Nymphing from a boat

[Fly-Swatter]

I've only been fishing from a raft/boat on trout rivers for a few years. I've had minimal success doing this. I suspect boat handling and/or poor nymphing technique are an issue.

Question: What do you more experienced boating anglers think about nymphing from a moving boat?

 

[krayfish2]

That's my thang. We need to hook up in the spring and float again.

Reading water for the angler is very important. You have got to hit your mark on the first try if possible. You might fish in front of the boulder, drag your nymph rig to the near seam and drift that as the boat approaches. Quickly pull up and cast to The far side of the boulder and run that seam as the boat is going past it. That way you're covering in front of the rock the left seam and the right seam.

Boat control for the rower is also important. You have to keep the boat within casting distance of the lies and attempt to slow it down a little so that the angler can get multiple drifts.

Not all water that looks fishy holds fish. When you've had success in a specific area, that area seems to always hold fish. Once the flows change up or down throw that out the window and start from scratch 🤣.

Setting up your rig properly is probably third.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Thanks, Kray. I think visualizing the drift underwater is part of my problem. I seem to do very well with dry/dropper from the boat. I can focus on the dry and keep the nymph in my awareness.

Regarding floating together....yes, please.

 

[PennKev]

Question: What do you more experienced boating anglers think about nymphing from a moving boat?

If the water is big enough to be nymphed from a boat, focus on setting up and fishing out good, long drifts. Constantly casting and re-casting to hit multiple seams or hit the same spot multiple times is usually counter productive. The beauty of nymphing(or any fly fishing) out of a boat is the ability to get good drifts over a long distance with relatively minimal work by the guy holding the rod.

Set up a good drift and let it ride.

Also, you don't need to use nearly the amount of weight as you do when wading and you can often shorten up the distance between your indi and flies.

Fishing effectively from a moving boat is mostly a matter of the rower keeping you in position and managing speed without sliding into the lane you are trying fish. Depending on the river you are fishing it can be very tricky to do this without experience.

 

[krayfish2]

Agree with Kev on the less weight and running drifts as long as possible.

My scenario of covering both seams when passing a boulder applies when it's pretty much the only place a fish might sit or could sit. There's MANY times I'll get the rig out ahead of the boat and drag it into feeding lane by raising the rod tip and then dropping it slack as I reach the intended lane. By running it ahead of the boat, you can change lanes without recasting, impart swing or swim the flies AND if you snag, you are pulling the flies out the same way they went into the rock. Better chance of not losing everything.

Haven't used weight on indi rig in 10+ years. I'll use weight in the form of tungsten headed fly or adding a heavy stone to the setup. If my 'weight' has a hook... might have a better chance of hooking up. When we first started experimenting with boat nymphing, nymphed everywhere (1' of water, 15' of water, rapids, slow pools). Caught fish in all locations on the same rig. 3 flies, no lead added, 7-9' from bottom fly to the indi. In shallow water, swing / swim the flies or you're snagged. Fish and water that shallow are typically actively feeding and have no issues chasing your fly. Usually set up to or three nymph rods for the day. General attractor patterns of various sizes and cycle through the rods until we figure out what pattern and depth is getting the most attention. Spoiler alert.... usually the prince and I have never understood why. Big Frank fished double stone rig with my spring of 21 and he hooked 28 fish. He just listened to music, drank beer and would cast it out once per pool / riff. If it was in the right lane, eaten.

Remember that if you float XYZ River on Friday and it's at 2800 CFS, when you get back on Sunday and the flow dropped to 1100 CFS, the fish have moved and many places you caught fish in will be void of fish. Feeding and holding lies dramatically change with flow but you already know that.

 

[hooker-of-men]

Caught fish in all locations on the same rig. 3 flies, no lead added, 7-9' from bottom fly to the indi. In shallow water, swing / swim the flies or you're snagged. Fish and water that shallow are typically actively feeding and have no issues chasing your fly.

Can you elaborate on this shallow water fishing? Earlier in the year, I started really lengthening my bobber rig along the lines of the length you describe or often even longer (maybe 8-9 between bobber and first fly and then 2 ft more for a dropper). I had luck with the technique both wading and drifting.

Lately, I've found myself wading on large, but shallow rivers (maybe 4 foot deep runs at most). I've been wondering if too long of a distance between bobber and flies could create slack and result in missed/not visible strikes. I'm not having out of the ordinary huge issues snagging bottom - if so, I would def take that as a sign to shorten leader - but I'm also not finding fish (which I fully acknowledge could be the tough conditions right now; I've just been getting in my head about leader length).

