French Style Nymphing with a Czech Twist

I have long ago found the French nymphing style a useful backup option for the times when fish are not responding to the dry fly. It has served me well especially in the very early and very late parts of the season, when the water is cold and fish reluctant to rise.

I have recently come to have doubts about the "Frenchness" of my approach: I was taught the technique by true masters, who surely forgot more about nymph fishing than I can ever hope to learn. But while all of them knew well the way of the nymph none were particularly strong in foreign languages, and I am positively sure none of them understands a word in French. So the technique I am about to describe might have been French at its start, but has passed through so many Czech hands that I am unsure how much of its origin remains.

The key part of the technique is the indicator. Unencumbered by the arcane requirements of the FIPS Mouche competition rules I have found that the simplest home made indicator works the best for me. I am using a short length of braided Dacron fly line backing in bright orange color. It has a perfection loop tied on each end and when treated with red Mucilin it floats like a piece of cork.

The indicator is loop to loop attached to a level 0.30 mm Stroft monofilament leader some 6 meters long. The weight of the indicator and flies attached is sufficient to cast this leader to the distance of around two rod lenghts, which is OK for my kind of fishing.

At the other loop is attached the tippet, again using the reliable loop to loop connection. For most of my fishing I am using 0.16 mm Fluorocarbon tippet. I try to avoid lighter tippets for nymph fishing whenever possible, as any bottom snags with a 7X tippet are likely to result in loss of whole team.

On the tippet I tie my team of flies. I always fish with two flies, a heavier one on the point and a smaller one on dropper. I adjust the length of my tippet according to the depth of the water I fish, aiming for approximately one meter long tippet in knee deep water.

The point fly serves several purposes - it adds weight to the team so I can cast it further, helps to straighten the leader and drags the lighter fly to river bottom. Actual fish catching is secondary. The smaller fly on dropper does most of the work and accounts for about two thirds of the fish taken.

An example of the point fly is the Heron Goldie fly above, tied with 3.3 mm Tungsten bead.

Examples of the dropper flies are a #16 Motley Turkey nymph with a 2.4 mm Brass bead and a #18 Crane feather nymph with a 2.0 mm Brass bead.

All the flies are tied to similar pattern - tail of rooster hackle fibers, contrasting tag of pink, orange or chartreuse thread, body of nondescript color with a furry thorax and a metal bead. I tie my point flies with Tungsten and the dropper ones with Brass - the additional weight of the dropper fly is small, but the difference between cost of a Brass and Tungsten beads is large.

I found that the choice of fly rod for nymph fishing matters less that the tackle manufacturers would like us to believe. Fly fishermen who specialize in nymphing like to use long wimpy rods - 10' to 11' in length of the AFTMA class 2 or 3. These indeed do the job, but are impractical for any other fly fishing technique, especially if overhanging vegetation is involved.

I have the French leader and a box of beadheads stowed in reserve in my fly fishing bag, and whenever situation demands so I rig them on my 8'6" AFTMA 4 class dry fly rod. There are times when I wish for a longer reach, but overall this method serves me just fine.

Opening the 2012 Trout fishing season

The fishing season on Czech trout waters traditionally opens on April 16^th. This date is eagerly awaited by local anglers, as it presents the first opportunity to cast a fly line since November. This period of forced abstinence is usually manageable during the time of hard winter frosts, but as the weather starts to warm up in March severe cases of withdrawal syndrome begin to appear in the fly fishing community.

For the formal occassion of the first cast in new season I chose the river Střela. Unlike my other favorite rivers, Kamenice & Jizera, it has its headwaters in relatively low altitude where the snow has already melted and its flow was close to normal.

The river flow was stable and the water was only lightly colored. It was still rather cold though, at only 6°C. The streamside meadows were sporting the first spring flowers - buttercups, primroses and butterburs - but the hoped for hatch of large dark olives did not materialise for the whole day. A quick shake of the submerged vegetation with a kitchen sieve showed that the LDO nymphs were present in large numbers, but waiting to hatch on some later day.

Some smallish midges were fluttering around the river edge, and I tried for a while fishing the dry fly. It was a futile effort, mainly to satisfy my conscience as a dry fly fan. The fish were firmly hugging the river bottom, and if I wanted contact with them I had to present my flies at their level.

Having discarded the dry fly I turned to the nymph. The French leader to hand technique with a little Czech twist was rather productive, and I proceeded to catch and release a number of brown trout. Most of them were of the smaller size, but all of them were in good condition. Plump, well marked out and they fought with attitude.

The most productive flies were beadheaded nymphs. I fished a team of two flies, a #12 hairy grub with 3.3 mm tungsten beadhead on the point and #16 turkey herl nymph with a copper bead on dropper. The point fly provided weight to cast (or rather lob) the team and accounted for about a third of my catch, with most strikes going to the dropper.

Hatching Olive Nymph

I plan to open the 2012 fishing season this Thursday. The rivers are still running high from winters snow - some of the ski resorts are still operating - and recent rains. I have my boxes filled up with the usual lot of brightly coloured super heavy bugs that are the reliable openers of the river fishing season.

