(Continuing TRM’s weekend series of readers questions answered by our local fishing guides, Andrew Christmas & Mike Hughes.)
How much weight?
Answer 1
While fishing different rivers especially around Taupo anglers are quite often confused on how much weight on their flies they should be fishing? The weight of your flies will play one of the main deciding factors in whether you have a average day or a very good day on the river.
Everyone loves to fish light gear as it makes casting and presenting flies much easier and is a lot easier to maintain good casting throughout the entire day, but if they are not heavy enough for the water you are fishing you simply wont be catching many fish. You need to get the trout to see the fly on your line or he simply wont even know it is there and this sometimes means dropping it right on the end of his nose.
Anglers need to determine which sort of trout they are targeting and at what time of year as things can change a lot when fishing in clear conditions in the summer or overcast days in the winter. If you are fishing the winter months and targeting spawning trout you must nearly always be fishing the bottom amongst the rocks thus meaning you need to get that fly down quick. Spawning fish very rarely eat and you must put that fly on the end of his nose to entice a strike, but if you are fishing a spring creek in the back country you will get away with un-weighted flies, as that fish will be patrolling his pool looking for anything that he can get his jaws around and will move relatively well to pick up a fly.
You must also be honest with yourself and work out what your casting ability is because a angler who can cast the entire fly line will get away with a small amount of weight on his flies as he will be able to achieve the same depth by simply getting a much longer drift. If you are only a short cast and still want your flies in the strike zone you may need to use heavier gear as your drift time will be much less. The catch with heavier equipment usually means harder to cast which is a real catch for guys which are not confident at the best of times.
There are many methods used to obtain depth and weight on your flies which you can use. Some anglers use lead wire to wrap on the inside of the fly and obtain weight this way but many anglers in the Taupo fishery are now legally using split shot crimped onto the leader. Sport shops sell hundreds of different patterns with Tungsten beads on the head of the fly, these flies are generally used for the front or lead fly and will drag your rig to the bottom.
Weight is something that we are continually changing through out the day and as a guide if I am not getting results I will be chopping and changing frequently until I get that perfect set up that starts to work. Change the fly, change the leader length, change the weight, change the breaking strain of the leader, change the river and failing that go and have a drink with Ross back at the motel.
Regards
Andrew Christmas
Answer 2
Not using enough weight can be one of the reasons anglers struggle to consistently catch fish when upstream nymphing. Spawning trout running the Tongariro are on the bottom and however you do it you have to get your imitations down to them .Just like leader length how much weight will depend on a number of factors… river flow…depth…location…fly choice…etc.
Fishing a buoyant pattern like Glo Bug is a good example….you will be attempting to imitate a fish egg and you will need a pretty heavy tungsten bead bomb when fishing deeper water to get down to the fish and replicate an egg as it trundles along the river bed. Obviously if you are fishing shallower water slightly less weight can be used. Some anglers particularly when fishing snaggy areas dispense with the bomb and just use split-shot.
If you are having difficulty casting heavy bombs and visiting overseas anglers especially struggle with this… the only realistic alternative is to fish with a more manageable weight and put longer casts upstream giving the flies more time to sink….but this of course will mean a lot more mending in order to keep the flies in the feeding zone.
Ideally what ever you have on the end.. try and get the flies down to the fish in the first half of your drift.
If your still feeling suicidal…phone Ross….anytime… night or day.
Tight Lines
Mike