 

[krayfish2]

Can you elaborate on this shallow water fishing? Earlier in the year, I started really lengthening my bobber rig along the lines of the length you describe or often even longer (maybe 8-9 between bobber and first fly and then 2 ft more for a dropper). I had luck with the technique both wading and drifting

What I was describing is pretty much only possible when drifting because you AND the rig are both moving.

If you anchor or nymph on foot, it changes a lot of what you do. I think anchored boat is easier IMHO because most line is off the water and your vantage point.

If you think about wade fishing a traditional nymph / indi rig, you toss it 30' above you. By the time it fully sinks / gets down to the intended depth... it's close to where you are standing. You'd then have to wildly mend / feed line until it gets 30' below your position. During that 60' drift, you might have had 10' of actual drag free time in the strike zone. Detecting a strike while all the mend / feed is going on would be difficult at best You hope they hook themselves 😂.

Faster water makes it an exhausting workout with an even smaller drag free time in "the zone". Slower water makes it much more effective. This is where high sticking / euro stuff would be waaay more effective.

In a boat, you, water and rig are all moving. In real skinny water, fish out ahead of the boat at an angle. Indi drifting with current but line almost tight. If you slowly move the tip across the bow... there's your swim or swing.

You can toss it on a 45° behind the boat and troll as I like to call it. Basically dragging it behind the boat so it doesn't snag in real skinny stuff. You have to be looking ahead of the rig for your targeted slot, small darker green spot where the water is 10" deeper or anything else that could hold fish. You cast way above the target, drag it along and just before the spot....drop slack in the line.

Does that help or make it worse? Not saying it's right but trying to explain what I do to fill time as we drift. The one thing I am sure of is that you must have flies in the water to catch fish the more time they spend in the air,t he less fish you're catching

 

[Fly-Swatter]

If you think about wade fishing a traditional nymph / indi rig, you toss it 30' above you. By the time it fully sinks / gets down to the intended depth... it's close to where you are standing. You'd then have to wildly mend / feed line until it gets 30' below your position. During that 60' drift, you might have had 10' of actual drag free time in the strike zone. Detecting a strike while all the mend / feed is going on would be difficult at best You hope they hook themselves 😂.

Faster water makes it an exhausting workout with an even smaller drag free time in "the zone". Slower water makes it much more effective. This is where high sticking / euro stuff would be waaay more effective.

THIS!

I'm certain this was our mistaken mindset during our float. I know we were not in the zone much and dragged many times we got deep enough. Too much casting and mending, not enough drifting.

Oh, it's important to mention we floated this past Sunday: Mostly sunny, water temps in the upper 30s, air temps same. I've had many strikes on nymphs from a boat when picking up to cast....when water temps were in the 50s and a good hatch was happening. The trout were just not active enough for that on Sunday.

So, challenging conditions + poor technique = skunking. I know the river we were fishing well. Instead of licking my wounds, I figured it was a learning opportunity. So far, the above comments have been very helpful. Thanks, all!

BTW, the double stone rig is interesting. I've been on a stonefly tying jag recently. I can imagine a large black stonefly nymph on point with medium woven perla (or brown/copper Jumbo Copper John) above, or something like that.

 

[krayfish2]

I'll give you full disclosure on that one. The river has been exceptionally high for weeks and when we got up to fish it had just started to drop. Hendricksons were coming off and I got to decent fish to eat a DS emerger. When I hook the fish, it struck an artery somewhere below its tongue. When I got the hook out blood was shooting 6 in the air out of the fish's mouth. I said he's not going to make it and the guy in the rower seat grabbed the fish and whacked it in the head. No sense in putting him back if he's going to die. When he cleaned out the fish the stomach was the size of a lemon. We cut it open and it was almost nothing but Golden Stone flies. I'm talking 50 of them. The next day we went back out nymphing with two of the brightest Golden Stone flies we could find and if you passed it were a fish should be sitting your indicator went down. Looking back, the fish we had caught the first day all had little blisters on their bottom lip what should have given us a clue as to what they were eating. One of the old timers we fish with said that the fish were on the bottom picking up rocks to kick loose golden stones. Not sure I've ever observed it but completely makes sense.

That would be one of two fish that I've knowingly killed in the last 35 years up there.

 

[ryansheehan]

Can you elaborate on this shallow water fishing? Earlier in the year, I started really lengthening my bobber rig along the lines of the length you describe or often even longer (maybe 8-9 between bobber and first fly and then 2 ft more for a dropper). I had luck with the technique both wading and drifting.

