Polish Nymphing

I can't hold back on this one. Based on my limited experience (dating back to the mid-70's) I find it impossible to refer to the no attached indicator nymphing techinques as Czech, Polish, French or whatever. I learned this style of nymphing long before I ever knew about competitive fly fishing.

I was fortunate to be around some of the most innovative/effective nymph fishermen I will have ever known in the Lehigh Valley area back in the day and these folks were constantly experimenting with leaders and set-ups to make strike detection more effective. That's when someone came up with including a section or two of highly visible mono into the leader. That was somewhere around the mid-70's and, back then, we referred to it as a built-in strike indicator. Today we call this a sighter.

I'm not up on the history of Euro nymphing so I don't know when someone over there came up with the idea of a sighter; however, I wonder if perhaps we may have been the first.

You may ask why it hadn't become so well known in the U.S. earlier and that's a question I can answer with a bit of experience. Back in the 70's and 80's there wasn't much interest in nymph fishing. I was an advocate and would encourage folks I encountered to fish nymphs. I would offer to introduce them to this style of fishing and only a couple of folks took me up on my offer. Most of what I said fell on deaf ears. I could never understand why folks wouldn't have a burning desire to become more effective in their pursuit of trout but that's how it was.

I firmly believe that, to be the most effective nymph fisher today, one should become proficient using sighters and attached indicators. Believe me, there is no end-all, catch-all here.

Dave R.
 
OldLefty wrote:
I can't hold back on this one. Based on my limited experience (dating back to the mid-70's) I find it impossible to refer to the no attached indicator nymphing techinques as Czech, Polish, French or whatever. I learned this style of nymphing long before I ever knew about competitive fly fishing.

I was fortunate to be around some of the most innovative/effective nymph fishermen I will have ever known in the Lehigh Valley area back in the day and these folks were constantly experimenting with leaders and set-ups to make strike detection more effective. That's when someone came up with including a section or two of highly visible mono into the leader. That was somewhere around the mid-70's and, back then, we referred to it as a built-in strike indicator. Today we call this a sighter.

I'm not up on the history of Euro nymphing so I don't know when someone over there came up with the idea of a sighter; however, I wonder if perhaps we may have been the first.

You may ask why it hadn't become so well known in the U.S. earlier and that's a question I can answer with a bit of experience. Back in the 70's and 80's there wasn't much interest in nymph fishing. I was an advocate and would encourage folks I encountered to fish nymphs. I would offer to introduce them to this style of fishing and only a couple of folks took me up on my offer. Most of what I said fell on deaf ears. I could never understand why folks wouldn't have a burning desire to become more effective in their pursuit of trout but that's how it was.

I firmly believe that, to be the most effective nymph fisher today, one should become proficient using sighters and attached indicators. Believe me, there is no end-all, catch-all here.

Dave R.
Click to expand...


LOL...Great post!

Yup. Back in the 70's I remember tying in orange or chart colored backing and even spray painting my line to make my leader more visible for nymphing.

Also, I've been tying and fishing weighted flies and fishing and leading with a tight line like bait fishing. That's actually how I learned how to FF.

With that being said, the comp guys are great anglers, some of the best in the world, but I would say they popularized many of the techniques of nymphing and maybe improved upon them in certain cases, rather than invented them.

Should we call in Pee-yeh nymphing?! :lol:
 
I am all for Pee-yah high sticking. Start spreading the word. Good post Ol' Southpaw.
 
There's no question that some of the comp. anglers are some of the best in the world. There's a lot more to a high success potential than the equipment, accessories and flies used. The angler must be like a fine-tuned instrument, as well.

An inexperienced driver teamed with the fastest, best-handling car in the world would not be expected to win a race.
 
In the early 1970s, pre-indicator nymphing, most of us were fishing with Fenwick fiberglass rods that were only 7 or 7 1/2 feet long.

I'm not sure you could call that "high sticking" with such short fly rods.

Much of the nymphing we did was not "high sticking" or "short lining."

We often made medium or even long casts and drifts. But just without an indicator. (Some of stubborn types still fish this way.)
 
I agree with OldLefty. I learned this style of nymphing long before I ever heard of Czech nymphing, or indicators for that matter. I just heard about indicators this year.
 
JMP, thanks for that info, I am going to give that a shot and look for more!
 
I find this type of nymphing to be a very effective way to catch fish, no matter the name you attach to it. One thing to keep in mind when choosing/designing your leader is that anything over 18 feet is illegal on c&r ffo stream sections. There are some applications of this type of nymphing where the exact length of the leader/Tippett material from the end of the fly line doesn't matter too much since you rarely, if ever, really use the actual fly line. Making sure you stay below 18' though will keep you from having a bad day with a WCO.
 
Based on my reading so far, it seems that only about 9 ft of leader/tippet is required to fish in the style. Can you make it longer? When would you or would you not?

I like the idea of a built in indicator, as I never use one.
 
Paulson wrote:
Based on my reading so far, it seems that only about 9 ft of leader/tippet is required to fish in the style. Can you make it longer? When would you or would you not?

I like the idea of a built in indicator, as I never use one.
Click to expand...

Check out the rig on pages 14-15 in the link below

http://www.bluequillangler.com/site/european_nymphing_techniques/european_nymphing_techniques.html

My typical leader/tippet length usually ends up being around 16'
 
With the amount of interest in this subject this would make a very good sticky. A lot of really good information in here.
 
I would just say, don't get held up on names. Find a good leader formula and you can do all of them on stream. Even Pee-Aye.

What I use

::7ft 20lb Maxima::4ft 15lb Maxima::2ft 10lb bicolor::1ft Cortland White 4x::2 1/2ft 5x floro:: 3ft 5, 6, or 7x for tippet::
 
Thanks, and I am not so much stuck on a name but the different techniques each method uses. Time to build some leaders, thanks agian for the help.
 
Didn't put it in there, I was thinking of the link Afish posted for a sticky.
 
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