In a straight line

[William Anderson]

This thread has been very interesting. I have dabbled with all of the techniques mentioned, except for all the perfection loops, and haven't been able to qualify if one works better than the other. I don't fish more than two flies, usually a small sh attached at the bend of a larger flymph. Honestly though after I take a few fish on one fly or the other, I remove the less effective fly and put my attention on the one fly, maybe to take some of the guesswork out of - is this rig behaving in a particular way? - could I improve the presentation with just the one? etc. It would be nice to settle on a method, but I'm not at that crotchety old age yet. It's great to hear everyone's preferences.

w

[Ruard]

I never fish with my wet flies in a line. Mostly I have one dropper above my point fly and mostly there is about 40 cm (16 inch) between them. I use a waterknot to make the point on the already existing point. Sometimes I use a dry or damp fly on the dropper with a little soft hackle fly or a little nimf on the point.

Greeting

[MuddlerDaddy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdPndJ9 ... r_embedded

Ran across this and thought it looked very interesting. Might give it a go !!
See what you think

Rick

[Soft-hackle]

While this seems like a great way to do it, I just don't like the way the flies/hooks other than the point fly are oriented to the the leader. It seems to me, the flies would still tangle about the leader and it would prevent the proper movement of the flies in the current or in the retrieve. I'm not saying it won't work. Everything works now and again, I still like the droppers off the main leader, using the heavier tag ends of the two pieces of mono being connected together. Also, Davy's knot to tie the fly on the dropper and tippet keeps the fly properly oriented to the monofilament. Mike's leader ring dropper set-up looks excellent as well.

Mark

[Mike Connor]

Have to agree with that. It does work to an extent, but a lot of fish will simply "bump" the fly away by hitting the nylon on the take. The larger the fish the more chance of this happening. This also depends of course on the angle of the leader relative to the jaws when the fish takes.

TL
MC

[MuddlerDaddy]

Mark and Mike,
I never thought of what you both mentioned ! Makes sense..
As they say "Thats why you get paid the big bucks!!"
You have talked me out of it !!

Rick

[skunkaroo]

My experiences with the "in a straight line" (IASL)set-up are fairly limited, but I've observed the following:

1. When sight fishing the take on any fly below the top dropper is quite easy to detect--i.e. there is no lag between the take and the movement of the top fly in the cast.

2. When the flies are submerged even a soft take is felt sooner than with the traditional dropper method--i.e. sensitivity is increased over-all.

3. Tying off the bend of the fly doesn't work very well with factory barbless hooks--it's too easy for the knot to slide off the barbless hook point (particularly true when using the European competition hooks). One bad cast and you're down a fly or two.

4. IMHO this method restricts the movement of the flies above the point and prevents some of the fly features (such as the graceful movement of a soft hackle) from coming into play.

I'm still a traditionalist with respect to multi-fly rigs, preferring to use a 10cm dropper over the IASL method, except with hopper/dropper presentations in very slow moving water.

Aaron

Aaron