Vaal River Update

[GGY]

Well I answered my own question. They were hungry :-)

Interesting fly that did the damage. GRHE with flashback and then this little thing I tied last night as I wanted to try something blue and this is all I had.
Was a bit of a shock but they loved it.
Attachment 24420

They start focussing on hatches closer to and through winter - the GRHE imitates an emerger. That blue thing probably got interest since it sparkled and the emerger has air bubbles etc.

On circles - possibly. You will not HOOK nearly as many fish on circles as normal hooks. If you want to prevent hooking up on the bottom, rather use jig hooks.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Gou vir 'n breakfast run gegaan vanoggend hierdie 12.5lber opgetel tussen al die blerrie Babers.

GERR4323.jpg GERR4327.jpg

[Grant111]

Tks Gary

Would you only use jig hooks on the heavy control fly or for the point as well?
I'm just thinking that a weighted nymph on the point will look wrong as it will point down due to the jig?

[GGY]

Tks Gary

Would you only use jig hooks on the heavy control fly or for the point as well?
I'm just thinking that a weighted nymph on the point will look wrong as it will point down due to the jig?

I center my weight in one fly, so the point is generally lightly/unweighted.

[dollar]

generally i use split shot in between flies. when i use weighted flies in shallow water (<30cm) i like the heavy fly on the point with weightless flies on the droppers. this configuration is also used when the hatch is happening in deep water. in deep water, i go for split shot.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Had one of the toughest days on the water in a long while the client worked his r's off the whole day but alas no reward.

[Andre]

don't feel bad. I think every guide has a client blanking from time to time. Long as he enjoyed the day out.

[Korrie]

Tks Gary

Would you only use jig hooks on the heavy control fly or for the point as well?
I'm just thinking that a weighted nymph on the point will look wrong as it will point down due to the jig?

When your control fly/heaviest fly is on the dropper, be careful.
If there is 40cm between point(unweighted) and dropper/control/heaviest fly, you could end up with 80cm of drift, with no control over your point fly.
If your dropper/heaviest/control fly is on the bottom, and the point/unweighted fly is drifting around in the water, the water will wash the lighter/point/unweighted fly, to in front of the control/heavy fly.
If you are fishing for picky or heavily fished fish, they will inhale and spit out the fly so fast, that you will not detect the take, as the dropper/control/heaviest fly is in contact with indicator/rod tip and the point/unweighted fly is leading in the water column. Somewhere there are sketches on Fly talk about this.

[Grant111]

Hi Korrie.

This has been nagging at me for a while. Any unweighted nymph on point will be down stream of the middle control and therefore at best be at right angles to your line. So any take can't be registered unless the fish takes it at speed to take up the slack.
Unweighted top dropper is fine as you only have it on a short dropper so easy to feel the take.

So this then begs the question if a heavy control on the point, with two droppers is the obvious choice. I'm thinking the middle dropper slightly weighted to keep in as low down as possible and top dropper unweighted to drift mid to upper column.

[Korrie]

You are on the right track, with your thinking.
You are missing a lot of takes, with the unweighted fly downstream of the middle/dropper/weighted fly.
Most of the fish, you will be catching on the point/unweighted fly will hook itself, not your skill.

There are many factors with nymphing and the weight distribution of the flies.
a. are you fishing vertically
b. are you fishing away from you, with a diagonal line
c. speed of water
d. depth of water

with all of this, the length of the dropper comes into play as well.
Sometimes, you should even have equally weighted flies on point and first dropper, so that you can fish your flies, drifting parralel like 2 train lines.
For a lot of fly fishermen, they start off with one rig and the same weight and they fish that the whole day.
Too lazy to change flies for the different runs, depths, different flows.
This starts of with the guys, not being able to tie a new rig, in less than 30 seconds or a proper knot onto a fly in less than 10 seconds. (I have seen guys taking 5 minutes to change a fly.) So they plod along same style, same weight, same technique, hour after hour, day after day.