Oregon Dry Fly Fishing - Keep your dry fly floating.

 | By Seamus on 4/28/2013 11:20:15 PM | Views (365) There are days fly fishing when trout have to have a fly high and dry; standing right on top of the water before they will hit it. You cast a new fly, get a good drift, and bam! The trout crushes it without hesitation. In your excitement to catch another you cast the same fly and a trout swims up and turns back at the last second; the dreaded refusal! Or worse no trout react at all.
The problem is that the first trout slimed the fly and now it is only barely floating, more half-drowned than dry on the surface. When trout want high and dry they won't take half-submerged. In most cases there is nothing on a dry fly that actually floats very well by itself. Stiff, bristly chicken feathers, deer and elk hair, furs and synthetics are arranged on the hook so that the fly will stand on the water by the resistance of the dry materials to punch through the water's surface (and to look like a bug that trout will eat).
Fish slime sinks flies. It surrounds the materials, eliminating any natural air pockets on the fly and allowing the fly to join with the water and causing the fly to ride in or just below the surface film. Very frustrating when you need the fly to float.
The best way I have found to fish high and dry is to start by squeezing some of your favorite liquid fly floatant onto the tips of your thumb and finger (it doesn't take much). Start with a new fly and rub the liquid floatant onto the hackles, tail, wing, body, antennae, etc., of the fly. If the materials matte together you used too much floatant. A thin coat that retains the original look of the fly is what you are trying to achieve. This fly will generally float pretty well through two or three fish. When it starts sinking/drowning and the trout will not hit it, reel it in, rinse it off in the water, squeeze it as dry as you can in your fly dryer or shirt sleeve, and re-shape it as best you can. The fly will still have some of the liquid floatant on it and will feel tacky. Now treat the fly with a dry powder floatant. Some powder floatants have a brush that you can use to cover the fly with powder and push the floatant into the nooks and crannies. Other powder floatants allow you to drop the fly into the bottle while still on your leader and shake the floatant onto the fly. Some dry floatants combine the shaker bottle with a powder and dessicant crystals to remove any remaining moisture from the fly (my favorite is Loon Top Ride).
After applying the powder blow the excess off of the fly (don't let the wind blow it back into your eyes) and go back to fishing. The powder will tend to stick to the leftover liquid floatant and the fly will float high and dry again. I have found that adding more liquid floatant to a drowned fly does not help it much. The powder will stand it right back up on its hackles and trout will hit it again. Every time you catch a trout you will have to rinse, dry, and powder the fly to float it again. I can usually re-float a bushy caddis pattern about six to eight times before I have to retire that fly and tie on a new one. Results can vary with the size and type of fly and the size of fish you are catching. Eventually the slime soaks in and overwhelms the fly's ability to float. But six or eight trout on one dry fly is pretty good any day! Read More

This Fishing Report was submitted on 4/28/2013 11:20:15 PM by Seamus and last updated on 4/28/2013 11:20:15 PM.

Location

204 W 1st Ave
Albany, OR US

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