Excellent Devin! Thanks for bringing back the basics of why Euro Nymphing is a game changer to hooking more fish. In my own evolution of learning this method, I had early success with lighter beads. And on great days - where I was extra focused - the take was most often a slight stall in the sighter. I now realize over the last year I have become lazy - using heavier beads to do the work, rather than making the extra effort to get good drifts with lighter nymphs. As a result - I have had less success - and now you confirmed - that I am not seeing those pauses in the sighter and the other soft takes. All great stuff - Thanks.
Great tips Devin!... especially Tip #5. My cousin-in-law Bruce Reynolds, who grew up in Dunsmuir, CA fishing with Ted Fay (arguably the Father of American straight line nymphing) and his son on the Upper Sacramento River, taught me as your #5 tip to 'watch the point where the line enters the water'. He said a huge percentage of the hits are nearly undetectable taps. Although a lot of these taps could be a rock, he showed me with many hook-ups to prove his point. Thanks TFF!
Outstanding tips. My best take away was to focus on less fly weight, slowing the fly down and thus taking it longer to reaching the bottom in the drift.
Great video Devin. Thank you for all that you contribute. I have been hesitating to commit to learning the Micro rig, even after buying the masterclass, because of a fear of being inaccurate on my casting. I am convinced that I am missing a lot of strikes and you confirmed it in this video. I bought some of the Adams leader material from you and am going to focus on using it on a spooky tailwater of mine for a few months to get better.
Thanks for all the tips Devin. I'm new to this style of fly fishing and went straight to a micro leader. After experiencing the first downshift in my drift, it kinda freaked me out thinking it was a strike. After a few false sets, I let it happen and ended up catching a real nice bow a few casts later. Good stuff!
The downshift can be pretty abrupt in certain water types. But if you were spotting that and thinking it was a strike you're definitely on a good track. A lot of folks new to this style have the opposite issue as I talked about in the video. Happy fishing!
I started with Euro-Nymphing two years ago with these thick leaders, changed last year to 0,22mm, hooked more & bigger fish & this year I want to go to 0.16mm with lighter nymphs 🙂. Thank you for this video wich gives me confidence in my plan! Whats your "confidend weight" of a single nymph, when you facing a pool of 4-6 foot deapth? (moderate current)
@@martinkrone7967 there’s not really a way for me to answer that without seeing the water. And if regulations allowed it, I would likely fish two flies for that type of depth.
good work Devin, especialy the tip about to keep some slack in the leader to improve the strike detection, thats one i am going to take to the river this springtime!
@@CoachBreid the mass of the dry is important but the aerodynamics and surface area are even more crucial. I have much smaller and sparser versions of my dry flies for this type of rig. They cast easier and signal takes more quickly when their buoyancy is more closely matched to the weight of the nymph.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 appreciate the insight. When using a dry dropper I usually start with a very simple “caddis” with a dubbed body and simple tuff of polyfill. One benefit of experienced using the microliter in what I’ll call strike indicator mode is that it keeps a lot of a line off the water allowing for much better drifts. This will be year three of contact/euro fishing for me and the resources you provide have been invaluable. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, Professor Olsen! A tour-de-force explanation! I"m definitely going to start down the micro path + lighter weight beads. One other factor for us to consider in your equations needs to be the flow rate doesn't it? I'm mostly tempted to tie on heavier nymphs in higher flows to get the nymph lower in the column -- correct? Also, have you posted your updated leader formula using just the sighter material/tippet ring + tippet?
@@rcvflyfisher I’m glad you enjoyed it. Of course the velocity factors in. The amount of weight and tippet you need will always be influenced by those characteristics of the water. I still fish 4 mm beads where necessary. I just many people just jump straight to extra weight before working on other aspects of presentation that will end up being more effective if that extra weight isn’t required. And I’ve posted my micro leader in most of my on the water videos for the last several years. It’s also in our film adaptive fly fishing. I just adjust the diameters based on fish size.
@@brianholaway I like a few different materials depending on the conditions. I probably use Adams, Baetis, and Sempe materials the most in my own fishing. I use Cortland Tri-Color for filming though because it shows up on camera better.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 OK Thanks. I especially enjoyed the "physics lesson". I am glad to hear that you plan to add some casting videos which provide guidance on casting microleaders. Do you plan to add this sort of information to the Master Class?
Your discussion has a number of parallels to swinging/nymphing for steelhead and salmon and wet fly fishing. My question is if you less weight nymphs, do you get your depth using mending methods (i.e. casting a bit upstream to arrive at a depth that you percieve the trout to holding). Imagining a protractor with the 0 degrees entirely upstream and the 180 degrees downstream. How do you address the intial position of the fly to the holding water, and how do you compensate for the suppleness of the lighter leader. ( You mentioned that a direct hit on the trout holding zone causes the trout to disregard the fly (This is similar to wet fly or even dry fly for fish in pressured waters or skittish natives in shallow water). Do you reach cast more upsteam or downstream. What is your position on using Fluorocarbon in conjunction with the supple nylons. Won't the density of fluorocarbon aid in getting the nymph deeper?
