Tom: Before we move on to the more complicated issue of fishing nymphs,
let's visit Pete Kutzer for some helpful tips on casting with a strike
indicator and weight on your leader.
Pete: Through all these presentations I've been talking about staying in
the straightest line possible. We want to stay in that nice
tight, straight path. That's going to keep that loop nice and
tight. When you're dealing with heavy flies or wind resistant
flies, or great big poppers, or maybe you have an indicator rig
with a lot of weight on the end of that leader, that's when we
might want to actually start to travel in a little bit of an
arch.
That's going to help open up those loops and prevent that heavy
fly or that big popper from colliding with the rod. I have seen
rods break, just by a piece of split shot coming forward. So we
want to open up that loop by traveling a little bit of an arch.
That's going to help get that fly still out to those fish, but
keep that fly well away from that rod and away from that line.
Tom: Another great way to cast nymphs and wet flies is called the water
load, where you let the river be your back cast.
Sometimes, if you've got a lot of wind, if you've got a lot of brush,
you've got two flies, and an indicator and a weight on your
leader, and you don't want to be casting all over the place, you
can do what's called a water load. What you do, it's very
simple, you wait until the line drags behind you. You pick up
the rod tip and flick a cast forward. So you keep doing that.
As soon as the line drags behind you, especially with nymph
fishing, you don't need to be that super delicate, just pick it
up and make a forward cast. That way you don't have to have your
line going back and forth in the air and your fly is tangling
and getting in trees and things like that.
It's not all about catching giant fish. Sometimes just swinging
a wet fly through a riffle and catching small trout is a lot of
fun. It doesn't always have to be a monster. As you can see,
even this little rainbow is bending that six weight rod.