A few weeks ago, I fished my first good dry fly hatch of the year. Small blue-winged olives were coming off in enough numbers that every trout in the river was looking up, at least for a couple of hours. This would’ve been in late March, so I’d spent the previous four months chucking heavy nymph rigs on large tailwaters, the only rivers that fish year-round here in my neck of the woods. That meant my dry fly casting was a bit rusty, and I was glad to have a riffle all to myself while I worked the first consistent risers of 2025.
I grew up fishing dry flies on a spring creek that flows through a ghost town settled by my fifth-great grandfather. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad bouncing caddisflies on the surface for a split second before they were swallowed by the river’s hungry brown trout. My grandfather has taxidermied skin mounts of 24-inch fish he caught there in the ’70s—on dry flies, of course.
All that is to say, since I grew up in a family of dry-fly fishermen (I didn’t even know nymphs existed until I was in high school) and take every opportunity I can to fish dries myself, I should know enough to avoid some of the most common dry fly mistakes.
But as anyone who’s fly fished knows, being aware of mistakes and not making them are two entirely different skill sets that rarely overlap.
The Mistake
As I fished that first hatch, I knew I’d need to be careful with my hook sets. The fish were rising tentatively, as if they couldn’t believe the hatch was finally here, either. When the fish are rising slow and steady, the rule of thumb is that your hook set needs to wait until you see the fish slip back underwater with your fly in its mouth. Then, a firm rise of the rod until the line goes tight will drive the hook point home. It’s a slowed-down, deliberate hook set that’s absolutely critical for fish feeding with a lackadaisical attitude. A quick, jerky hook set is a recipe for busted-off flies and spooked trout.
Of all the skills in fly fishing, there are very few I actually feel confident in. I’m a middling caster, I’m slow at tying knots, and I’m no good at fishing lakes. But I can hold my own when fishing dry flies, and I know how and when to adjust my hook sets.
Unless, of course, I get too excited and set the hook with all the frantic energy of a kid jacked up on Mountain Dew. Which is exactly what I did to the first three fish. I set the hook way too early, breaking off one fly and stinging two other fish for a second before they wiggled free.
I knew exactly what I was doing wrong, but it’s hard to overcome the nerves and not mess things up. I suppose it’s a good thing that, even after 20 years of fly fishing, I still get this excited about rising fish.
The Solution
Last week, I was on the water with my friends Gene and Kyle. We were floating and fishing the tail end of another blue-winged olive hatch. I’d caught two small fish so far, but this river is known for its large rainbows.
As Kyle rowed the boat around a corner, we saw a pod of fish rising on the far bank, tucked in a break between Russian olive branches. The fish were big enough we could see their heads and tails as they slurped cripples off the surface, even from a few hundred feet away.
While Kyle positioned the boat, I felt the familiar nerves creep in. These fish were rising in a steady rhythm, the hallmark of trout that have lost a bit of their usual inhibition. Big fish, rising without a care in the world, eating relatively large dry flies. What could possibly go wrong?
A bad cast, a bad hook set, the wrong fly, I didn’t wear my lucky socks…my mind reeled off plenty of bad scenarios. I remembered the missed fish from a few weeks prior and tried to tamp down my excitement.
When the boat was in position, I stripped off a few more feet of fly line, and waited for the right moment. I watched one trout sip off the surface and start moving forward in the seam, so I tossed my dry and landed it a foot in front of his nose. Right in rhythm, the fish rose, taking what felt like an eternity to close its mouth and slip back below the surface.
I calmly raised the rod, driving the hook point home and fighting a sizable rainbow into the net.
Failure is a great teacher, and it was my mess-up a few weeks prior that stuck in my head, calmed me down, and helped me not miss out on such a great fish. Hopefully, you can avoid breaking off flies and missing fish like I do, and let my mistakes be the reminder you need to change up your hook sets based on how the trout are rising.
As great as it was to not mess up that rainbow, I know I’ll make more mistakes in the future. I just hope they’re few and far between because that means I’ll have learned something from all the screw-ups.