If you were fishing for large trout like steelhead on the salmonr river would you still use such a light leader? Or would a leader testing 10 or 12 pounds be more appropriate? Thank you
Devon, if you want to use a heavier nymph that what you have in your box, can you put a split shot adjacent to the head of one of your nymphs as a hack, or does that screw up the look of the nymph or something?
@@JohnHornby768 I carry heavy enough nymphs that I don’t find that to be an issue. And unless there was a knot to prevent it from sliding, the issue is that the split shot would slide down until it runs into the nymph. And a split shot adjacent to the nymph would likely make it less effective just like when moss clings to a nymph.
I've struggled with casting very lightly weighted rigs on a euro setup, particularly with a microleader. I would love if you demonstrated your casting technique and talked through how you adapted your cast.
Watch some of Josh Millers videos. He uses a great little side-arm wrist flick that propels a nymph on a micro leader really well. It’s short, quick, and subtle.
It's on my list of topics for videos to do this spring. We'll definitely be getting to it. In the meantime, keep your cast as sidearm as you can, make your casting stroke short but energetic, and wait longer than you think you need to on the back cast before making your forward cast. Also, some rods just don't load well with light rigs. Softer but still fast recovering rods tend to be better choices for light rigs on micro leaders.
@tacticalflyfisher3817 Do you think the new Generation 4 nymph is worth waiting for? I hope it is. Joe responded to an email of mine recommending the 10' 7" 2 weight for light setups.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 Thanks for that response, Devin; it addresses my primary shortcoming with Euro nymphing: casting that sucker out to where I want it to go. [Sidebar: Am I missing something that you don't mention using these setups to drift a dry, and video shots of your flyboxes don't seem to show dry flies?] I am primarily a dry fly fisherman in the southeastern corner of BC where we have blue ribbon walk 'n wade flyfishing on the Elk, St Mary, Skookumchuck, Wigwam, Bull, etc rivers, and feeder streams like the Michele. Dry fly fishing is easy here as there's probably nothing more gullible than the West Slope cutties that are the primary trout species in these waters. But for the days they don't show interest in any dries, I've started exploring Euro nymphing and the flies used for that versus my conventional nymphs and streamers I've been fishing for about 60 years of flyfishing. I purchased one of your Euro leaders a couple of years ago and it resides on a spare spool I carry in my vest. I've been giving it a go on the days where fishing says it's a nymph day, not a dry day. My casting results are far less than a success at putting the bug where I want the drift to start. I expect that much of the reason for doing that is I am using 8' to 9' moderate flexing 4 and 5 weight Dickerson profile bamboo rods and Scott carbon fiber in modern rods. Don't own a fast action flyrod to try with. (Not a purist - my rods just match the actions I learned to fish with back in the 1960's on bamboo and that new fiberglass, and I've never changed). The Euro bugs are a better success story when I fish them on a longer than normal light 5.5x floating leader on either of a silk flyline or modern line. This is another unexpected plus for high quality silk fly lines - they are much smaller in diameter than modern lines and properly treated have less drag in the surface film of the water. The obvious fix would be to buy a long Euronymphing rod intended to cast these lines, BUT... I'm not going to carry several rods for a full day of walk 'n wade flyfishing these waters. There can only be one... Anyways, thanks for the videos that help explain this style of fishing that I'm going to continue trying out. When the notifications of casting videos show up in my email inbox, I'll head right over to see if there's anything there to help with doing this on conventional fly rods.
Can a micro leader be dyed rather than have to spend more on a specialty material, and can one use fluorocarbon lines that are available at conventional tackle shops? I think I am correct that you are basically recommending that your entire leader (but not the tippet) is sighter. Do you commonly only fish one fly? Does a second fly (unweighted) significantly change the physics you mention? Do you use tippet rings in your setup and why or why not? Is your casting more like short one "lobbing"?
If you watch any of my on the river videos, you'll see I'm definitely not lobbing a short line. I don't know of a DYI dye that will make a clear line a visible sighter. Some of the specialty colored nylon we sell is also less expensive than bulk fluoro so there's no savings there. And yes, my entire leader is one level section of sighter. I recently did a series of videos on why I fish one or two flies so I will refer you to those videos to answer that question. I do use tippet rings, but I make my own from small dry fly hooks to cut down on weight.
You know what she says once you micro you never go back. Haha Anyway a few questions- What kind of cast are you doing with micro leader- still oval or more of a standard fly cast? What’s your favorite leader material/brand? What would you say your hook up rate is vs your strike rate? So for every 10 strikes how many do you hook up on fish. And don’t say it depends- I know but just a rough idea. Could you show examples of drifts with too heavy and too light beads along with the ideal bead size? So we can compare- in the same run- different sized beads and corresponding drifts. So do a 2mm vs 2.5 vs 3.5 vs 4mm or something drastic just to visually see the difference. Sometimes it’s hard to know if I’m fishing too light or if I’m just doing something else wrong and would be nice to see what it looks like when you do it. Similar to your rod tip flex videos. Thanks so much, these videos are some of the most informative out there- thank you! Keep it up with these videos on drifts- I think it’s some of the most important videos on euro nymphing.
