My foray into euro nymphing

**Mike Klizz** · 08-11-2010, 09:04 AM

Here are a few pictures of some of the sighters and flies I have been making lately. Thanks to this site, I have gotten much valuable info. I made 10 backing sighters and 10 coiled mono sighters. The backing sighters are 30 lb dacron barred as per the video from 2008. The coiled mono sighers have perfection loops at each end

The curly whirlys are this mono I found called Trilene "Big Cat" 20lb. is the color Solar Green. Apparently it is mono for trophy catfish fishing... I dont know. But it is fluorescent green and seems to stand out well with my amber polarized lenses. I was having a tough time finding the golden stren or red amnesia mono so I decided on this. It may be a hair too heavy but we'll see how it fishes. I made them using the traditional bic pen procedure. I probably wont use duct tape next time as the adhesive gets everywhere.

Theses are some of my first attempts at the polish woven nymphs. The left are DMC embroidery floss, the right are ultra wire medium.

Now all I have to do is get out on the river and give this new technique a try. It was really "fun" making these sighters. Sick, I know, but it is my opinion that more hands on I get with fly fishing, the more enjoyment I get out of it. It was like when I started tying, I got so much more pleasure out of catching fish on my own ties. It's liberating for all those that are hesitant to get into this stuff, I say go for it, you will be happy you did.

It's like I always used to buy tapered leaders from the fly shop for $3 bucks a pop. Now with the new euro nymph leaders that I am constructing, I feel I will be tying my own from now on. It just a few knots and I feel you get so much more control over the process and makes it more worth it for me.

Ah well, sorry about the rambling, here are the pics
Mike

**SherpaB** · 08-11-2010, 09:46 AM

Nice job on the flies!

**AaronJasper** · 08-18-2010, 09:12 PM

It looks like you are/were all set. How did the indicators work out? You might want to tie micro rings onto the mono before boil it. It will make it easier to connect it to your leader and tippet. I would be curious to hear what your opinions are about the indicators because you have no predisposition.

**Mike Klizz** · 08-25-2010, 12:19 PM

I fished the Farmington River a few weeks ago with the idea that I would be trying the Euro Nymphing set up (french/spanish long line) for most of the day. Surprisingly I found a few pods of rising trout and even though I nymph 80% of the time, when there are rising trout, I usually try to catch them on top. Took a few on super tiny BWO and trico patterns20-24 emerger and paraemerger styles.

Once things slowed down I cam across some nice runs that appeared perfect for the technique. I tied up about an 9 ft butt - coiled mono sighter - 6 foot 5x - dropper small PT soft hackle - 18 " 5x and a french nymph anchor fly. As I fished this rig a few things stood out.

1) I felt comfortable fishing this way any using the "tight-line" technique. The video on this site were a big help.

2) the mono sighter didnt have the best coiling. The loops were a little on the big side, probably because I used 20lb. Will try 14 or 16 in the future.

3) Casting this thing was ...awkward to say the least. I am used to indicator nymphing where your flipping the weight of the fly line and the bobber and the whole rig turns over nicely. Here I had to use an over hand cast and since I was essentailly casting the 18 ft mono leader I got no feed back in the rod from the fly line weight and it was like whipping around a tungsten cannonball. I got it out there though even though it felt weird

Is this common? anyone else have this sensation? Any advice would help. I was probably using the wrong rod for the technique ... a relatively fast 9ft 4 wt. Looking into a streamflex soon.

4) I found my mono sighter sunk a lot. It didnt really float like on the video. Do you add floatant to the sighter at all?

Oh wasnt able to stick any fish with this rig, although I only tried for about 90 min. Found some more risers and well, you know.

Thanks for reading and especially your responses.

Mike

Another quick question. With this technique are we still using the 1.5x the water depth for the tippet section of the leader? So if you are fishing 3 ft of water your tippet would be 4.5-5 ft long? When I would indicator nymph, I would constant adjust my weight/indicator for changes in depth. with this technique, do I constantly have to clip my flies and adjust the length of the tippet section and reattach with changes in water depth? Thanks, Mike