The Ninja, Dry-Dropper rigs, Brown Trout, and the Savage…

It’s been a while, so ….

It has been a while since I posted. For various reasons, one being the big goober dog that we adopted (he’s a handful as of this writing and demanding of my spare time). So this post is going to combine various topics and ramble a bit.

Tanuki Ninja (not a review)

So I got a Tanuki Ninja rod a little while back and haven’t had much opportunity to use it. Until now. I was headed to a river that had brown trout, that was a little bigger than my usual mountain streams, and where I figured I’d do some nymphing and dry fly fishing, or as it turned out both at once. So I took the Tanuki Ninja out for the day.

I have sworn off doing reviews of any kind here at Casting Around. What I will do instead is just talk about stuff that I use and how I use it and maybe describe its features. And what I like or don’t like about it. But I’m not very interested in doing full blow reviews of things where I tell people to spend their money on something or not. Think of it as just a guy talking about something that he uses. And frankly I’ve never been much of a gear head.

In the case of the Tanuki Ninja I bought it at full retail during the Kickstarter campaign. I did not get discount or anything, but I am friends with Luong Tam of Tanuki Tenkara, just to be fully open about things.

On this particular day the fish were not overly interested in dry flies – at least the ones that I was throwing at them. So for reasons I’ll discuss a bit more later I went to a dry-dropper rig. The set-up was basically 12′ of #3.5 fluorocarbon level line, 3′ 5X nylon, big foam body dry fly, then a dropper of about 18″ 6X fluorocarbon tippet with size 14 bead-head nymph (2.5 – 2.8 mm tungsten bead).

A fairly large dry was needed to suspend the beadhead nymph in the pocket water that I was fishing. Smaller dries were easily swamped. A smaller dry could have probably done the job if I was using unweighted or more highly weighted nymphs, or in more placid water.

Of course I was using my goto nymph. It is unnamed at this point. It’s similar to a shop-vac nymph. But I really came to it by way of taking a bead-head pheasant-tail that I learned of from Charlie Meck and then adding the peacock thorax like a Troth’s pheasant tail. I figured an orange hot-spot would be nice and the finally the Shop-Vac lent it the white tuft. Maybe I’ll just call it the APGT Nymph (All purpose go-to nymph). Because when I tie on a small nymph this is the one that it will be 95% of the time.

So how did the Ninja do?

In short it did quite well. I had no problem landing fish. Well, no problem related to the rod (the numerous large rocks for fish to dive under and the impossible wading conditions resulted in some problems).

The Ninja cast the dry-dropper rig very well and had enough zing to create the loops that I needed to get under low hanging stream-side trees even with the cumbersome two-fly rig.

Hook sets were unremarkable. Which is meant as a very good thing. The only time I notice hooks sets is when they don’t happen. I noticed no hook set issues even with a big dry-fly and bead-head nymph dropper.

My only complaint so far is the grip. And of course this is a matter of taste. But for me personally I would rather a grip that is about 2-3 inches longer and maybe 10-15% larger in diameter.

A Balancing Act

Rivers have their own personalties and moods. Some are easy going and some are a bit prickly. Some are tempestuous and some even tempered. It’s easy to fall in love with one type of river or one size or even one section or one season.

Sometimes it can be challenging to move from the places that you are used to to new rivers and new types of water. Sometimes the same old style and techniques will work but sometimes they don’t – or even when they will work – they are not optimal or maybe just not the best fit for the river or conditions or maybe just not the best fit for your mood.

For me there is a balancing act between techniques, rigging and enjoyment. Obviously I want to catch fish – but then there is a limit to how much gear, or how many doodads I want to have and how many different techniques I can really learn to do effectively. That balance is going to be different for each angler. And maybe it comes and goes too. I know I go through phases where I’m satisfied and then at other times I’m restless. I think visiting a new type of river can really spur me on and make me try new techniques or maybe revisit ones that I haven’t really used much lately.

Dry-Dropper

In short all that I’m talking about when I say “Dry-Dropper” rigging is to fish a dry fly with a subsurface fly of some sort tethered to it and drifting underwater below it. The subsurface fly can be a nymph, emerger or wet-fly. Essentially the dry fly is acting as a suspension strike indicator— that is a bobber. With one advantage that if the fish strikes at the bobber you may actually hook it.

Fishing a dry fly with a subsurface fly beneath it is nothing new. When I first started fly fishing back in the early 90’s I’m pretty sure I heard about it from Charlie Meck – either in one of his Pennsylvania fishing guidebooks or in an article. He later then wrote a book on the topic called Fishing Tandem Flies: Tactics, Techniques, and Rigs to Catch More Trout. Here’s the link to Amazon if you’re interested —>> https://www.amazon.com/Fishing-Tandem-Flies-Tactics-Techniques-ebook/dp/B007XXQVPA

Mostly I was using tandems (dry-dropper) during hatches. I’d match the hatch with an appropriate dry fly and drop an unweighted emerger from the dry fly. I had some fantastic days on Spring Creek during the sulphur hatch with this rig. The emerger usually accounted for the vast majority of the fish.