Is the gravitational descent of a 2.3 bead to the target depth the same as a3.0? (I am thinking of the historical experiment of the Leaning Tower of Pisa when 2 objects of different weight hit the ground at the same time.)
@@fredmargolin1909 I’m not an aerodynamics expert by any means but descending through air is dramatically different than descending through water. There is so much more drag associated with descending in water than air that terminal velocity would be reached at a much lower speed with a 2.3 mm bead than a 3 mm bead because you also have to factor in the surface area and drag of the tippet as well as the fly.
You have been my fav instructor for quite some time. I need some help translating here though. I’ll be honest and say that I often fish faster and deeper water, where heavier nymphs are actually required. Maybe not as heavy as I usually fish, but I rarely have to help them through a drift and I do have plenty of arc in my leader/sighter. Also, it’s a fishery that regularly produces fish over 20” and includes brown trout over 30”. My PBs are 23.5” Bow and 27.5” Brown on my home water. Can you please help me with a reasonable micro leader? 4x minimum thickness is usually necessary, except in the lowest water and clearest water, when going to 5x is necessary but breaking off a real issue. I fish a #4 11’ Shadow X, which I adore. Do you think you could land these brutes with 7x in big current? I’m so curious. Please help…and thanks for all you do! You have helped me so much transitioning from Indy fishing for more than a decade…and I mainly refuse to do anymore 😂
@@CoastalBendFishNinja i fish a pretty similar sounding river near home and have quite a few abroad with this sort of situation. I usually fish 5x or 5.5x tippet in this scenario. I then use pretty much the same micro leader formula except that the sighter material portion is typically 3x. If you need to stick with 4x tippet, then you could still probably use 3x for your sighter but you might need to go to 2x if you find the sighter breaking before your tippet.
@ You’re the best 🍻🙏🏻🎣🤙🏻 Thank you for the reply and help. I need to hit your web store again soon. Need to get some extended sighter material in 2-3x…and probably a few other things. Time for some winter tying/restocking…that’s overdue with moving into a new house this fall. 😜 Thanks again!
Great vid Devin! Question-you said you need to cast heavy nymphs closer to the fish, yet you say you cast lighter ones up above enough to get them down. Why can’t you cast heavy nymphs up high enough to get them down before they get to the fish?
Ed, I'm not sure I understand your question. But in short, if you have an overly heavy nymph, either you will hit bottom or you will have to manipulate the drift to keep it off the bottom. This results in a less convincing drift to the fish and less takes.
Great video as usual Devin! I really like the subtle strike example at the end. In your experience, does using sighter material for the entire leader, spook fish? I'm thinking about when I fish a dry with a euro leader and the leader might be on the water, or when nymphing very clear water with pressured fish. Thank you!
Bright sighter can definitely spook fish in specific circumstances like you mentioned. Bright sun and clear water combined with wary fish can be a case where extra stealth is needed. In those cases, I use white sighter material like Adams Euro nymph mono for my leader and I make the Sakura marker portion of my painted-on sighter only a few inches long.
Great video! I agree with the memory bank of micro takes wholeheartedly, my local river the takes are so subtle that you really have to focus to see them compared to other places I fish. Also off topic but any info on the skafars shortages ?
@@jessedavis3123 I haven’t been able to get a reply from the Skafar’s wax maker for months. We took it off the site since it appears the supply may be done and dusted.
Even with a lightly weighted fly, it will eventually hit the bottom of the river if there is no tension in the leader. How do you keep the fly at depth and not hit bottom? Do you eventually come tight?
As the angler, there is always going to be some influence on the fly simply because it is connected to tippet, and thereby connected upward to your rod. The interplay of drag on the tippet, the amount of tippet you have available, the weight of the fly, and the way you pace the drift will determine how quickly and how far your nymph sinks. My goal is to try and have the least influence I can on the fly to allow it to drift as naturally as possible. I do that by fishing as thin of tippet as I can, adjusting my tippet length for various depths, and varying my leader angles depending on the depth and speed of each location. If your tippet is short and you have a heavy fly, then eventually you will come tight simply because the nymph will hang vertically. But even with heavy flies, there will always be a bit of sag even in a micro leader if you are fishing a cast that is beyond your rod tip. To take another view of it, "tightness" is relative. What I was trying to get across is that a lot of anglers probably fish too much weight and move their flies too much to keep them off the bottom. By fishing lighter flies and making the adjustments I mention above, you can achieve a better drift that will probably have less tension in the leader than you might be used to.
@tacticalflyfisher3817 Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and to write thoughtful responses to questions. Great explanation. That helps a lot. I haven't tried a micro leader yet as I'm still trying to get better at casting a standard euro leader but I will definitely move in that direction. The improved drifts and strike detection make it a no brainer.
