For the most part, dry fly fishing is all about getting the perfect drift. Everything you read and/or see about the subject emphasizes that making your fly hold completely still as it floats along the surface of the water is the only way to get a trout rise. Yet in reality—this isn’t always true.
While there is no doubt that creating a flawless dead drift will catch you a lot of fish, there are times when adding a bit of movement to your dry fly can get you more strikes. Now, I’m not talking about stripping and ripping a Parachute Adams across the surface of the water like a popper. Rather, I’m talking about a few ways to add a touch of natural-looking movement to your presentation which will better convince wary trout that your bug’s alive and kicking.
Skating Things Along
Skating dry flies is a classic, yet challenging technique that’s generally used by salmon and steelhead anglers who want to make their lives harder. It involves casting a fly slightly downstream at roughly a 45-degree angle and then allowing the line to lighten up so that the bug skates across the surface of the water. This creates a wake behind the fly as it swings, which triggers aggressive salmon and steelhead to smash it. Now, while fishing dry flies like this continuously isn’t the most effective way to catch trout, there are certain times when adding a bit of this skating action to the end of your presentation can get you a few more takes.
If you’re fishing during a particularly chaotic insect hatch, such as when large caddisflies are emerging on the surface, or stoneflies are buzzing around and dropping into the water, skating your dry fly at the end of your drift can be incredibly effective. To do it properly, drift a caddis, stonefly, or even a large mayfly pattern in a classic slow-moving dead drift and then, instead of recasting, tighten the line near the end of the drift and then raise your rod and allow your fly to skate for a few feet. This can be incredibly effective as it imitates a large insect suddenly coming to life and trying to swim or attempting to take off, which will often trigger any trout tracking the fly to strike.
To add a bit of extra enthusiasm to your skating dry fly, you can also raise your rod and flick the tip back and forth as the fly skates. This will cause the bug to zig-zag a bit as it skitters across the surface like a large insect having trouble taking off, prompting predatory reactions from trout that think the fly is about to escape.
Getting Twitchy
When large insects like grasshoppers or stoneflies fall into the water, they tend to panic. The bugs will frantically kick their legs and flutter their wings as they try to get back to shore, which in turn will attract hungry trout to them like a great white to a struggling surfer. Imitating this struggling action is a great way to catch large predatory trout, especially in off-colored water where trout can’t pick out bugs on the surface or in large waterways with low trout populations where the fish hunt for food and will be attracted to movement.
For the most part, the trick to twitching a dry fly is subtlety. You don’t want your fly to completely churn up the surface of the water like a boat propeller but instead create a slight impression of controlled movement. Start by gently flicking the tip of your fly rod up and down as the fly drifts, adding a slight amount of metrical tension to the line, which will pull your bug gently forward and create ripples rather than splashes around the drifting fly. Ideally, this will imitate a hopper, stonefly, or other large insect swimming to shore. It can take a bit of practice to get the line tension and movement just right, but when you hit the proper cadence, it can really raise your strike rate.
If you’re fishing in faster water or during a particularly dramatic emergence, such as a salmonfly hatch, you can twitch your bugs on the surface with a little more vigor. Instead of gentle twitches, splash your fly down into the water and then flick your rod tip up and down as you rapidly mend upstream. This will cause the fly to dart rather than twitch, triggering big trout looking to gorge on big bugs in fast water to chase it down and smash it.
Good Vibrations
If you’re fishing in low-clear water, in extremely slow flows, or even on a stillwater lake or pond, adding a bit of life to a dry fly can often be the only way to get a strike from spooky trout. Yet, I’ve often found that even subtly twitching a fly on the surface in such situations will occasionally cause every trout in the area to flee like rabbits in a garden. When the water’s barely moving, and trout have a lot of time to look over your bug, any movement you add to your presentation has to be so faint it’s barely detectable, and the only way I’ve found to do this is by vibrating your fly.
Like a traditional twitch, vibrating a fly is done by adding three or four pulses with the rod as your fly floats, causing it to move slightly in the water. However, unlike a twitch, which is done under tension, you vibrate the fly by making small, quick side-to-side pulses with nearly complete slack in the line. This may seem like a small difference, and to the naked eye it can also seem like you’re not doing anything at all, yet it can make a world of difference to the trout.
When you make small rapid flicks with no tension on the line, the side-to-side pulses with your rod tip send out slight, micro vibrations through your leader and down to your fly. Though you might need to be right on top of the bug with a microscope to detect them, these tiny vibrations imitate the last, minuscule death rattle of a dying insect, and in clear, slow-moving water when dead drifting flies aren’t doing the trick, those tiny vibrations can cause even the wariest trout to rise up and inhale your bug.
On The Move
Moving your dry fly is not something you should do every time, but when you’re fishing during a certain hatch, trying to imitate a specific insect, or targeting particularly aggressive fish, adding a bit of movement to your presentation can mean all the difference between catching the trout you’re after and going home skunked. For as important as it is to master the perfect dead drift with dry flies, sometimes catching trout on the surface really all comes down to making the right moves.