Northwest Fishing Reports

Not being a fly-fishing expert and defiantly not a fly-fishing purest I can only give antidotal advice. For stream fishing I have tied the dropper directly to the bend of the upper fly. Length depends on the fishing conditions or what your goal is. I have used dropper lengths ranging from less than a foot to almost 4’. I am probably setting up backwards to the norm for the use of the dropper but here is my two cents. My upper fly would be a weighted fly appropriate for the stream at the time of the year. Below that, at the end of the dropper I would tie a non-weighted fly also appropriate for the stream. My thought is as follows; when fishing a floating fly line in deeper swifter runs this allows me to fish subsurface while still providing a semi normal presentation. I have caught trout and steelhead using this approach. In my experience when fly-fishing for trout using this method it is a toss up, both the primary fly and the dropper get bit equally. For steelhead I always get bit on the dropper. I should note, when fly-fishing for steelhead using this method I am basically drift fishing with a fly-fishing outfit. A fly fisherman? Maybe or maybe not, but I have caught some very nice fish on my 6 weight.

Again I am not an expert, I was lucky and had a lot of opportunity to fish but I have caught a number of quality fish on a fly in marine areas of Southern California and Baja. Yellowtail, spotted bay bass, calico bass, halibut, sailfish, grouper, roosterfish, barracuda, albacore and yellowfin tuna will all take a fly and are a blast on a fly rod…and you are fishing in shorts and flip-flops!

Toni,
River and lake fishing require 2 different approaches to using more than one fly.
For river fishing the larger heavier weighted fly is the top fly and the smaller fly(usually a nymph or a yarn egg) is unweighted and on a short leader that is attached to the bend of the hook on the larger fly. Either a clinch or an uni is used to tie to the bend of the larger hook. I normally tie the top fly on with a clinch or uni and the bottom fly with a clinch or uni if using an egg fly and a Kreh loop knot.
For lakes you can fish up to three hooks on most lakes. I probably fish 2 flies 50% of the time, 3 flies 25%, and 1 fly 25%. Fishing multiple flies requires a long leader and casting with open loops to avoid tangling. With 3 flies I fish 15' - 18' leaders, with 2 flies 9' - 12'. I build most of my multi fly leaders out of fluorocarbon as it sinks. 10 lb to 8 lb to 6 lb. For big fish lakes I start with 12 lb - to 10' lb - 8 lb. I normally use uni knots to connect the 3 line wts. For the knots I normally use either a 3 turn water knot or a double uni. I leave a tag about 15 inches long and attach the dropper flies to the either with a Kreh loop or a uni knot. The point fly (the one on the end of the leader) should always be the heaviest fly as it aids in leader turnover and helps reduce tangling.

When fishing rivers or lakes for trout with wet flies on either a fly rod or light spinning outfit, I'll sometimes tie a small 3-way swivel to the main leader, then run tippet material, scaled to the size of the fish, from the other 2 swivel eyes. I usually use 5x tippet - about 18" for a weighted dropper nymph or scud and about 10" for a trailing emerger, buggar or steamer. You get a bit of line weighting from the swivel, but not much. This is a killer set-up for browns in the rivers and streams of Utah where I learned to fish, but haven't tried it much in WA waters yet.

-Rip some lips!-