Spring Creek: Edges, Hoppers (and Droppers) and some other thoughts

Fish the edges!

If you’ve been around fly fishing for a while this is probably not news. But if you’re newer to the game then maybe it is a handy piece of advice.

What I mean by “fishing the edges” is to fish the banks. I learned about fishing the banks by fishing Spring Creek. Very often trout can be found hanging tight to the banks (within inches sometimes) and when wading you’ll find yourself spooking these trout. Take the cue and focus on these fish.

If there is cover along the bank, then it’s even more likely that you’ll find fish hanging out there. Cover could be rocky shorelines with lots of nice nooks and crannies, it might be a riffle with a broken water surface, maybe it’s just the shady bank – or maybe as in the photo above it is low overhanging streamside brush.

All the fish I caught were along the bank

If you look up at the photo at the top of the post you’ll see trees and smaller shrubs hanging low over the water. The water was slow and fairly shallow (1 – 2 ft) along the bank. Casting could be a little tough near the branches but the trusty dry-dropper combo worked well here. I was using a very simple size 10 hopper pattern with my favorite bead-head pheasant tail (size 14, 2.5mm bead). Check out this previous post where I discuss some more dry-dropper fishing –>> The Ninja, Dry-Dropper rigs, Brown Trout, and the Savage… .

I’m not saying there aren’t fish in other places beside the banks. Of course there are. But if you look at the photo above you’ll see how the middle portion of the stream is deep, fast and hard to read because it doesn’t have much defined structure. The middle portion of the stream is challenging for those reasons. I did some casting out there – but it was hard to find a way to focus my efforts. When you turn to the banks though you narrow your options and you maximize your casts.

Slow-ish water is a great place for dry-dropper because the current velocity gradient isn’t very extreme and you don’t get the problem of the dry fly dragging the nymph as in faster water. Suspension nymphing seems to be a dirty word to some folks. But that reputation is not so well deserved. Like anything it takes a knack to do it successfully and maybe it’s not always so easy as it may seem but a basic understanding of things can help.

In high-velocity currents the surface velocity will generally be much faster than currents lower down in the water column. The result can be that the suspender (strike indicator or dry fly, etc.) moves faster than the nymph and drags it along causing it to rise out of the strike zone. However, in slower currents along the bank or the slow sides of seams, or back eddies, or the slow bits in pocket water that gradient isn’t as extreme and in those places I love to use the dry-dropper.

Surface Strikes Baby!

On some days the dry in the dry dropper combo is mostly just a suspension device. But on other days the fish start taking the dry too. If I’d just been contact nymphing I would have missed out on some awesome surface takes.

The three biggest fish of my day actually rose to the hopper pattern – so though they were in the minority it was pretty awesome to watch those bigger fish come up and slam the dry fly. If I’d just fished the dry I would have had fewer fish over all – which is fine of course. But the dry-dropper kept me into fish consistently – and it was always a surprise about which they’d take.

Glare!!!

I spent the previous day doing the euro-nymphing thing and I have to say that watching the in-line sighter can be tough. When lighting and background is good, then following that mono sighter isn’t so bad – but quite often lighting and background did not cooperate and I lost the sighter in the glare. Polarized glasses can help but I wear glasses …. I have a really hard time fishing with contacts (can’t see up close) and clip-ons and fit-overs are a hassle … I don’t like the dark lenses either… The short of it is I don’t use them (but I’m looking for a solution to that problem).

A large dry fly is easier for me to see than a sighter when glare is an issue – and so it makes the fishing a bit more relaxing and easier on my eyes.

Revisiting the Dry Dropper Rigging

I thought I’d just present the dry-dropper rigging diagram again. On this particular day I was using my 12′ tenkara rod with about 12-ft of 10-lb Nylon Maxima Chameleon line, then about 4-ft of 5x tippet to the dry then about 18″ 6X fluorocarbon for the dropper.

I rig this a little differently than I see most folks do it. Instead of attaching the proper to the bend of the dry fly hook or tied to the eye of the hook I tie it around the tippet move the dry fly. I do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I mostly use barbless hooks so tying to then bend of the hook seems a bit sketchy and secondly as my eyesight gets worse with age I find it easier to go around the tippet than go through the eye of the hook again.

But there is an added benefit that I found as well. If I want to switch dry flies all I need to do is slide the dropper tippet up a bit then swap out the fly. That way I’m only redoing one knot. If I’d attached the dropper to the dry fly I’d need to deal with redoing two flies. Likewise if I want to switch to a 2 nymph rig I can do the same. It may not seem like a huge deal – but hey the less time I’m messing about with knots the more time I’m fishing.

The Flies

The hopper that I was using was a very simple fly. Basically it’s like a large bushy elk-hair caddis (without a hackle). I like to tie it with a yellow dubbed body when I’m using it as a hopper pattern. The one shown below is tied on a size 10 long-shank hook. I’ve tried foam patterns – but I really like this one – it’s easy to tie and easy to see on the water. And it floats very well.

For the dropper I used my go to fly – it’s a bead-head pheasant tail type fly but with a tuft of antron like the Shop-vac. It differs from the original Shop-Vac nymph with it’s tails and peacock collar.