Yorkshire Derwent

[lanhal]

Out today for a few hours. River above low level and slightly coloured. Warm, dry, sunny with deep shade under the trees. Fish rising. Should have been great - but it wasn't.

Dry fly after dry fly was ignored: plume tip, deer hair caddis, bibio, CDC midge. Only a dirty duster raised a bit of interest, but fish turned away before taking. Que?

No upwing flies around: ditto needle fly etc, but loads of midges over the water.

After a break for a drink and a think, I noticed the car was covered by small lack terrestrials. So on went this (size 20):

Result(ish)! I began to get rises to the fly, at last, and ended up with 3 brownies and a grayling. But what hard work.

Any suggestions for a better approach please?

[springerman]

I am only a beginner myself but a great little fly is the CDC shuttlecock. Daves is a great practitioner of such flies. For the pattern have a look at Jeremy Lucas's web site, presentation Fly Fishing.  The fly he calls the Heron herl Plume tip.  I am sure you know the fly I mean.  You could also do worse than use a Mole Fly!!

Good Luck.

[lanhal]

Thanks springerman. I know the fly you mean, and I gave it a swim a couple of times but perhaps I didn't persist enough! I also tried a Sawyer bow tie buzzer and was amazed when this didn't work either but maybe the pattern was too big in this case.

[daves]

I suspect micro-drag was the cause for rejections rather than the fly. The advantage of a Shuttlecock is that the sunk body helps to resist micro-drag for that brief second that can make all the difference. I Bug Bond the body of my Shuttlecocks & use 3 CdC tips to ensure the body sinks immediately but the fly floats well. If I'm in a rush I just use varnished thread for the body.

[lanhal]

Thanks Dave, that's a good point. I had similar trouble on the Duchy water yesterday morning. I have some minute CDC shuttlecocks (your pattern) in my box: I'll dig them out and annoint them with Bug Bond pronto.

[daves]

I fished the Derwent today & had a stack of fish from the pool heads on Hawthorn Flies (size 14) & Black Gnats (size18). No problems with rejections. How much line do you allow to rest on the water when you Tenkara? I fished a short line (just longer than the rod) made up of 3 weight level fluorocarbon plus a 3' tippet of 0.12mm copolymer. With this In could generally hold all but 1' of tippet off the water, except where the trees were too low.

[lanhal]

Many thanks for the info Dave. I confess I've not been too particular about line on the water, on the grounds that it can be no worse than a conventional leader and tippet. So...
I've been back on the Derwent this afternoon/evening. I used my 12' Iwana with 9ft #3 fluoro line (Sunline or BMS Sniper, both ex Eso) with 3ft or so tippet of either 2lb Maxima (0.12mm) or Orvis 7X (0.1mm), Tried the usual dry flies in the afternoon with little success - a few rises but nothing that stuck. (Deer hair caddis, black gnat, CDC midge, hawthorn fly).
I suspected that surface-feeding fish were actually taking something slightly below the surface film so I switched to a kebari. This started to produce and by early evening I'd had 6 brownies and a grayling plus a number that came unstuck. I rang the changes with rod choice and line length while I was fishing with the kebari. I then switched back to short line/dry fly and took a rainbow on a dirty duster followed by another 4 brownies using a CDC shuttlecock.
Overall a rather long and difficult session, but quiet significant for me: its the first time I've ever seriously fished a kebari fly and had results using one. It also pointed out the inadequacies of my casting. Must do better.

[daves]

I too was on the Derwent today. Upper Water for just over an hour produced 5 fish toy Tenkara & 4 to Italian Casting setup using a Hawthorn Fly (size 14) & Wrench Green 3 hours on Tenkara produced 13 to a size 16 Shuttlecock. Virtually all fish came from the very skinny, rippled water at the pool heads. I mainly fished with a 10' 3 weight fluorocarbon line on a 360cm rod (TRY 360 & Nissin Prospec 2 Way at 360cm) plus 3' of 6x tippet. However in some places where the water was less than calf deep & not as rippled I added a 3' line extension of 3 weight fluorocarbon to give me a better working distance.

Let's get together sometime & we can work on your casting.

[springerman]

lanhal, Great result. Well done.

[lanhal]

Thanks for your encouragement springerman. It rained over here in Gods Own County yesterday and earlier today so the local streams are up a bit. Hopefully they'll be fining down by Sunday. I can than have another crack at improving my casting.

[paul1966]

This is interesting when fishing the dry I've been leaving quite a bit of line on the water too, I use tapered mono line (only for dry fly). I do ok but maybe I could catch more. I shall give your tactics a try.

[daves]

In pocket water & complex flows the less line there is on the water the better drag control will be. Also with a tight line it is possible to apply subtle manipulations to dry flies to induce a take e.g. twitching a Daddy or dancing a Dance Fly or skittering a Sedge. I know there are those who like to fish long lines but I prefer to fish as short a line as possible, only extending the line much beyond a rod's length when it is impossible to get close to the fish.

[lanhal]

Thanks for the tip about twitching a dry fly, Dave. It worked for me on Pickering Beck this afternoon: I rose the same fish three casts in succession (and missed it each time!)

[daves]

Twitching & skittering with pauses works wonders when fishing Mayfly Duns. If the Derwent & particularly Pickering Beck return to a decent level next week the Mayfly should be at their peak.