Tormenting my sister, and oh, strike indicators

One of the best things about having this blog is that, not only can I write whatever I want, it is also an excellent mechanism for tormenting my youngest sister. I introduced her to fly fishing and arranged her marriage (sort of) to a way cool fly fishing guy so I do have some license. She does cast better than I do, and has fished more exotic places than I will ever see. So she does deserve it.

We went a-fishing on the Chatahoochee River this spring. It's a tailwater fishery that holds trout all year, and has stocked rainbows and some wild browns (she told me this, so it must be true). The river is characterized by long stretches of slack water interspersed with shoals. Shoals are strange- imagine a giant playing pickup sticks with great slabs of bedrock and you get the idea. You can be standing in ankle deep water, and in front of you it drops to a depth of 10 feet.

I outfished her about 10 to 1 for one simple reason. No, not because she gave me a "where to fish" orientation and gave me all the good spots (she did), but because we were fishing nymphs with strike indicators, and mine was set up for steelheading, and hers was set up for trouting. Hers was a small delicate indicator at the line-leader connection of a nine foot leader, with a weighted nymph. I had a massive bubble indicator 7 feet down my leader, and below that was two feet of tippet with the same weighted nymph pattern and a massive split shot about 6 inches above the fly. Her nymph floated naturally, mine sank to the bottom within a second, and floated straight downcurrent right in their faces. They saw, they ate, and were caught.

Steelhead techniques work magically on resident trout. The setup is simple. A long leader, a highly buoyant indicator, and a big split shot about a foot above the fly. Cast quartering upstream, and fish the indicator just as you would a dry fly. You need a drag-free float, and if you achieve it the fly will sink fast and drift along exactly underneath or slightly ahead of your bobber. The fly precedes the whole works so the trout see the fly first, and it is moving exactly as a real nymph would drift. I did not figure this out myself. I just watched my friend Tim (the most dedicated steelheader ever) and copied his rig.

The secret to all this is in the technology. The indicator must be big and buoyant and the weight must be heavy enough to sink immediately. I used to use Thill ice fishing bobbers, but now prefer the new thingamabobbers. These are plastic bubbles, and I use the biggest ones available. You need something large to support the weight of a bead head nymph and a BIG split shot. The shot can be 6 to 12 inches above the fly, or even higher if fish are feeding mid-current. The shot should be big enough so that the indicator barely supports the whole shebang.

The second issue with this is depth. Guess the depth, and position the indicator so your shot will be about a foot above bottom. If you are getting strikes, fine. But ideally you want the shot to bump bottom occasionally. Not dragging constantly, or it will hang, but the occasional bump. You can scale the size back if you want, but it is surprising how well the big and heavy approach works even in small streams.

The final issue is the cast. I like a long rod (9 foot minimum), and I roll cast the thing almost exclusively. If you can, do a tuck so the shot hits the water first. This gets it down even faster. Someday I will figure out how to do this in a non-random fashion.

I love this type of fishing, probably because it reminds me of my childhood. The zebco 33, giant red and white bobber, and a gob of worms on an Eagle Claw baitholder snelled hook clipped to a cheap brass snap swivel. But the steelhead approach works for trout every place I have tried it.