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spmpdr
You are asking good questions. Keep a keen eye on your dry fly, do not use a strike indicator with dry fly. The fly is your strike indicator. Try casting up stream and strip in line as the fly floats down toward you. Lets say you use a elk hair caddis, put some floatant on the fly and make sure those elk hairs are up. Get out in the river and cast up river back toward the cut bank and focus on the fly. Let the fly come down river to you. This will help you develope the "eye". Later watch the water see where the fish are rising, cast up river from the rise focus on the fly and watch the water at the same time, when you get in the zone be ready for the strike. Sometimes the problem with dry flies is that they get soaked and sink, then you can't see them (sometimes you get some good fish on those sunken flies). If you can not see your fly do a few false cast to dry the fly out or add some floatant. You are on the right path keep it up. Also get a copy of "In The Ring Of The Rise" by Vincent C. Marinaro. Halibuthitman recommended this book a while back. It is a technical book, but it will do wonders to improve a persons fishing skills. I picked one up at Amozon used and it was cheap.
if you can tie flies. you can add a little bit of brite color to the top of the fly. you can also use shorter tippet so you know about how far your fly should be out from your fly line, and watch for rises in that area. polarised glasses can help sometimes too.
my guess is that the water was clear, and your tippet from your dry to your nymph was spooking the fish becouse it was too heavy. try flouro for your droppers as light of a line rating as your heart can take and mend addition slack above your fly to eliminate any drag the heavier set-up may have. I use black stimulators for strike indicators over beads, and floatant is a must, I have never had it effect my catch rate, its pretty damn sweet when a steelhead decides to swipe that floater and run but usally the bead or lower fly always fishes better. if you were in a hatch and it was producing you probably should have just accepted the catch you were getting instead of trying for more and messing up a working proposition.
Don't use indicators with driesI'll fish flies down to a 20 or 22 on the Owyhee and can't really see them just know the general vicinity and wait for a take and then set the hook. Another good tip, put the floatant on before the fly goes into the water and don't put on CDC unless it is made for CDC. The floatant will be able to do it's job better, just a dab will do applying to the wing and tail of the fly. Another "Old Skool" way is called Greasing the Line. You may have to ask your granddad about that one! LOL
my guess is that the water was clear, and your tippet from your dry to your nymph was spooking the fish becouse it was too heavy. try flouro for your droppers as light of a line rating as your heart can take and mend addition slack above your fly to eliminate any drag the heavier set-up may have. I use black stimulators for strike indicators over beads, and floatant is a must, I have never had it effect my catch rate, its pretty damn sweet when a steelhead decides to swipe that floater and run but usally the bead or lower fly always fishes better. if you were in a hatch and it was producing you probably should have just accepted the catch you were getting instead of trying for more and messing up a working proposition.
I'm a dry & dropper junkie - it's how I start out fishing most of the time, and usually what I end up sticking with. For starters - for my dry fly, I like to use something that floats really well, and add just a touch of additional floatant. Humpies, elk/deer hair caddis patterns, stimulators, sofa pillows, heavy hackled parachute flies, or flies with polypropylene wings are good. Then I go with a dropper at least 1 size smaller, two if I'm going with a bead head dropper fly - and I down size my tippet at least one size smaller. The thinner the dropper tippet, the less resistance it creates in the water, and the easier your nymph/wet will sink. Even 6 and 7x tippet can be hard to break - just wait till you snag a tree with that dropper fly...
In general, I tend to shy away from heavily weighted flies (or weighted flies in general) for my droppers. You can add some fly sink (the opposite of floatant) to help get the flies down if you need, or just spit in your hand and press the spit into the fly body so that it's already wet when it hits the water (this will let it sink faster, instead of sitting in the surface film until it soaks enough water up to sink)
I general use shorter casts than most, and watch the currents. Either cast as close to directly up stream as practical, or keep as much line off the water as you possibly can, to minimize how the surface currents play with your setup. Ideally, your dropper will hang almost straight down from your dry fly, but keep in mind that the current on the surface is not necessarily moving at the same speed as it is on the bottom, even through the same slot.
Also, how you attach the dropper plays a role. There's 3 basic ways to do it. Short droppers off your leader, tying the dropper to the bend of the hook of the dry fly, or tying the dropper to the eye of the dry fly.
For years and years I used the in-line method of tying to the hook bend - but I've changed up my game, and have been going eye-to-eye with my dropper flies. I think this gives a little bit better presentation. Some guys believe this also helps with not missing hook ups on the dry fly (some claim that tying to the hook bend prevents hooking fish with the dry - I've never noticed that problem). Whatever way you have confidence in, is how you should fish. Confidence is very important.
I will note - especially when fishing for panfish - dry & dropper (or popper & dropper) works GREAT, and the potential for double hook ups is neat. Happens quite a bit when fishing for schooling panfish, since they're so aggressive.
And think of it this way - you could be indicator nymphing with some gaudy colored hookless strike indicator, and only possibly catch fish with your nymph - or you can fish a highly visible, high floating dry fly as your strike indicator, and quite possibly get some nice dry fly catching going. Double your chances, double your fun.
And once you've gotten comfortable fishing 2 flies, you'll feel that urge to try 3 flies, which really isn't any more difficult than 2, except when it comes to deciding which flies to chose (a big dry fly like a grass hopper works great for this as the top fly, and I usually go with a natural, tame colored nymph and a wildly colored attractor wet fly - let the fish choose what they want to eat). You might also dabble in working "casts" of wet flies, swinging 3 wets through a run. That can be a hoot.