Five Tips for Catching More Fish on Dry Flies.
I often hear people talk about missing fish or complaining about fish just “eyeing” their dry flies. Here are several tips that I have learned over the years that should help you hook more trout on dry flies.
- Do not take your fly away from the trout. I often watch clients set the hook too soon on a fish that is taking a dry fly, especially with modern fast action rods that pick up line quickly. To solve this problem, once a fish eats a dry recite the phrase (“god save the queen”) before setting the hook. The purpose of this is to make you wait until the trout eats the fly, vs. pulling the fly out of his mouth before he can chew on it.
- If a fish is nosing your fly, then it is probably just slightly off color to the fish. It may be light gray and should be dark gray or brown instead of brown with a little pink. So start looking through your box and picking flies of the same color just different shades, and you should start getting some strikes.
- If trout charge your fly and turn off of it right at the last minute then you have picked up micro drag. You can lighten your tippet, but you may loose the fish if he hits, you can also lengthen your tippet to allow the fly a little longer drift.
- If fish are taking your fly and you are missing them and you are waiting on them to get the fly in their mouth, then the fly is the wrong size. Typically it is too large, although I have seen a few times when it was too small.
- If fish are eating dries and are nosing your fly and still refuse it after color and size changes, then switch the style to a parachute or to a Klinkhammer style fly instead of a traditional Catskill style fly.