During non-hatch periods though I was mostly nymphing. Or if I happened to be on small mountain stream I may have been using a dry fly. The tandem of dry fly and nymph was reserved mostly for the hatches. Fast-forward about 28 years (wow has it really been that long?!?! I should be a much better angler at this point) and I’m using the dry-dropper rig again but for slightly different reasons and at different times.

Dry-Dropper Rigs with Tenkara Gear?

If you’re new to tenkara or just considering picking it up you may wonder in addition the traditional tenkara flies and techniques what type of other fly fishing rigs and techniques can you fish with tenkara rods. And the answer is pretty much anything appropriate to the size and strength of the rod you have. Wet-flies, nymphs, streamers, dry fly flies and of course dry-dropper rigs. Some things work better than others with certain rods of course – and it has to all be done within reasonable limits – but tenkara rods can be used in many more ways than just fishing tenkara style wet flies.

My typical tenkara dry-dropper rig

Some folks think that doing something like dry-dropper rigs with tenkara defeats the whole purpose of using tenkara gear – that is fly manipulation. And that’s, of course, a perfectly legitimate stance. And I’m not into trying to change anybody’s mind – different strokes for different folks. But tenkara rods can be very effective tools for dry-dropper fishing and do offer some advantages like the long reach of a long rod and light line. This long reach can be used to great effect in pocket water like that shown in the picture at the top of the page to avoid drag from all the opposing currents.

Some folks worry about strike detection with suspension nymphing. There are trade-offs to everything I suppose. But at the time of the year when fish are engaged with hatching bugs and are willing to come up higher in the water column for a drifting nymph then I think strike detection isn’t too bad at all. If the nymph is floating above the fish and it must come up to take the nymph then it will turn back down to where it was hanging out -and so the suspension indicator will very easily indicate the strike. When fishing this way I’m not running the nymphs very deep.

Why Dry-Dropper rigging?

So the short answer to this is that I’m really enjoying it lately. And really that’s reason enough as far I can figure it. When it comes to fly fishing I just follow my interest as it it meanders about. For a while I was thinking a lot about fixed-line contact nymphing (you know that euro-nymphing thing) and I still am I guess. But lately I’ve done a bit of the old suspension nymphing thing and it’s been a blast. I’m enjoying exploring a different style of fly fishing and how it can be done effectively with tenkara rods.

But in addition to just being interesting to me at this time – there are a few practical reasons that I break out the suspension nymphing tactics.
Some of the reasons:
1) Slow Water
2) Snaggy Water
3) Difficult wading conditions
4) Relaxation and easier on my old eyes

Slow Water:
Some water is just too slow for me to enjoy the normal short-line, contact nymphing that I like to do with a tenkara rod. Not that it can’t be done but – I just don’t enjoy that kind of nymphing when the water gets below a certain flow velocity and I’m not as good at it in those conditions. But put on a dry fly and drop a small nymph from it – now suddenly I’m having fun again – and catching fish. In the past I would have just skipped this water – and sometimes still do – but if I’m in the mood to change my rigging a bit then I know I can sometimes have some great fishing in that water.

Snaggy Water:
This has been my primary reason lately. Snags are no fun at any time. But they especially suck on tenkara rods. When you nymph streams and rivers that are composed jumbled rocks of all sizes and shapes snags are going to happen a a lot. Or some streams get that coating of algae on everything and then every cast the nymph comes up with a clump of algae which is a pain in the butt .

The dry dropper rig allows you to fish a nymph but suspend it over the snags and algae. It’s pretty darn effective in pocket water too – especially when fish are active and engaged with bugs higher in the water column.

Difficult Wading Conditions:
Sometimes, because of wading conditions it can be tough to get properly positioned for good drifts while short-line contact nymphing. And I’ve found that at these times a dry-dropper rig fished on a long tenkara rod can be quite an effective way to get great drifts over and across tricky currents. If you’d just cast your nymph it may tend to pull back at you but the big dry fly can anchor things and give you great drifts.

Relaxation and easier on my old eyes:
Finally there’s fact that euro-nymyphing can require quite a bit of focus and concentration and can tire you out mentally. Plus for me and my worsening eyesight it can fatigue my eyes. So sometimes I find that after a a day (or a few hours) of intense contact nymphing switching to suspension nymphing with a nice easy to see dry fly can be a relaxing change of pace.