Dry Flying

                                                                             Dry Flying

5/05/26 

  Tuesday I decided to go bottomless. I kept my bugger box and sucker spawn box in my fly vest and carried my caddis boxes ready at all times. I drove up creek where I had caught many a trout in recent years on caddis dries. I parked, assembled my Scott Session 4 weight fly rod and lengthened the 4x tapered leader with 5x tippet the full length being about 8’6” the same length of the rod. I put my vest on and of course grabbed a few cigars.

 It was a cloudy overcast morning with a slight breeze and an occasional gust of wind. The sun was rising over the hillside that reflected its rays off the clouds above and down upon the forest and water. The weather people were calling for occasional showers with temps reaching into the 70’s. For now it was in the 60’s but I was hoping, once the sun was up above, bringing warmth, that a caddis hatch would appear. 

 The first section I fished I couldn’t get a take on my caddis dries. I was almost going to throw a bugger but promised myself to dry fly only. I waded out of the water and walked through the forest to the section of water I wanted to spend time dry fly fishing. When I got there, there was an older gentleman, with a fly rod, fishing from the opposite side of the creek. There was plenty of room between us to fish the wide section of water. My dedicated dry fly fishing went like this;

 There wasn’t anything happening on top of the water for awhile. I was casting a big #12 deer hair caddis in the faster wavy current and would cast a #14 caddis in the slower current. I figured that the bigger caddis, for the trout, would be easier to see on the wavy current. In time there was a few rises as small caddis were coming to the surface and fluttering off the water. Unless I saw a rise I was blind casting in different areas and making trout rise. 

 Most of the trout I caught on the dry were brown trout with a few rainbows mixed in. The brown trout were extra aggressive after being hooked. I caught some nice size brown trout that tore the caddis dry up pretty much unusable. 

  I was tying fresh caddis dries often replacing the beat up or drenched caddis from floating. Each new caddis I knotted on I would dap the body with dry fly gel before casting it out. When I caught a trout or the caddis wasn’t floating, my process is to dry off the caddis with my cotton handkerchief and then shake it in the bottle of silicone powder. Before casting it back out I would bend the deer hair or elk hair wing straight up for a better profile. When a trout rose to it I usually caught it though I did miss a few.  

 The fly guy across stream was fishing beneath the surface but I never saw him catch a trout. He wasn’t an amateur as he roll casted well and held the fly rod like he knew what he was doing he just wasn’t catching any trout beneath the surface. At times he’d sit on a rock and watch me casting my dry flies out and hooking up to rising trout.    

 When he sat on the rock and watched, most times, I would make long casts to his side of the creek. I asked him if he minded and he nodded his head no. I caught a couple on his side of the creek. 

I was biding my afternoon smoking cigars and casting dry flies under the occasional sunshine. 

 

 I was making easy casts when the wind died down and forced a cast across the gust of wind when I had to. (On windy days I use a fast action rod that cuts the wind a lot better than a medium to slow action fly rod.) My overhand arm motion was as uniform and consistent like the second hand on a grandfathers clock and as smooth as a well oiled grocery conveyer belt. When no wind was involved I had open loops leaving the caddis on the water with enough slack for a drag free drift being upstream, across creek, or downstream. When a cross-wind was involved I made quick and justifiable sharp closed loop casts to my target area. 

 I’m sure the other guy noticed I was dry fly fishing. He did mention that there wasn’t a hatch or nothing on the surface he could see for the fish to rise to. I told him “I make’m rise.” My theory is the reason trout aren’t rising is because there isn’t anything for them to rise to. On a day where caddis or mayflies aren’t about I still give the trout something to rise to. Sometimes all I have to do is see one riser which tells me the trout are looking up, as some would say. Fly fishermen won’t cast a dry because there isn’t a hatch going on or they don’t see any trout rising. Time and again I’ve watched guys walk down to the bank of a creek or river and look it over as if looking for rising trout or a hatch. If they don’t see any surface activity they walk away. No problem as far as I’m concerned. As my dad always commented “that’s more for me!”

 Near the far side of the creek, near the older gent sitting on the rock watching me, I saw a splash to the surface near the tail out of the faster wavy run. I made a sharp cast upstream from the splash, with my caddis, and watched for a rise. First and second cast didn’t happen. I waded upstream, along the bank, to get a better angle to get my caddis to reach the zone, dry fly first before the tippet. I made a looping cast and the dry caddis fell to the water upstream from my target zone. The bullet-head deer hair caddis wing was standing up like I wanted. As my offering drifted and bobbed on the riffling water a trout splashed to the surface. I quickly yanked the rod back and the line tightened and I swear 7 plus feet of the rod bowed towards the take. I called out “gotcha.” I could tell I had a heavy trout as we battled for supremacy. The whole time I hooked and battled with the trout the older gent watched me play him to the net. The rainbow was the biggest of the day. After releasing the hook from the side of its mouth I raised the rainbow for the guy across the creek to see. He nodded his head in approval. Being I fish mostly alone it’s nice to get an approval from an unknown fellow angler.  

 It wasn’t very long after that the older gent got up and walked up to his truck. I waded out and up the bank to dry land. I carefully walked through the forest upstream to where my truck was parked. I did make a few casts with the dry caddis where I started without a rise. No matter, I was happy with the results for the day.

 

~doubletaper