Trying droppers

[Ian FG]

Anderoo,

As has been already stated the water knot works well but if you really want the dropper to stand out at 90 degrees from the leader, some people like to use the blood knot, you simply trim one tail of the knot close and leave the other as long as you wish for the dropper, although 12" would be considered too long for most people.

[Andrew Boyd]

4 turn water knot is fine, but the "tag" you use as the dropper should be the one pointing in the direction of your point fly.

 

10 to 12 inches is too long, unless your drift fishing and short casting a team of bushy drys ( not at this time of year anyway ), about 8 inches is OK.

 

If your changing flys rapidly . don't. But if you must you will trim your droppers down to nothing. So, make up a few leaders before you go. They can tangle into a nastly mess if your not carefull. . . so stick a bit of folded sticky paper on the end of each dropper and one on each end of the leader. Remember which end needs unrolling, otherwise your end up in a bigger mess that getting a hook to nylon wrong. Colour the point end and fly line ends so you know which is which when unrolling. Use freezer bag ties to hold the prepared leaders, thenone leader to a freezer bag.

 

Make sure you are taper your leader's to get good turn over.

 

It's best to select the weight of your fly so that the point is heaviest, where Trout/condition's allow. . . .

 

IE: point weighted - GRHE, 1st dropper - Black Spider, top - buzzer.

 

Dependant on ability and conditions / water try to use a decent length of leader overall. Ready made leaders with droppers tend to be to short ( 8' / 9' ) unless your fishing a small stream.

 

For still waters I use 16' to 25', for large still waters from a boat I'll use 16' to 30'.

 

Using a long leader takes some practice, one of the best ways to learn is watch others and see how they cope or not !

 

Tight lines

[Anderoo]

Cheers folks! I've always just used a single fly on a long leader (unless I'm on Ullswater, in which case I use a couple of droppers, but that's from a boat and only once a year) but for early season reservoir bank fishing I thought I should get to grips with droppers. I'll probably stick to 1, keep it short and leave a bloodworm buzzer on and fish a lure on the point. I don't really like lures, and this will at least give me chance of getting something on the buzzer without blanking...!

 

First trip out for a year tomorrow - you'd better hope you're not standing next to me

[Andrew Boyd]

Good luck tomorrow.

 

Temp is OK but wind will be quite strong. Remember that Trout move up "into" the wind/ripple so although casting into the wind is not very frendly it's likely that's where the Trout will be.

 

As a rule if it's overcast the Trout will be in the upper water layers, if bright and sunny they move down ( no eyelids ). More so if the wind is from the same direction as the sun.

[Anderoo]

Good luck tomorrow.

 

Temp is OK but wind will be quite strong. Remember that Trout move up "into" the wind/ripple so although casting into the wind is not very frendly it's likely that's where the Trout will be.

 

As a rule if it's overcast the Trout will be in the upper water layers, if bright and sunny they move down ( no eyelids ). More so if the wind is from the same direction as the sun.

 

The wind was quite strong! So strong in fact that the only way to get a line out was to have the wind behind you (even a side wind was impossible), and the fish were not playing ball. However, the droppers behaved superbly, so thanks to everyone - my problem before was that they were too long. Flourocarbon seems better than mono too as it's a bit stiffer.