Hi Devin. Here in New Zealand we have a lot of relatively large fish. I find nymphing anything less than 4x results in many bust offs. Would you still fish 6 and 7x? I use a very soft 3wt euro rod. Cheers Linton
is there a reason for you to use mono as the material for your leader? They always told me that fluorcarbon is preferable over mono because of the density. I live in Norway and fish on big rivers which have a lot of wind. So I always tried to use fluorcarbon as my leader, then the sighter and fluorcarbon as my tippet
First, lets tackle the terminology here. I assume you are referring to nylon monofilament because fluorocarbon is also mono or a monofilament. Also, I do use fluorocarbon for my tippet. I just don't use it for the colored portion of my leader. There are a few of reasons. #1 There are simply far more colored options for making sighter material in nylon. I haven't seen many fluorocarbon lines that are good for this purpose and those I have seen often don't come in small enough sizes. #2 The higher density of fluorocarbon is not helpful for reducing sag when fishing thin micro leaders. And when I've tried fluoro or nylon in smaller sizes for leaders, I haven't seen a difference in resistance to wind. There are other strategies I use for dealing with wind which I've covered in a previous video. #3 I end up replacing the colored portion of my leader pretty often. It's easy to put a nick in it from stepping on it or getting it in a tree accidentally. Colored fluorocarbon is a lot more expensive in comparison, so nylon saves me money.
Thanks a lot for this explanation! I always thought when people said «mono» that they meant nylon. I will definetly give it a try. Keep ip the good eork with all your video’s and articles, the really help a lot
Recently, I’ve been targeting technical tailgaters in heavily pressured waters, where the fish are incredibly selective. As a result, I’ve had to adapt my euro nymphing technique in order to catch more fish. Through sight fishing and experimentation, I’ve found that fish often refuse flies with beads larger than 2.5mm. This has introduced a challenge: it's tough to get these lighter, smaller flies down to the fish in deeper or faster currents. To address this, I’ve been fishing tippet in the 8x-9x range, hoping the thinner diameter would help the flies sink more quickly. While it does work, it’s created a few new issues. The lighter tippet seems to reduce drag, but the weight of my sighter is causing my flies to drag through the water. Currently, I’m using a straight pier 6x sighter, but I’m still struggling to get the right balance. I’ve considered switching to a thinner, lighter sighter, but so far, I haven’t found anything that fits the bill. Additionally, fishing 8x-9x tippet limits me to a single fly setup, as my tag knots tend to fail under the lighter line. Have you encountered similar challenges, and if so, do you have any solutions? Any tips for euro nymphing in these tricky conditions would be much appreciated! Thanks for the great video!
@@outdoors1234 I’ve spent much of my fishing life on similar rivers. Those rivers have had a large influence on the way I fish today. I think you’ve gone the logical route. It’s hard for me to envision the issue you’re talking about though. With sighter that light I don’t think you should be getting much noticeable sag and resulting drag except in slow water. But in that case I would turn to using a dry dropper so you can park your rig in the current that it is in. If you need to switch to 7x to do that you should still be successful. And lastly, don’t forget junk flies in tailwaters. It’s surprising how often heavily pressured fish will lose their mind over a mop, egg, or worm simply because most people are throwing size 20-26 flies at them all the time and it is completely different.
Going thinner nearly always helps until it doesn't. There is always a balancing act between better drift properties and whether breakoffs become too frequent. If you can consistently fish 8x without breakoffs then it should be better than 7x. But if it means you can only fish one fly in situations where another small fly would help, then it's not a benefit in that case. And unfortunately, without watching you fish in person and seeing the specific situation, I'm not sure what else to suggest.
Maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but rarely do I “see” the sighter move like in these videos. It’s more a “feeling” something unnatural happens and I set, 7/10 there’s a fish on the other end.
Excellent Devin! Thanks for bringing back the basics of why Euro Nymphing is a game changer to hooking more fish. In my own evolution of learning this method, I had early success with lighter beads. And on great days - where I was extra focused - the take was most often a slight stall in the sighter. I now realize over the last year I have become lazy - using heavier beads to do the work, rather than making the extra effort to get good drifts with lighter nymphs. As a result - I have had less success - and now you confirmed - that I am not seeing those pauses in the sighter and the other soft takes. All great stuff - Thanks.
@@douglasruecker6128 thanks! We all go through some ebbs and flows in our fishing. Hopefully this video will help you on the water. Happy fishing!
Outstanding, Devin!
@@OldDominionTroutBum thanks! It was nice meeting you in NJ.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 Same here, Devin!
Another excellent video. Thanks Devin (and your team) for producing intelligent and comprehensive content. Kudos to you.
@@wjb442 thanks very much! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Fantastic explanations... But now I have to immediately start tying flies with smaller beads 😂😂😅
Go for it! I think the benefits will be worth it.
The best information on Euro nymphing on the internet. Your videos have definitely helped me catch more fish!
I'm glad you're enjoying them!
Great tips Devin!... especially Tip #5. My cousin-in-law Bruce Reynolds, who grew up in Dunsmuir, CA fishing with Ted Fay (arguably the Father of American straight line nymphing) and his son on the Upper Sacramento River, taught me as your #5 tip to 'watch the point where the line enters the water'. He said a huge percentage of the hits are nearly undetectable taps. Although a lot of these taps could be a rock, he showed me with many hook-ups to prove his point. Thanks TFF!
Outstanding tips. My best take away was to focus on less fly weight, slowing the fly down and thus taking it longer to reaching the bottom in the drift.
Good takeaway :)
Happy fishing!
This is one of the best videos you've made. Maybe just where I'm at in my fishing education, but geez, dropping some great knowledge here Devin!
