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SpokaneDude

Tie fly so it floats just below the surface

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I see a lot of articles where the author "fishes the fly just below the surface"... I can't seem to figure out how to tie a fly (preferably a soft-hackle fly) so it lies just below the surface. With all the books I have, I must have missed how to do that. Is it the hook, or weight on the tippet? or?

 

What's the secret?

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No secret, although depends on what you mean by "just below the surface". Ultimately if you swing an unweighted wet fly or nymph on a dry line, you will be fishing 'just below the surface' or as I would more technically put it, 'not very deep' (sic.). When swinging, depth is mostly controlled by the cast, whether fishing weighted flies or not, assume you are using a dry line. 'Greasing' the leader with floatant is another trick some folks use to shallow up the presentation, a legacy of when we fished silk leaders. Similarly, if you put a dropper on a dry or use a small bobber, you can control depth by tippet length and weight of the fly (if any). If you are thinking of presenting in the film, then this is where emerger patterns come in, such as the Quigley Cripple or Klinkhammer. These are flies that are partially on the surface, and partially below, imitating a bug trapped in the meniscus. Another possibility is to fish a floating fly below a sinking fly. Depending on how deep you present, the more buoyant fly will suspend above the weighted one, and then you can control the drift however you like, be it with line control a bobber, etc. Heck, if you want to keep it simple, you can drag most dry flies under the film, they will stay 'just below the surface' and can be swung, or dead drifted, or whatever, depending on your presentation. Similarly you can put floatant on your wets, and that can also keep them in the film or just below in some situations.

 

This is really just a long winded way of saying, it is not really a fly tying or pattern design question, as much as it is a matter of presentation, for which there are many solutions.

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Lots of materials can help your SH float close to the surface, CDC being first and foremost (on an extra fine hook), deer hair, snowshoe rabbit, Antron, organza-- stuff that captures air. Allen McGee has a great book out on soft hackles with a lot of ideas on dry SH materials, ties and presentations (among other neat SH stuff)

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chugbug27: thanks... just bought Allen McGee's book a few days ago (Amazon)... haven't had time to read all of it, just skimmed it so far...

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There's a video in the "FTF Videos" forum called Fulvio's Hammer.

I would think that you can do any parachute pattern and tie in foam for the parachute. The foam would float, and the rest of the fly would hang below the surface.

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I can only tell you what works for me. I fish them in rivers and kettle ponds for trout. Most of my soft hackles float initially in still water and I can drown them with a tug or two. Most are tied on a #14 light wire or #14 standard wet/nymph or #14 1x long wet/nymph hook. In one of Nemes's books, his standard body was olive, yellow or orange and mostly just one layer of silk thread for size #14 and smaller. I prefer black, brown, purple and darker dubbing colors on red thread and like a few wraps of ex. small or small wire and forget the tail. I like hen pheasant, partridge in grey or tan and especially starling for a collar. When trout are on the surface this time of the year (still water) and there are only a few midges in the air these patterns will out fish most others and it sure beats blind casting a wooly bugger with a sinking or intermediate line. If there is no surface feeding going on then it's time for the deeper stuff. tight lines.

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Google parasol fly patterns. There are lots of them. Any nymph/larva/pupa/emerger/soft hackle can be adapted to some sort of parasol. Obviously they can be tied to suspend at the level you choose.

 

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=8TjzWeUszZKPA4_givgO&q=parasol+fly+patterns&oq=parasol+fly+patterns&gs_l=psy-ab.13..0.1367222.1375413.0.1378239.22.21.0.0.0.0.153.2096.0j17.18.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..4.17.2096.0..0i131k1j0i22i30k1.110.Np8rkFtx9kg

 

fotw20101108_clip_image002.jpg

15618063616_ec8b66a1a2_z.jpg

emergers-parasol.jpg

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If you want to fish a pattern like a midge or other small pattern just under the film, use the greased leader tactic/technique. I put fly floatant on the leader and tippet to float it BUT I do NOT treat all the tippet with floatant. The rest of the tippet to fly can be treated with a sinkant to sink it or allowed to sink on its own. The amount of tippet that sinks, whether the tippet was treated to sink, and the weight of the fly determines how deep or shallow the fly rides under the surface. This technique is great for small flies that are the best for the parasol method. the floating end of the leader/tippet is the strike indicator and it is extremely sensitive to takes. Thsi is a great technique on still waters and slow flow waters.

 

34915222743_7bd48085dc_z.jpg

 

The greased leader tactic goes back to G. E. M. Skues, the father of modern nymph fishing. I think he first wrote about this method in his 1939 book, Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Edward_MacKenzie_Skues

 

I first read about it on pg 75 in Nymphing, published in 1979 by Gary Borger.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=V8KYqVlOpjkC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=GAry+Borger+greased+leader&source=bl&ots=a3xQb9rY_F&sig=Rol4iJOIohIfnHsAi2TwUme8JPA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y_xyVcWiPIawyQSG44KQAg&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=GAry%20Borger%20greased%20leader&f=false

 

In Fishing the Film, Gary adds that Skues wrote that the strike was noted by, “sudden acceleration of pace of sinking of the fine end of the cast [thats the leader - GB]"

 

Jason Borger also wrote about the greased leader here:

 

http://www.sexyloops.com/index.php/ps/greased-leader-tactic

 

This was a favored technique initially to fish small nymphs and pupa in and under the film. Now that emergers have been developed it is used to fish early stage emergers as well. If you saw a head and shoulders rise of a fish feeding just under the film, this was the technique that was used.