But hoping against the odds for a BWO hatch I prepared also a batch of hatching nymphs. The fish will be still sluggish after the long winter, and will not be chasing the duns on water's surface too hard. Lightly greased nymphs fished in the film as emergers might get more reactions.

I keep my fingers crossed...

The tie:
#14 Dohiku 302 wet fly hook
Sheer 14/0 thread gray
light cream rooster hackle for tail
Gütermann Sulky Mylar tinsel rib
Brown Olive goose feather for body
natural hare dubbing for thorax
partridge legs
magpie tail for thorax cover
a light touch of dark CD marker pen to colour the head

6. Karlovarské muškařské fórum / 6th Fly Fishing Forum in Karlovy Vary

The 2012 Fly Fishing Forum in Karlovy Vary lived up to its expectations as the most serious fly fishing gathering in the Czech Republic. While smaller than foreign events such as the British Fly Fair International it was a great place for friends old and new to meet and share their love of fly fishing.

The theme for this year was Salmo salar L. and fly fishing for salmon.

To most Czech fishermen salmon fishing has a yetti-like status: while almost everybody heard that it exists very few Czechs have actually seen it, or tried their hands in it. Our country has had no salmon run since the 1930's and for most of the latter half of the 20^th century any travel to salmon fishing destinations of the UK, Scandinavia or even Kola peninsula in the comparatively friendly USSR was severely restricted. As a result the salmon fishing has no tradition now.

We therefore had much interest a presentation on the re-introduction of the salmon into Czech rivers by the person most responsible for the project, Ing. Tomáš Kava of North Bohemian Fishing Union. The project has been running for more than ten years, and it has started to show the first results. Salmon have returned to the spawning redds in headwaters of the Kamenice river, even though their numbers are far too low to make their population self sustaining.

The obstacles that these fish had to overcame are tremendous - first they have to make the 700 kilometer trip through the Elbe river (starting at Hamburg, the second busiest port in Europe) through Germany to the Czech borders and then overcome a number of dams and weirs to reach their spawning grounds. Out of the 200 000 fry that are planted each year only 20 adult fish are estimated to complete the journey back.

It was interesting to compare the plight of Czech salmon to the Danish ones. They were also reduced to near extinction status, but with help of local fishermen were brought back from the brink and now provide good sport and help to support the rural Danish economy. Of course the very short distance from sea to spawning grounds made the reintroduction somewhat easier.

A more practical presentation was done by duo of German salmon enthusiasts - Kolja Veyhle and Mawill Lüdenbach from the Fly Only Project. They gave us a general introduction to modern salmon fly fishing methods, together with introduction to more popular rivers in Norway and Russia. A more informal discussion continued to the late hours; I was glad to find that Kolja and Mawill, being culturally more close to us Czechs, found palatable our traditional plum brandy (Slivowitz). This potent drink has so far found little appeal with my foreign fly fishing friends, who consider it fit only to paint peeling.

The balmy weather was good for an afternoon casting session, which was understandably geared toward salmon fishing techniques. My friend Karel has surprised everyone (most likely including himself) by the dedication he put into casting practice despite his seriously injured ankle.

Kolja turned out to be not only a dedicated salmon fisherman, but also a very talented no nonsense fly tier. Some of his maxims are worth of cutting into stone - I particularly enjoyed to hear that a little flash is all right, but twice as much is not twice as good.

Here is showed one of his salmon tubes, a small black fly with no formal name. I was truly taken aback by its deceptively simple looks. It consists only of five materials - UNI Chinese red yarn butt, a silver bead, a wing of Arctic Fox dyed black, black hackle and a pair of Jungle Cock eyes. I don't consider myself a convert to salmon fishing yet, but this fly is sure to be a terror on the large browns.

Spring is in the air

The Czech mountains are still covered with snow and the cross country skiing season is yet far from over, but in the lowlands around Prague the spring is for real. Already the first little bouquets of snowdrops appeared on stalls by the main railway station, a traditional sign that spring and the fishing season is about to begin...

A Simple Black Buzzer in 10 Easy Steps

A new entry on my Step by Step pages has been published, a guide to tie a Simple Black Buzzer in 10 easy steps. It has been my best performing fly for early season stillwater trouting.

While I strongly prefer river fishing to wasting my time away on stillwaters it is a sad fact that the Czech river season is closed till April 16^th, while the stockie puddles will open to business much earlier.

Hairy Grub

Spring is definitely in the air - yesterday while walking in the park I found this years first Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis L.) which made me think of spring and the opening of the 2012 fly fishing season.

I greatly desire it to be a season full of dainty mayflies, meaty caddis flies and helicopter-like Danicas.

But my realistic side tells me that the very early season will not be a dry fly affair. So I sat down to tie a half dozen weighted hairy grubs, using highly mobile hare's fur and adding a tag of hot pink in an attempt to increase their allure to Grayling.

The tie:
#12 Skalka Gammarus hook
3.3 mm Gold Tungsten bead
a layer of flat lead
tag of Hot Pink UNI Neon Floss
body of hare fur, dubbed lightly and then vigorously scrubbed with a velcro brush
rib of pearl UNI Micro Tinsel