Fly Fishing Style - A Different Approach

Our fly fishing style was developed as a matter of luck. I’ve often said that if Knoxville had become the center of communication in America, instead of New York, all our attitudes about flyfishing would be different. As it is, much of our style was set in 19th century Britain. What evolved there was an emphasis on dry fly fishing only, to rising fish, and a set of rules and guidelines that were cast in stone. American’s like Theodore Gordon picked up on that fly fishing style and tried transporting it, in whole, to our waters. Sometimes it worked. More often it didn’t. The relatively sterile freestone creeks of the Northeast bore little resemblance to the chalk streams of Great Britain. But instead of adapting to our real conditions, several generations of fishermen frustrated themselves, waiting for those massive hatches that never seemed to materialize. Don’t get me wrong. I love the waters in the confluence region of the Catskills. And, though it’s been a quarter century or more since I fished there, I still think of those streams as my home waters. Meanwhile, away from the confluence region; away from the British-influenced New York clubs, away from the venerable Brooklyn Flyfishers, other anglers, in other places, were developing fly fishing styles of their own. Few of them achieved national exposure or fame. The terrestrial revolution of the Pennsylvania Limestone Creeks was a notable exception. Oddly enough, it was those streams that most resembled the British model; there being only one major difference between the limestone streams of Pennsylvania and the chalk streams of England. That was the size, frequency, and reliability of the hatches. But what local anglers discovered was that trout in the fertile waters of south-central Pennsylvania happily fed on ants, beetles, jasids, crickets and grasshoppers. And they developed fishing flies patterned for that purpose. A fly fishing style that, to my mind, is just as important as the terrestrial revolution has gone little noticed in the literature, however. And that’s the fly fishing found in the southern hill country. The Appalachians, and, particularly, the Smokies, produced their own patterns and outlook. One major difference: rather than being seen as the be-all and end-all of fly fishing, dry flies were seen as a sometime thing. Trout, after all, feed 90% of the time under the water, not on top. So it just makes sense that artificial fishing flies should simulate that forage base. Thus, nymphs are more important. Not just nymphs, but the way they are fished. Indeed, for most Appalachian flyfishermen, pattern is much less important that presentation. And the fly fishing style that results in the best catches, is tight-line nymphing. Time after time, when the sophisticated dry-fly angler goes home skunked, the tight-line nympher, working heavily trafficked waters, takes trout that are measured in pounds rather than inches. Tight-line nymphing is, at base, a simple technique that deserves broader use. While a single fly works, usually two flies are tied on. A weighted nymph goes on the point, while a non-weighted nymph goes on a dropper. Sometimes the flies are the same pattern, in either the same or different sizes. But just as often they are different patterns, just in case the fish are selective that day. The flies are cast slightly quartering upstream, on a short line. The idea being that there is no slack in the line or leader. They form a straight line between the rod tip and the flies. As the flies move downstream you follow them with the rod tip, never letting slack develop. With a tight-line presentation you are in constant touch with the flies. You feel them roll into bottom scours, and bounce of boulders, and scrape along waterlogged tree branches. And, most of all with this fly fishing style, you feel the slightest pick-up. Not only does this increase your hook up rate, it’s initially humiliating when you realize how many fish, in the past, have picked up your fly and spit it out without you even knowing it. You also learn, first hand, that despite the snobbery of the dry-fly-only anglers, the real challenge is fishing with nymphs. No matter where you fish, whether the freestone streams of the Northeast, the limestoners of Pennsylvania, the creeks of the mountain South, or the brawling waters of the West, the most consistently successful anglers are those who master nymphing techniques. Basically, when the fish are hitting on top, anybody can catch them. You’re using a fly matched to the natural forage, and casting to visibly working fish. Compare that to the unknowns of nymph fishing, and you have to wonder how the myth of dry fly fishing ever originated in the first place.