Pocketwater
Short-Line Nymphing
Although pocketwater trout eat dry flies and dead-drifted or short-twitch streamers, short-line nymphing is the most dependable strategy. Roll-cast your flies upstream at a 45-degree angle, and immediately lift all the fly line (and the butt end of the leader) off the water to prevent drag.
Carefully manage the fly line from behind your casting hand index finger by stripping the fly line with your opposite hand. With this approach, your strike indicator is doing the fishing, allowing your nymphs to drift like helpless naturals in the current.
It is important to have your strike indicator properly adjusted, keeping it at one and a half to two times the depth of the water. Faster water generally requires a longer leader.
Weight is another important consideration. Add enough split-shot, moldable tungsten putty, or other weight to make your nymphs occasionally tap the bottom. Make repeated casts, covering the water with a gridlike approach.
The first drift through each current break is often your best bet to hit a fish. I make about a dozen casts in each pocket before moving on.
Detecting Strikes
A third of your strikes will go completely undetected if you rely solely on your strike indicator. There is a direct correlation between the speed of the river and how quickly you’ll detect the take. In fast currents, the leader tightens on the fish quickly, causing the strike indicator to sink abruptly. In slower currents, the process is delayed, and in many cases you’ll never know you had a strike.
Expert anglers watch both the strike indicator and what goes on under the strike indicator, looking for any movements, flashes, or opening mouths. If you see any of these, set the hook immediately. In pocketwater you can’t normally sight-fish in the traditional sense, but the fish sometimes give themselves away when they strike.
Toward the end of the drift, allow your flies to swing up in the current, imitating emerging mayflies and caddis. I use a “position set” and set the hook after each swing, just in case a trout has eaten my fly undetected. The hook-set should be a firm stroke, with a short range of motion. Set the hook back into the trout’s jaw (downriver) to ensure a good hook-up.
European Nymphing
Czech or Polish nymphing, an offshoot of short-line or high-stick nymphing that is often called European nymphing, is rapidly gaining popularity in the U.S. as an effective method of catching trout in moderately paced riffled currents and pocketwater. [For more on Czech nymphing, see Paul Marriner’s story in the May 2009 issue. The Editor.]
The main emphasis is to avoid using all forms of external weight such as split-shot and tungsten putty (the flies are the weight) and strike indicators, while at the same time imitating swimming bugs.
Czech nymphing uses scud and caddis nymphs with tungsten beads and lead-wrapped underbodies in a two- or three-fly nymphing rig. Czech nymphs are tied slim, and as heavy as possible, which helps the flies sink quickly in fast water. Flies with bushy hackle and other appendages such as rubber legs do not sink as fast. Polish nymphs are similar, but they have woven bodies with lead-wrapped shanks and tungsten beads. These flies usually imitate cased and free-living caddis, craneflies, stoneflies, and scuds.
The typical setup is 3 to 4 feet of 10- to 15-pound monofilament, joined with three 20-inch sections of 3X, 4X, and 5X connected together with double or triple surgeon’s knots. For flies smaller than #18, use 4X, 5X, and 6X tippet sections. The butt section is often red or chartreuse Amnesia to assist in strike detection.
You can also buy specialty leaders such as Andy Burk’s Czech Nymph Leader (Umpqua Feather Merchants) or Moffitt System Contact Leaders.
Cast upstream at a 45-degree angle, allow the flies to sink, and immediately lift all the fly line off the water. The rod should be an extension of your arm, holding the rod tip parallel to the surface. The biggest difference between short-line nymphing and the Czech or Polish approach is that you pull the fly line slightly faster than the current. You want to move the rod tip fast enough to keep a tight line, while also letting the flies roll or bounce along the stream bottom.
Create positive tension (a tight line) by pulling the flies downstream, allowing you to feel the strike, as opposed to seeing it with a strike indicator or watching for any type of hesitation where the leader enters the river. The hook-set should be quick and firm, with a short range of motion.
If you are constantly snagging bottom, your nymphs are too heavy, and you need to switch to flies. Carry flies with different sizes of beads and underbodies to achieve different sink rates.
Dry-Droppers
As runoff subsides and low summer flows settle in, dry-dropper rigs become effective tools in places that are now too shallow for traditional nymphing techniques.
With this approach, your dry fly acts as the strike indicator, and your nymph is tied off the bend of the hook with 18 to 24 inches of tippet. Some anglers opt to fish two nymphs, but in many cases, the second fly is more trouble than it’s worth. This technique is possibly the most effective way to fish pocketwater, and positively the most entertaining.
Choose your dry/indicator fly based on the prevailing hatch. For instance, if Yellow Sallies are hatching, use a yellow Stimulator; if caddis are hatching, an Elk-hair Caddis. Use a similar approach for selecting your droppers.
Let’s face it, our days of complete solitude on Western tailwaters are over, but you can find quiet little runs and riffles you can have to yourself on almost any popular river by breaking out of your rut and finding less pressured pocketwater.
Pat Dorsey is the southwest field editor for Fly Fisherman and author of Fly Fishing Tailwaters (Stackpole Books, 2009).
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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