USING
LEADHEADED PATTERNS
The weight of the fly can make it very hard to make a
good, well placed cast, especially in the beginning.
Therefore a rod with a stiff or tip action is necessary.
Reduce the casting speed and watch your head. To fish
these heavy bugs the following techniques can be employed:
Dead Drifting: With this technique, I cast upstream
or up and across and let the fly drift downstream as
naturally as possible. My eyesight is not good so I
generally use a small bite indicator, made of plastic
foam, attached to the leader.
Looping the line: This second technique amazed some
of my friends, because I use it exclusively on fast
waters. I cast downstream, just mend the line and bring
the fly back to me by looping in line with my left hand
(no casting hand). On waters with slower current this can
be easily achieved with a figure-of-eight retrieve. I have
found that it is very important to vary the speed of
retrieving in order to succeed.
Lift-sink-lift: This technique involves an upstream
cast, where after I let the nymph sink. When I think it
has sunk enough (i.e. to the bottom) I lift the fly
briefly with the rod tip and let it sink again. This
sequence is repeated several times as the cast is fish
out.
Stillwater motion: When fishing in Stillwater I use
the rod top extensively to give the fly motion: a little
movement of the rod top is combined with slow draws on the
line with my no casting hand.
CONCLUSION
Over the years many anglers have fished with one of my
Leaded Grayling Bugs and all have been very enthusiastic
or even amazed at the results they achieved with it.
That's probably the reason that so many copies of this fly
exist. In still waters or reservoirs all patterns, even
fluorescent variations did extremely well when tied
slightly larger than the river version.
|