 

This was in the era before strike indicators and the dry dropper technique was developed. It is still one of the the best techniques, I believe, to detect strikes just under or in the film. The end of a floating leader is extremely sensitive to even the most subtle of takes.

 

It is also a great technique to fish to fish in shallow water near the bank using a sunken ant or a sunken spinner. There is no splash of a heavy fly or of an indicator. The cast is not affected by a bulky dry fly or an indicator. Accuracy with slack line casts and the drift is optimized, because there is just the fly and the leader. Even subtle strikes are detected because the leader is the indicator.

 

Sometime it helps to be an old fart that has seen and fished the old ways before indicators and the dry dropper.

 

Here are a few more ideas on when and how to use this technique:

 

Midge Fishing in Paradise | MidCurrent

 

"In the greased leader technique, the angler dresses the leader with a paste fly floatant (thick silicone pastes work best), down to within a few inches of the fly. This controls the depth of the fly’s drift, and the angler watches the point where the tippet passes through the surface film for indications of a strike. While this removes the bulk of an indicator from the leader—allowing better accuracy and a more subtle presentation of the fly—it also offers much less buoyancy and is much harder to see. This approach works best on very slow currents, and on lakes and ponds when there is minimal wind, as the greased leader will sink in faster or choppy water. It also works well when the light is low, as the greased leader shows up in flat light as a dark line on the surface film of the water. The greased leader technique is perhaps the best method for suspending a pupa pattern just under the surface. In stillwater situations, where the numbers of suspended pupae may be astronomical, a very slow draw of the fly may make it more visible to the fish, and make it easier for the angler to detect a subtle strike….

The greased leader approach and sight fishing are the best methods to imitate a midge pupa as it rises to the surface. The cast is made several feet above the fish, allowed to sink to the fish’s level, and then as the fly nears the fish, the angler stops the drift and uses a lift of the rod to move the fly toward the surface. If the fish are taking these ascending pupae, the upward movement will usually trigger a strike."

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Google parasol fly patterns. There are lots of them. Any nymph/larva/pupa/emerger/soft hackle can be adapted to some sort of parasol. Obviously they can be tied to suspend at the level you choose.

 

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=8TjzWeUszZKPA4_givgO&q=parasol+fly+patterns&oq=parasol+fly+patterns&gs_l=psy-ab.13..0.1367222.1375413.0.1378239.22.21.0.0.0.0.153.2096.0j17.18.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..4.17.2096.0..0i131k1j0i22i30k1.110.Np8rkFtx9kg

 

 

 

I love Parasol patterns, and the fly you fish is truly up to your imagination...

 

Tim

 

Pheasant Tail Parasol:

 

Post:

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Klinkhammer Specials serve this purpose, also. Hackle/wing post stay in/on the surface while body hangs just below. Check carefully for the hooks. Partridge versions are monsters for the labeled size. Daiichi 1167 seem more consistent with typical sizing.

 

 

Just Google for the pattern and you'll find lots of info.

 

 

Thanks, Bob H

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Good suggestion. I also thought of suspender emerger patterns like the Klinhammer of any of the Quigley emerger/cripple patters but these are suspended IN the film and not under the surface.

 

8751cdde0072b6adc4efae68ed28209f--caddis

 

I guess it depends on how you interpret "just under the surface." If what I call film flies are what the OP wants there are other methods like a hackle stacker/paraloop emerger that will also be half and half type of films flies with a section of the fly above and a section in or under the film.

 

8ea0ec22c6e21bcdc7013ce568db089b--fly-ty

hacklestacker.jpg

 

The most popular of these flies is a parachute Adams. Any pattern with the supporting hackle ABOVE the fly body will place the fly body in or under the film. A parachute is considered by most to be a dry fly but actually the fish see it as an emerger with the body in the film. See: http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=82314 and Gary Borger's discussion here: http://www.garyborger.com/2016/09/09/parachute-flies-stage-3-emerger/

 

These are flies that imitate position 3 and position 4.

 

35555714992_e971b8af4e_z.jpg37380556114_a7c0040026_z.jpg


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post-61891-0-45794900-1509591480_thumb.jpeg

This soft hackle seems to float just under the surface about 1-2 inches if not treated with floatant. With floatant it stays in the surface film until it wears off. It's a simplified Bastian's floating Caddis. I used craft store 2mm foam sheets for the body, it's pretty dense foam. The abdomen is wrapped from thinly sliced strips of foam, green in this case. The humpy back is from a thicker strip of foam, brown here. A few strands of poly yarn for tail, crystal flash rib, and the soft hackle ( grouse here). Tied on a dry fly hook or light wire emerger hook. This was the most productive fly for me this year on one of the tailwaters. I fished it treated with floatant and fished it behind a klinkhamer or other visible fly. A lot of times I didn't bother to regrease it after fish or after it started sinking a little. The fish didn't seem to care if it was at surface or 1-2" below. Worked dead drift and swung a little at end if drifts. It was deadly on a mostly Caddis River.

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