@@saurfarming3772 that’s very kind of you. Im glad you enjoyed it!
another great video thanks again for sharing your knowledge will have to rethink my leader setup jim
@@JamesWeisgerber-c5r glad you enjoyed it
thank you for this very clear 1-2-3-4-5 most important 'tactical' tips that will certainly contribute to my catch rate. Outstanding !!
@@thierrylerinckx1340 thank you! Good luck on the water.
Great video Devin. Thank you for all that you contribute. I have been hesitating to commit to learning the Micro rig, even after buying the masterclass, because of a fear of being inaccurate on my casting. I am convinced that I am missing a lot of strikes and you confirmed it in this video. I bought some of the Adams leader material from you and am going to focus on using it on a spooky tailwater of mine for a few months to get better.
@@blueridgeflyguy9551 I’ll be doing a casting video or two this spring. Hopefully it will help.
Thanks for all the tips Devin. I'm new to this style of fly fishing and went straight to a micro leader. After experiencing the first downshift in my drift, it kinda freaked me out thinking it was a strike. After a few false sets, I let it happen and ended up catching a real nice bow a few casts later. Good stuff!
The downshift can be pretty abrupt in certain water types. But if you were spotting that and thinking it was a strike you're definitely on a good track. A lot of folks new to this style have the opposite issue as I talked about in the video. Happy fishing!
I started with Euro-Nymphing two years ago with these thick leaders, changed last year to 0,22mm, hooked more & bigger fish & this year I want to go to 0.16mm with lighter nymphs 🙂. Thank you for this video wich gives me confidence in my plan! Whats your "confidend weight" of a single nymph, when you facing a pool of 4-6 foot deapth? (moderate current)
@@martinkrone7967 there’s not really a way for me to answer that without seeing the water. And if regulations allowed it, I would likely fish two flies for that type of depth.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 the regulations just allow one fly... So I have to figure it out, starting with 3mm Bead...
Great stuff Devin. Really appreciate your work. Thanks.
@@jaked6474 thanks for watching
Excellent discussion
Thanks Steve!
Great video Devin. We’ve all experienced one or more of situations you described. Thanks for sharing.
@@philipnaro3040 glad you enjoyed it!
Your recurring nightmare “set set set” 😂😂😂😂 The symptom of an avid fisherman! 👍🏼
@@Scoopster I think it still comes back from time to time…💀
Great advice, thanks for the information
@@cameronross5970 glad you enjoyed it
This was so good! Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks Rich!
Superb instruction. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
good work Devin, especialy the tip about to keep some slack in the leader to improve the strike detection, thats one i am going to take to the river this springtime!
Happy fishing!
Great video, thanks for sharing!
@@CoachBreid the mass of the dry is important but the aerodynamics and surface area are even more crucial. I have much smaller and sparser versions of my dry flies for this type of rig. They cast easier and signal takes more quickly when their buoyancy is more closely matched to the weight of the nymph.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 appreciate the insight. When using a dry dropper I usually start with a very simple “caddis” with a dubbed body and simple tuff of polyfill. One benefit of experienced using the microliter in what I’ll call strike indicator mode is that it keeps a lot of a line off the water allowing for much better drifts. This will be year three of contact/euro fishing for me and the resources you provide have been invaluable. Keep up the good work!
Excellent.
@@johngrove4915 thanks!
Thank you, Professor Olsen! A tour-de-force explanation! I"m definitely going to start down the micro path + lighter weight beads. One other factor for us to consider in your equations needs to be the flow rate doesn't it? I'm mostly tempted to tie on heavier nymphs in higher flows to get the nymph lower in the column -- correct? Also, have you posted your updated leader formula using just the sighter material/tippet ring + tippet?
@@rcvflyfisher I’m glad you enjoyed it. Of course the velocity factors in. The amount of weight and tippet you need will always be influenced by those characteristics of the water. I still fish 4 mm beads where necessary. I just many people just jump straight to extra weight before working on other aspects of presentation that will end up being more effective if that extra weight isn’t required. And I’ve posted my micro leader in most of my on the water videos for the last several years. It’s also in our film adaptive fly fishing. I just adjust the diameters based on fish size.
Thanks for the reminder, Devin! I revisited the video you gave us 3 yrs ago specifically summarizing your leaders.
Outstanding
@@neilmcdaniel thanks!
Great video !!!
@@grimtidings7325 thanks!
Having just the right polarized sunglasses which blocks the glare and makes your bright colored sighter stand out sure helps.
Thanks for another clear and useful video. Do you have a preference for leader/sighter material amoung the examples that you show in this video?
@@brianholaway I like a few different materials depending on the conditions. I probably use Adams, Baetis, and Sempe materials the most in my own fishing. I use Cortland Tri-Color for filming though because it shows up on camera better.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 OK Thanks. I especially enjoyed the "physics lesson". I am glad to hear that you plan to add some casting videos which provide guidance on casting microleaders. Do you plan to add this sort of information to the Master Class?
@ only if Gilbert and I can get together to film again. It’s a lot harder now that we don’t live in the same state anymore.
