spending too many unproductive hours last summer exclusively fishing dry flies, I resolved over the winter to learn more about nymph fishing. I recalled reading something from Joe Humphreys years ago to the effect that a man could easily fish out a section of a good trout stream just nymphing (obviously that was many years ago.) I don’t mean to fish any creek out, even figuratively. But fishing where the fish mostly are instead of where I want them to be just makes sense.
So I watched lots of internet videos of nymph fishing. “Czech nymphing” seems to be the hot item these days. So I bought a neon colored leader section, tied a tippet beneath it and bent another tippet onto that such that I could add a dropper to the trimmed tag end. With a split shot a bit ahead of the bugs, I was ready to go!
For some reason, the videos do not show how to remove one or both bugs from budding willow trees; or how to keep the bugs and split shot from balling up into one hellacious mess; or how to keep one of both bugs from hooking your boots, or your fingers, or your hat; or how to keep your scant bit of dangling fly line from sliding back down your fly rod’s guides and getting tangled into the brush at your feet.
My inaugural nymphing outing wasn’t a complete disaster though. I enjoyed a terrific double-decker of Perry’s Ice Cream on the drive home. One scoop was Caramel Praline Turtle, and the other was Sponge Candy. Yummers!
I made a few notes to make the next trip simpler and hopefully more productive as I get the hang of this new thing. Here’s what I’ll do next time:
• I’ll use a leader that’s shorter than my 8’ 6” rod;
• I think I’ll try fishing with a 7’ leader as a beginner. I’ll trim a new leader to 5’ 6” and tie on an 18” tippet. I’ll tie on a single unweighted nymph, probably something familiar like a Hare’s Ear. And I’ll pinch on a split shot of appropriate size just above the knot securing the tippet;
• I customarily walk a half mile or so downstream from my car and then fish my dries upstream back to the car. To learn how best to fish nymphs, I think I’ll walk downstream from the car for about half of my time, then fish my nymph back upstream. In this way I hope to learn which attack plan works better for me;
• I’ll choose for my nymphing classroom a stretch of water that has lots of pocket water and short runs rather than long stretches of shallow riffles interspersed with gigantic pools; and finally
• the Sponge Candy was specially tasty, so I’ll go with it for both scoops.
