Years ago, a friend and I decided to spend the day fishing a river full of cutthroat trout. It was mid-August, the flows were great, and we were certain we’d have a full day of nice fish eagerly rising to dry flies.
Instead, we spent the day getting skunked, except for a whitefish my buddy landed. Unsure as to why we weren’t catching fish, we headed back to the nearest town, found a fly shop, and did the whole hat-in-our-hands routine.
The fly shop guys were nice enough, but gave me a piece of advice I wasn’t ready for.
“You’re just dead drifting your flies, right?” One of them asked me.
“Of course,” I said, surprised he’d asked that.
“Well, fish this fly and twitch it a bit.” He handed me a Chubby Chernobyl, size 10.
“Twitch it?” I asked.
“Yep. These fish see thousands of fake foam bugs floating over ’em. A real hopper doesn’t just sit there on the water like a mayfly, either. They’re trying to get out. So if you twitch your hoppers, you’ll probably catch a few.”
I wasn’t so sure, but we went back to the river for the last hours of daylight. I picked a run I liked, threw a cast 30 or so feet up, and did just what the fly shop guy told me to. I went against every dry-fly fishing rule I learned growing up (and I grew up in a family where nymphing wasn’t just discouraged, it was downright lambasted), but right after the first twitch, a cutthroat blew up my Chubby.
That pattern repeated itself until it was too dark to fish, and I left that river with a new skill in my pocket that has, over the years, proven invaluable. Just a few weeks ago, while on some water I’d never fished before, I came to a great run that looked too good not to hold fish. It was deep, with a fallen tree right in the middle, and a wall of willows dangling over one bank. I drifted a dry-dropper rig through the run for 15 minutes without so much as a bite. I was about to head upriver and fish the riffles at the head of the run when I decided to let my flies swing at the end of my drift.
I had a Chubby Chernobyl with a Pat’s Rubberlegs tied on. A stonefly nymph generally isn’t the first fly you’d think to swing, but I let it zip through the end of the run, and it was gobbled up by a hungry tiger trout.
Yesterday, I went out to check on my local freestone and was happy to find it fishable, if still a bit high. I waded up to my chest in some spots, but the fish were eagerly taking any of the stoneflies, mayflies, and caddis all hatching at once. The fishing was fast and furious until I came to one pool. The action shut off, and I had a suspicion that the fish here were eating mayfly emergers, but I didn’t want to tie up a new rig just for one spot.
So, I let my Chubby Chernobyl and Prince Nymph rig swing through the pool. Predictably, a rainbow trout smacked the Prince Nymph as it shot up through the water column.
It’s counterintuitive to move flies, especially when we’re taught so frequently that we need perfect drag-free drifts to catch fish. But if you find yourself in a position this summer when the fish won’t commit, try moving your flies a little. The results might surprise you.