Great stuff and I too will tie lighter flies 😁
Happy fishing!
Hi of fishing 6x tippet and 4x leader- would you have had to adjust the weight you were fishing to get in strike zone?
Are you using oval cast?
Thanks
Good stuff!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
Your discussion has a number of parallels to swinging/nymphing for steelhead and salmon and wet fly fishing. My question is if you less weight nymphs, do you get your depth using mending methods (i.e. casting a bit upstream to arrive at a depth that you percieve the trout to holding). Imagining a protractor with the 0 degrees entirely upstream and the 180 degrees downstream. How do you address the intial position of the fly to the holding water, and how do you compensate for the suppleness of the lighter leader. ( You mentioned that a direct hit on the trout holding zone causes the trout to disregard the fly (This is similar to wet fly or even dry fly for fish in pressured waters or skittish natives in shallow water). Do you reach cast more upsteam or downstream.
What is your position on using Fluorocarbon in conjunction with the supple nylons. Won't the density of fluorocarbon aid in getting the nymph deeper?
If you were fishing for large trout like steelhead on the salmonr river would you still use such a light leader? Or would a leader testing 10 or 12 pounds be more appropriate?
Thank you
When I've fished for steelhead, I typically use 3x tippet and scale the visible portion of my leader a couple of sizes larger than the tippet.
Devon, if you want to use a heavier nymph that what you have in your box, can you put a split shot adjacent to the head of one of your nymphs as a hack, or does that screw up the look of the nymph or something?
@@JohnHornby768 I carry heavy enough nymphs that I don’t find that to be an issue. And unless there was a knot to prevent it from sliding, the issue is that the split shot would slide down until it runs into the nymph. And a split shot adjacent to the nymph would likely make it less effective just like when moss clings to a nymph.
I've struggled with casting very lightly weighted rigs on a euro setup, particularly with a microleader. I would love if you demonstrated your casting technique and talked through how you adapted your cast.
Watch some of Josh Millers videos. He uses a great little side-arm wrist flick that propels a nymph on a micro leader really well. It’s short, quick, and subtle.
It's on my list of topics for videos to do this spring. We'll definitely be getting to it. In the meantime, keep your cast as sidearm as you can, make your casting stroke short but energetic, and wait longer than you think you need to on the back cast before making your forward cast. Also, some rods just don't load well with light rigs. Softer but still fast recovering rods tend to be better choices for light rigs on micro leaders.
@tacticalflyfisher3817 Do you think the new Generation 4 nymph is worth waiting for? I hope it is. Joe responded to an email of mine recommending the 10' 7" 2 weight for light setups.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817 Thanks for that response, Devin; it addresses my primary shortcoming with Euro nymphing: casting that sucker out to where I want it to go.
[Sidebar: Am I missing something that you don't mention using these setups to drift a dry, and video shots of your flyboxes don't seem to show dry flies?]
I am primarily a dry fly fisherman in the southeastern corner of BC where we have blue ribbon walk 'n wade flyfishing on the Elk, St Mary, Skookumchuck, Wigwam, Bull, etc rivers, and feeder streams like the Michele. Dry fly fishing is easy here as there's probably nothing more gullible than the West Slope cutties that are the primary trout species in these waters.
But for the days they don't show interest in any dries, I've started exploring Euro nymphing and the flies used for that versus my conventional nymphs and streamers I've been fishing for about 60 years of flyfishing. I purchased one of your Euro leaders a couple of years ago and it resides on a spare spool I carry in my vest. I've been giving it a go on the days where fishing says it's a nymph day, not a dry day.
My casting results are far less than a success at putting the bug where I want the drift to start. I expect that much of the reason for doing that is I am using 8' to 9' moderate flexing 4 and 5 weight Dickerson profile bamboo rods and Scott carbon fiber in modern rods. Don't own a fast action flyrod to try with. (Not a purist - my rods just match the actions I learned to fish with back in the 1960's on bamboo and that new fiberglass, and I've never changed).
The Euro bugs are a better success story when I fish them on a longer than normal light 5.5x floating leader on either of a silk flyline or modern line. This is another unexpected plus for high quality silk fly lines - they are much smaller in diameter than modern lines and properly treated have less drag in the surface film of the water.
The obvious fix would be to buy a long Euronymphing rod intended to cast these lines, BUT... I'm not going to carry several rods for a full day of walk 'n wade flyfishing these waters. There can only be one...
Anyways, thanks for the videos that help explain this style of fishing that I'm going to continue trying out. When the notifications of casting videos show up in my email inbox, I'll head right over to see if there's anything there to help with doing this on conventional fly rods.
Can a micro leader be dyed rather than have to spend more on a specialty material, and can one use fluorocarbon lines that are available at conventional tackle shops? I think I am correct that you are basically recommending that your entire leader (but not the tippet) is sighter. Do you commonly only fish one fly? Does a second fly (unweighted) significantly change the physics you mention?
Do you use tippet rings in your setup and why or why not? Is your casting more like short one "lobbing"?