Lately, I've found myself wading on large, but shallow rivers (maybe 4 foot deep runs at most). I've been wondering if too long of a distance between bobber and flies could create slack and result in missed/not visible strikes. I'm not having out of the ordinary huge issues snagging bottom - if so, I would def take that as a sign to shorten leader - but I'm also not finding fish (which I fully acknowledge could be the tough conditions right now; I've just been getting in my head about leader length).

On a long drift I don't think there would be many situations where you would get slack between the indy and flies. Assuming the flies are near the bottom they would be moving slower than the indicator that's on top. Any time I'm float nymphing I go longer rather than shorter on distance, there's more room for error on long than short.

 

[krayfish2]

I rarely get the flies all the way to the bottom even with 9' from indi to the bottom fly. The water column is moving at different speeds. Constant micro mending is typically required. Keep fixing the belly out of the line and do your best to stay with the bubbles. The different currents do a lot of the swimming for you. A little 6" - 12" bump to the indi every now and then "resets" your rig in the column and may make it look like they are coming up through the column to hatch. Many takes are within seconds of this "reset".

The other thing I do which is wrong / backwards is the fly setup. I did it to reduce snagging but still caught enough to make me stay with it. I put my heavy nymph at the top of the rig and progressively get smaller / lighter as I go towards the bottom fly. Yes I sacrifice some contact with the rig but I feel having the bottom fly unweighted allows it to move up and down in the water column appearing more natural. Yes, you'll miss fish this way but there's less snags, you don't get the bolo effect when casting and it's still puts fish in the net. My top fly being heavy gets the rig down quick but allows the bottom fly to move freely. Does it work? I think so and will flip-flop the rig if I need to get down in real heavy water. I also run tippet off the eye instead of the bend. I think of it as a tippet ring and don't have to worry about the knot sliding around on the bend weakening the tippet.

Over the past 18 months or so I've worked with TimmyT on this and I think he will back me up. Boat position, boat speed are important but selecting the right feeding lane and micro mending makes up for a lot. He's nymphed 2 miles without a take and then we switch positions. I'm using the same rod / rig and hook up twice in 300 yards. What changed? I took me 6 months of barking at him to minimize casting and mending without moving the bobber if possible. He's got it now and expect his hook up numbers to skyrocket this spring.

I know it's a very non-typical technique but it's worked. YMMV

 

[hooker-of-men]

The other thing I do which is wrong / backwards is the fly setup. I did it to reduce snagging but still caught enough to make me stay with it. I put my heavy nymph at the top of the rig and progressively get smaller / lighter as I go towards the bottom fly. Yes I sacrifice some contact with the rig but I feel having the bottom fly unweighted allows it to move up and down in the water column appearing more natural. Yes, you'll miss fish this way but there's less snags, you don't get the bolo effect when casting and it's still puts fish in the net. My top fly being heavy gets the rig down quick but allows the bottom fly to move freely. Does it work? I think so and will flip-flop the rig if I need to get down in real heavy water.

This is also how I rig, and it's been successful in the past. It never made sense to me to have the lighter fly suspended between the bobber and the heavier fly; I can't see how it would get a natural drift most of the time with that weight below (unless it's on dropper tag, which I generally refuse to fish anymore).

It also seems like generally the bottom fly will get the most attention and the smaller fly (if we're saying something like stone/prince) will get the most hits, so a winning combo.

 

[ryansheehan]

This is also how I rig, and it's been successful in the past. It never made sense to me to have the lighter fly suspended between the bobber and the heavier fly; I can't see how it would get a natural drift most of the time with that weight below (unless it's on dropper tag, which I generally refuse to fish anymore).

It also seems like generally the bottom fly will get the most attention and the smaller fly (if we're saying something like stone/prince) will get the most hits, so a winning combo.

It's all trade offs, I vary what I do when nymphing from and boat and wading. The biggest disadvantage is what Kray mentioned, you are losing contact with the lighter nymph. In some water that lighter nymph drifts down stream past the heavier one so if a fish takes there is no sign from the indicator.

 

[hooker-of-men]

It's all trade offs, I vary what I do when nymphing from and boat and wading. The biggest disadvantage is what Kray mentioned, you are losing contact with the lighter nymph. In some water that lighter nymph drifts down stream past the heavier one so if a fish takes there is no sign from the indicator.

Ah! I guess that addresses my concern! Maybe I'll have to experiment