Nymphing in Three Dimensions

"You just like being weird" a friend told me not long ago. True, if something's fashionable my instinct is to run in the opposite direction and look for an alternative approach. Not weird, just a little non-conformist maybe, but what's this got to do with fishing?

Well, take euro nymphing. I admire its wizards. I admire the skill involved, the highly refined tackle and the flies and the end results. Now, I know this is heresy, but I just don't like doing it. I've tried, I really have, but I just don't get on with it. It makes me feel like I've been stuck in a track and constrained to fishing in just two dimensions. For me it doesn't have the fluidity I love in fly fishing. 

This all comes home to me today. I've had the good fortune to be invited to fish the Derbyshire Derwent with fishing buddy Geoff Hadley and this morning we're hoping for some end of season brownies (although secretly, I'll happily swap them for some Derwent grayling). Geoff is a pretty dab hand with the euro nymph approach and is soon into the fish - grayling, a little wild rainbow and some lovely wild brownies. Meanwhile, though 'seemingly' copying his approach, I can't win as much as a take. To the point now that it's starting to become embarrassing. I learned years ago that the difference between a blank and a red letter day can sometimes be the most subtle of changes in presentation, which is why I persist with this rig, ringing the changes with point fly & dropper, with different drifts, small lifts, big lifts, no lifts.. etc, etc etc. Still no contact and meanwhile Geoff's tally continues to grow..

So, damn it, I'm going to revert to type - using deceptively simple methods that can be used in a myriad of ways according to instinct (or whim?). Off comes the indicator/leader and team of heavy flies. Onto the Superfine Carbon 8ft 4wt goes the same set up I'm using for dry fly - a 6ft  Luke Bannister furled presentation leader (un-ginked) plus six foot of 0.127mm nylon tippet. I tie on a beaded nymph but it'll be the work of seconds if I want to change up and tie on a dry.

No team of flies now, no infernal dropper tangles, no worries that a trailing fly might get caught in structure if a good fish runs. And no need to lob casts. With one nymph I don't need to worry about keeping loops wide open either. With a slightly elliptical stroke the bead won't hit the rod and loops can be quite tight, so I can drop the nymph (more or less) where I want.

Now I'm happy. I can fish a dynamic nymph in three dimensions. Dead upstream I can let the fly tick along the gravel back down to me, lifting the fly or not and watching the line for pauses, twitches or slides. Up and across the nymph fishes midwater and as it passes me and comes around on the swing it rises in the water column and, if I let it, comes right up to the surface and skates across in an arc. Now the fly can be left to hang, or fed downstream with a fall and a rise with each pause. At the end I can pulse the fly tenkara style or retrieve it back in a variety of patterns. 

And what I love about this old school single nymph approach is that I can link all of these presentations together in one drift to find where the fish are responding in the water column without the need for a team of flies. Now too, I can get the fly into tighter spots under the far bank cover than I could with the euro nymph. 

For me this kind of fishing is more self expressive and lets me interpret the water as I want. And when you are happy you are often fishing more effectively too and so it is today. It's not the easiest of conditions but I'm soon into the fish now - some nice grayling, four, five six, seven and for me they are definitely responding to a more dynamically presented fly.

I can tell that the fish are on the fin and coming up in the water to hit the fly, as the takes come just as the nymph rises on the start of the downstream swing. Geoff tipped me the wink earlier that orange hot spots are working well here lately and his sound advice pays off as another grayling makes an emphatic strike at the orange bead head I'm fishing. I'm interested to learn why the hot spot is so effective and some later research back at home throws up some fascinating insights.. more of this in a later blog.