If you watch any of my on the river videos, you'll see I'm definitely not lobbing a short line. I don't know of a DYI dye that will make a clear line a visible sighter. Some of the specialty colored nylon we sell is also less expensive than bulk fluoro so there's no savings there. And yes, my entire leader is one level section of sighter. I recently did a series of videos on why I fish one or two flies so I will refer you to those videos to answer that question. I do use tippet rings, but I make my own from small dry fly hooks to cut down on weight.
You know what she says once you micro you never go back. Haha
Anyway a few questions-
What kind of cast are you doing with micro leader- still oval or more of a standard fly cast?
What’s your favorite leader material/brand?
What would you say your hook up rate is vs your strike rate? So for every 10 strikes how many do you hook up on fish. And don’t say it depends- I know but just a rough idea.
Could you show examples of drifts with too heavy and too light beads along with the ideal bead size? So we can compare- in the same run- different sized beads and corresponding drifts. So do a 2mm vs 2.5 vs 3.5 vs 4mm or something drastic just to visually see the difference. Sometimes it’s hard to know if I’m fishing too light or if I’m just doing something else wrong and would be nice to see what it looks like when you do it. Similar to your rod tip flex videos.
Thanks so much, these videos are some of the most informative out there- thank you! Keep it up with these videos on drifts- I think it’s some of the most important videos on euro nymphing.
Is the gravitational descent of a 2.3 bead to the target depth the same as a3.0? (I am thinking of the historical experiment of the Leaning Tower of Pisa when 2 objects of different weight hit the ground at the same time.)
@@fredmargolin1909 I’m not an aerodynamics expert by any means but descending through air is dramatically different than descending through water. There is so much more drag associated with descending in water than air that terminal velocity would be reached at a much lower speed with a 2.3 mm bead than a 3 mm bead because you also have to factor in the surface area and drag of the tippet as well as the fly.
You have been my fav instructor for quite some time. I need some help translating here though. I’ll be honest and say that I often fish faster and deeper water, where heavier nymphs are actually required. Maybe not as heavy as I usually fish, but I rarely have to help them through a drift and I do have plenty of arc in my leader/sighter. Also, it’s a fishery that regularly produces fish over 20” and includes brown trout over 30”. My PBs are 23.5” Bow and 27.5” Brown on my home water. Can you please help me with a reasonable micro leader? 4x minimum thickness is usually necessary, except in the lowest water and clearest water, when going to 5x is necessary but breaking off a real issue. I fish a #4 11’ Shadow X, which I adore. Do you think you could land these brutes with 7x in big current? I’m so curious. Please help…and thanks for all you do! You have helped me so much transitioning from Indy fishing for more than a decade…and I mainly refuse to do anymore 😂
@@CoastalBendFishNinja i fish a pretty similar sounding river near home and have quite a few abroad with this sort of situation. I usually fish 5x or 5.5x tippet in this scenario. I then use pretty much the same micro leader formula except that the sighter material portion is typically 3x. If you need to stick with 4x tippet, then you could still probably use 3x for your sighter but you might need to go to 2x if you find the sighter breaking before your tippet.
@ You’re the best 🍻🙏🏻🎣🤙🏻 Thank you for the reply and help. I need to hit your web store again soon. Need to get some extended sighter material in 2-3x…and probably a few other things. Time for some winter tying/restocking…that’s overdue with moving into a new house this fall. 😜 Thanks again!
@ we’re here when you need it!
Great vid Devin! Question-you said you need to cast heavy nymphs closer to the fish, yet you say you cast lighter ones up above enough to get them down. Why can’t you cast heavy nymphs up high enough to get them down before they get to the fish?
Ed,
I'm not sure I understand your question. But in short, if you have an overly heavy nymph, either you will hit bottom or you will have to manipulate the drift to keep it off the bottom. This results in a less convincing drift to the fish and less takes.
Thanks Devin-I see your point
Great video as usual Devin! I really like the subtle strike example at the end. In your experience, does using sighter material for the entire leader, spook fish? I'm thinking about when I fish a dry with a euro leader and the leader might be on the water, or when nymphing very clear water with pressured fish. Thank you!
Bright sighter can definitely spook fish in specific circumstances like you mentioned. Bright sun and clear water combined with wary fish can be a case where extra stealth is needed. In those cases, I use white sighter material like Adams Euro nymph mono for my leader and I make the Sakura marker portion of my painted-on sighter only a few inches long.
Great video! I agree with the memory bank of micro takes wholeheartedly, my local river the takes are so subtle that you really have to focus to see them compared to other places I fish. Also off topic but any info on the skafars shortages ?
@@jessedavis3123 I haven’t been able to get a reply from the Skafar’s wax maker for months. We took it off the site since it appears the supply may be done and dusted.
I’m glad you posted this. Thanks!
Even with a lightly weighted fly, it will eventually hit the bottom of the river if there is no tension in the leader. How do you keep the fly at depth and not hit bottom? Do you eventually come tight?
As the angler, there is always going to be some influence on the fly simply because it is connected to tippet, and thereby connected upward to your rod. The interplay of drag on the tippet, the amount of tippet you have available, the weight of the fly, and the way you pace the drift will determine how quickly and how far your nymph sinks. My goal is to try and have the least influence I can on the fly to allow it to drift as naturally as possible. I do that by fishing as thin of tippet as I can, adjusting my tippet length for various depths, and varying my leader angles depending on the depth and speed of each location.
