FLY Fishing Tips

Fly Bobber Fishing
you can fly fish with wet flys by attaching a bobber to aline with a fly on the end

Clean Line
Take a small hand towel with you fly fishing. When your finished fishing, make one last long cast to wet the fly line, then clean the line with your towel while your pulling the line in. This will remove deposits from the line which keeps your line casting smoothly.

Setting the Hook
After casting your fly, keep your rod tip as close to the water as possible and your line as straight as possible in the water. This will increase your chances of setting the hook.

Tree or Bank Behind You?
Fly fishing with a tree or high bank right behind you can be frustrating. Instead of risking your line in getting caught up, strip out some line in the water directly in front of where you’re standing. Raise your rod top high enough so your rod is past your ear, let the line fall behind the rod then cast forward. Your line will loop and roll with the cast, thus getting your fly out where you want it. Keep practicing until you can roll the fly out where you want. Just be careful you don’t catch your ear

Double Duty Fly Fishing
when fishing for trout and they aren't hitting the surface much. try using a 5 foot tippet, tie a nymph or emerger on the end and about 2 feet up, tie on a dry fly with a parachute (large enough to stay floating with the other fly on) the dry fly will double as a strike indicator. It can be a pain to cast right at first but I have caught several stubborn fish in this manner and occasionally you'll get two fish at once.

Dapping
Dapping is the technique of tipping a fly lightly over the surface of the water.

Crosswinds Casting
Crosswinds are a different problem. If the wind is coming from your casting-hand side, it will blow the line and fly into your body with a conventional cast. Try turning around and casting so your backcast becomes the delivery cast, in which case the wind will be blowing the line and fly away from your body.

Tailwind Casting
If dealing with a tailwind, try throwing a low, sidearm backcast, keeping that portion of the cast down and under the wind. Then bring the rod back to vertical for a high forward cast, in which case the tailwind helps carry the delivery.

Casting
If casting into a headwind, throw a high backcast, which a strong headwind will fully straighten behind you. A fully straightened backcast then facilitates a powerful forward cast punched downward, into the wind, toward the water's surface.

Handling Fish
When handling fish, always wet your hands first in order to protect the delicate layer of "slime" covering the fish's body. This layer of "slime" is vital to the fish's immune system. Also be sure to avoid any contact with the gills. These delicate organs are easily damaged. By keeping a fish out of water any longer than 30 seconds, you may risk causing the tiny membranes in the gills to dry out and not function propperly.

Indicator
Why not double your chances of catching a fish? Get rid of that strike indicator and use a large attractor dry fly as an indicator. Then tie an emerger like an RS2 about 18" from the shank of the dry fly hook. If you're lucky, you may wind up with two fish on at the same time.

Checking Gear
Periodically, throughout the day, check your leader and tippet for damage. Just pull it through your finger tips and feel for nicks, knots and abrasions. These little nicks in the line may not seem like a problem, but they will be the weak spot that will break when you have just hooked that trophy fish.

Blend in with Surroundings
Blend in with the surroundings as much as possible. By avoiding white and brightly-colored clothes, you'll be harder for the fish to see, and spook them less.

Sight Casting
When sight fishing, you can see when a trout takes your nymph by watching for the white inside of their mouth to appear. Also, watch for them to move sideways in one direction. They may have moved over to catch your oncoming fly.

Polarized Sunglasses
Don't even bother fishing without polarized sunglasses. Their lenses reduce the glare off the water and allow you to see into the river. You'll be amazed at how much more you can see underwater. They also allow you to see your dry fly on the water when it would normally get lost in a glare.

Tippet Size
In highly fished waters like the San Juan or the Green River, fish have been caught many many times. Eventually they become weary and very particular about what they will eat. If you are noticing that the fish are watching your flies but not taking them, no matter what you do, try putting on a smaller tippet. The tippet can often make the difference between catching a fish and not.

Cold Weather Trout
Try fishing later morning into the afternoon in cold weather. Somtimes the sun warming the water just a degree or two can entice trout to start feeding.

Find Food Soruce
Look around the area you are fishing to try and find what the trout might be feeding on. Look on the vegetation for insects, peek under rocks, and examine grasses hanging over the river. If any insects are floating on the water, catch one and examine it. Use a hand seine under the water, by holding it downstream as you overturn a few rocks and stir a little gravel. This will help you to see what insects are under the water. Then take all of this into account when you go to pick a fly from your flybox. Try to closely match the color, size, and shape of the insects that you found.

Dry Fly Tip
Since silicone will make a dry fly float much better, just dab some line dressing on your fly. It will float your fly very high and it lasts a very long time.

BlueGills on the Fly
Catching big bluegills on a flyrod is a very fun way to spend a day fishing. For flies, i like size 8-12 mini poppers, in black, white, and chartreuse, and a variety of small dries, like the adams or mosquito. Cast in the shallows early in the morning and at dusk, and fish a bit deeper during the day.

Dry Fly fishing
When fishing with dry flies, don't use flaural carbon line because it will make your fly sink.

Fllow the Leader
After you catch a fish, always, always, always check your leader for tooth marks or scratches. It's amazing how you always seem to hook and lose that big mother of a fish to a broken leader, that probably wouldn't have broken if you had noticed the small scratches left during a battle with a previous fish.

Fly Tying Stronger Flies
To tie neater and stronger flies, use the smallest practical tying thread, as few wraps as possible and apply only small amounts of cement to the hook materials and thread connections.