Demystifying Strike Indicators

 

By: Aaron Jasper

When fly fisherman go to their local fly shop, they are faced with many decisions. In addition to selecting the right flies, the right leaders, and the proper location to fish, they are also faced with choosing the right strike indicator to detect strikes. When people stare at all of the different indicators at fly shops most people see a rainbow of colors. What I would like to accomplish is to point people in the right direction when choosing their strike indicators.

There are several different indicators that you can choose from: you have hard indicators, yarn, and some are made from small foam. There is a more recent trend in strike indicators.  People are using balloons. They are quickly becoming popular out west.

When fishing in normal conditions where the stream temperatures are optimal (meaning that the water temperatures are fifties to upper sixties).  These are the “perfect” trout temperature zones. When water temperatures are in this range the trout are active, and hard indicators are tough to beat. These indicators have a lot of positive qualities:  they can hold up large amounts of weight, are extremely buoyant, and can be cast easily. Plastic indicators are also very easy to see because they typically come in highly visible fluorescent colors.  My personal favorite for all around visibility is orange.

When water temperatures are optimal, and trout are aggressive, they will move great distances to take your offering. The takes are not subtle, sometimes even verging on violent. The indicator sometimes looks like it is skidding across the surface of the water.. There is little or no doubt when a trout takes your nymphs under these conditions. This shows that the trout are in a feeding frenzy and is the perfect time for this type of indicators.

”Hard” indicators are typically molded out of polystyrene or plastic, and are perfect for most nymph fishing situations.  They are very easy to adjust and go on and off easily. Adjustments for depth and water velocity are easy; you just slide the indicator up or down your leader.  This makes it easy to rig and re-rig. They can be purchased in many colors to suit the choosiest of fly fisherman.  Fluorescent orange is best for maximum visibility in a variety of light conditions, and white for stealth and spooky trout.

Indicators are made many different sizes. Smaller ones are used for fishing with lighter weights. Some companies make indicators for steelhead fishing with heavy weight.  You can find a hard indicator that will suit any need. My preferred hard indicators are: the Tipper, Frog Hair, and the Fish Pimps. I like the Fish Pimps because they are very bouyant and can hold up to two BB split shot.  If you need to add more weight, you can just put two of them on your leader.  They can float an incredible amount of weight for such a small piece of Styrofoam.  The Tipper indicators and the Frog Hair hard indicators have more of a greater variety of sizes than the Fish Pimps. Each different size is made to hold up varying amounts of weights. They make an indicator that is suitable for any nymphing situation.

I like to use the yarn type strike indicators when the trout are very sluggish and the takes are subtle. The perfect application for yarn indicators is when the water temperatures are below forty-five degrees. The trout are feeding less aggressively and they move very little to take your fly. The takes can be very hard to see using the hard plastic type strike indicators.

This past fall, I was fly fishing on the Housatonic River in Connecticut. The stream temperatures were no higher than thirty-eight degrees. I was catching trout but I felt like something was missing.  I found that I was missing over half of the strikes that I was getting. The trout were taking the flies so delicately that the hard plastic indicators were hardly moving. I put on a yarn indicator. Immediately after changing the indicators, I realized that I was getting about three takes per drift. I could not believe the difference that it made! If I did not test this theory out I would have only caught about half the trout that I did that day. 

Yarn indicators are also very valuable for when you are fishing smaller flies. Usually, the smaller the fly, the lighter the take. Two friends of mine were fishing on the Farmington River in Connecticut with little success in the summertime. They called my friend Rich, who is a local authority, and he came and fished with them. He caught trout out of the same water that they were getting blanked in. Both groups were using the same flies, leader and tippet set up. Rich told me that the major difference was that he was using the yarn indicator, running it close to the flies, and he was detecting hits that the other two fishermen were not.

Many people tell me that they do not like the yarn indicator because they sink. A little tip when you use yarn is to pre-treat them before you go fishing. I use a variety of things to treat my indicators, mostly use Rain-X and Watershed. Treating your yarn indicators prior to fishing can make for less frustration on the stream. In addition to pre-treating your indicators, apply a tiny amount of paste fly floatant such as Aquel or Gink before you cast it into the water. The indicator will float like a cork.

Most yarn strike indicators come out of the package large and bulky. These sizes are sufficient if you are using heavy weight. If I am fishing with very little weight I will sometimes take scissors and cut the yarn down to about half the size. This makes the yarn even more responsive and increases strike detection.

There are also times when the correct indicator choice would be to use the small foam tabs. These indicators are not made to withstand a lot of weight. They have a very unique application.  We have all been to a trout stream and have seen what we thought were trout on the surface. In fact, we have tied on dry flies and fished for hours getting nothing but refusals and becoming frustrated. When you get home and think about it you realize that the trout were not feeding on adults, but rather they were eating nymphs in the top six inches of the water.

This is the time when the small foam tab shines. You can cast these without difficulty.  Many people will tie on a dry fly with a nymph dropper attached to the hook bend. This is a good idea, but ultimately the dry fly starts to sink and sooner or later becomes a nymph itself. What I have done is used the foam tab in place of the dry fly. The foam tabs are easy to see because of the many different colors that they come in. Another advantage to using foam tabs is that they do not sink. The most important advantage is that you’ll be able to fish two different nymphs at the same time. We know that fishing two flies rather than one, doubles your chances of catching fish. Why use a dry fly that won’t get any takes when you can have two nymphs that you know will get the trout’s attention?

When I fish hatches like the tiny blue winged olives on the Delaware River and other technical trout fisheries, this is my standard technique that I use to catch the picky trout there.  When guys are having little or no success on dry flies, I am catching trout even in the toughest of conditions. I use two small nymphs like a tiny flashback pheasant tail and a WD-40 nymph. These are both great nymph imitations for this hatch.

To set this rig up I attach the foam tab 18 inches above my fist fly. Next, I tie a dropper onto the hook eye that is about another 12-18" inches away from the first fly.  If I feel that my flies are not getting into the trout’s view sometimes I attach a tiny micro shot 6-8" above the fly closest to the indicator. When I say micro shot, I am not saying a BB, but rather I am talking about weights that are a size 6 to a 10. These are the tiniest weights that you can buy.

I have also begun to see balloon indicators “popping up” at fly shops. I have experimented with these and found that they are extremely sensitive and cast much like a hard indicator. A drawback I see is that you would need many different size balloons to match all nymph-fishing situations. The other downside is that most of these styles are not so easy to adjust and move up and down the leader. If you were fishing the same depth of water all day they would be ideal. These indicators are very new and I am sure that with fine-tuning they will become very handy in the near future.

Whatever strike indicator you chose, make sure that it is matched up properly with the weight that you are using. You want the indicator to get pulled under the water with the least amount of force. Most people use indicators that are too large for the weights. An extreme example is if you are using micro split shot. You would not want to put a steelhead size strike indicator on your leader. You might never see the trout take your offering. In this situation you would go with a very small indicator. This would get pulled under easier and help you detect subtle strikes.  To the other extreme you would not put a foam tab indicator on if you were fishing with heavy weights in fast current. The indicator would instantly be pulled under the surface. If the indicator is constantly under the surface with out getting snagged, it could mean that you need a larger, more buoyant indicator.

I hope that I have given some insight that will assist you in choosing the proper strike indicator. Fly fisherman see all different types of strike indicators in the fly shop, and there are times when one type is superior to the other. This information will help you to make the right choice and hopefully catch more fish. For me, the right choice means using all of them at one time or another, according to the weights I need, the fish, and the depth of the water. You have to be flexible in order to have consistent success, and this includes picking the correct strike indicator for the conditions.