If your tippet is short and you have a heavy fly, then eventually you will come tight simply because the nymph will hang vertically. But even with heavy flies, there will always be a bit of sag even in a micro leader if you are fishing a cast that is beyond your rod tip.
To take another view of it, "tightness" is relative. What I was trying to get across is that a lot of anglers probably fish too much weight and move their flies too much to keep them off the bottom. By fishing lighter flies and making the adjustments I mention above, you can achieve a better drift that will probably have less tension in the leader than you might be used to.
@tacticalflyfisher3817
Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and to write thoughtful responses to questions.
Great explanation. That helps a lot. I haven't tried a micro leader yet as I'm still trying to get better at casting a standard euro leader but I will definitely move in that direction. The improved drifts and strike detection make it a no brainer.
Hi Devin. Here in New Zealand we have a lot of relatively large fish. I find nymphing anything less than 4x results in many bust offs. Would you still fish 6 and 7x? I use a very soft 3wt euro rod. Cheers Linton
@@lintonhackland4729 I’ve spent quite a bit of time fishing in NZ on both islands. I normally fish 5x or 5.5x tippet while I’m there.
is there a reason for you to use mono as the material for your leader? They always told me that fluorcarbon is preferable over mono because of the density. I live in Norway and fish on big rivers which have a lot of wind. So I always tried to use fluorcarbon as my leader, then the sighter and fluorcarbon as my tippet
First, lets tackle the terminology here. I assume you are referring to nylon monofilament because fluorocarbon is also mono or a monofilament. Also, I do use fluorocarbon for my tippet. I just don't use it for the colored portion of my leader. There are a few of reasons. #1 There are simply far more colored options for making sighter material in nylon. I haven't seen many fluorocarbon lines that are good for this purpose and those I have seen often don't come in small enough sizes. #2 The higher density of fluorocarbon is not helpful for reducing sag when fishing thin micro leaders. And when I've tried fluoro or nylon in smaller sizes for leaders, I haven't seen a difference in resistance to wind. There are other strategies I use for dealing with wind which I've covered in a previous video. #3 I end up replacing the colored portion of my leader pretty often. It's easy to put a nick in it from stepping on it or getting it in a tree accidentally. Colored fluorocarbon is a lot more expensive in comparison, so nylon saves me money.
Thanks a lot for this explanation! I always thought when people said «mono» that they meant nylon. I will definetly give it a try. Keep ip the good eork with all your video’s and articles, the really help a lot
set! 😂
One more reason you get to sleep in your own tent in March :)
Recently, I’ve been targeting technical tailgaters in heavily pressured waters, where the fish are incredibly selective. As a result, I’ve had to adapt my euro nymphing technique in order to catch more fish. Through sight fishing and experimentation, I’ve found that fish often refuse flies with beads larger than 2.5mm. This has introduced a challenge: it's tough to get these lighter, smaller flies down to the fish in deeper or faster currents. To address this, I’ve been fishing tippet in the 8x-9x range, hoping the thinner diameter would help the flies sink more quickly. While it does work, it’s created a few new issues. The lighter tippet seems to reduce drag, but the weight of my sighter is causing my flies to drag through the water. Currently, I’m using a straight pier 6x sighter, but I’m still struggling to get the right balance. I’ve considered switching to a thinner, lighter sighter, but so far, I haven’t found anything that fits the bill. Additionally, fishing 8x-9x tippet limits me to a single fly setup, as my tag knots tend to fail under the lighter line. Have you encountered similar challenges, and if so, do you have any solutions? Any tips for euro nymphing in these tricky conditions would be much appreciated! Thanks for the great video!
@@outdoors1234 I’ve spent much of my fishing life on similar rivers. Those rivers have had a large influence on the way I fish today. I think you’ve gone the logical route. It’s hard for me to envision the issue you’re talking about though. With sighter that light I don’t think you should be getting much noticeable sag and resulting drag except in slow water. But in that case I would turn to using a dry dropper so you can park your rig in the current that it is in. If you need to switch to 7x to do that you should still be successful. And lastly, don’t forget junk flies in tailwaters. It’s surprising how often heavily pressured fish will lose their mind over a mop, egg, or worm simply because most people are throwing size 20-26 flies at them all the time and it is completely different.
@@tacticalflyfisher3817Thanks!
@@tacticalflyfisher3817thanks!
Going thinner nearly always helps until it doesn't. There is always a balancing act between better drift properties and whether breakoffs become too frequent. If you can consistently fish 8x without breakoffs then it should be better than 7x. But if it means you can only fish one fly in situations where another small fly would help, then it's not a benefit in that case. And unfortunately, without watching you fish in person and seeing the specific situation, I'm not sure what else to suggest.
That was supposed to be hot line "lobbing"
Maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but rarely do I “see” the sighter move like in these videos. It’s more a “feeling” something unnatural happens and I set, 7/10 there’s a fish on the other end.
I give up - SHORT LINE
SHORT - durn autocorrect!
Don't see em feel em though your line
@@rabbittroll4247 if that works for you that’s great.
Great video. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it.