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The Truth About Dry-Fly Fishing

Behold the dry-fly purist, with his form-fitting neoprene waders, bulging vest, expensive graphite rod, and fancy English reel. He speaks Latin fluently and spends more time studying insects than casting to trout.

He’ll be happy to bore you with the hoary traditions of dryfly fishing, its ancient and honored roots in England where it all began nearly 400 years ago, where they’re called “anglers,” not “fisherman,” and where his counterparts still wear tweed jackets and old school ties and plus-fours and fish by the strict rules of the river: Upstream dry flies only, and only to rising trout. The sporting way.

He’s proud of his skill, the years it took him to master the delicate art of the fly rod. He loves the beauty of those graceful loops his line makes as it rolls out over the water.

The purist insists he doesn’t care about actually catching trout. He’s above all that. He’d rather get skunked than demean himself by using anything but a dry fly. He’s the Ultimate Sportsman, you see. It’s all about the scent of clean air, the gurgle of rushing water, the symphony of birdsong. He loves dry-fly fishing for its ambiance, its roots, its difficulty.

For its purity.

Go ahead. Snicker. Say what you’re thinking: “Pretentious,” “effete,” “condescending,” “smug.”

The stereotype persists. The dry-fly purist has heard it all. It doesn’t bother him.

Actually, he’s snickering himself.

* * *

The truth is, we dry-fly fishermen dress and talk and behave the way we do for the benefit of others. We aim to promote the image, perpetuate the myth. If the name-callers buy into it we’re happy, because we’ve got a delicious secret and we don’t want too many people to know it.

However, at the risk of getting booted out of the Fellowship of Purists, I’ll expose our secret: We dry-fly snobs like to catch fish as much as anybody. Sportsmanship, tradition, artfulness, and aesthetic values have nothing to do with it

We happen to know that dry-fly fishing is the easiest way to catch trout. That’s why we like it.

Sure, there are times—early in the season, usually, when the water is cold and high and discolored—when trout sulk on the bottom of the stream and, if they eat anything, it’s a worm or a flashy spinner or a weighted nymph, fished deep and slow.

But trout are mainly insect eaters. They’re most vulnerable when they’re gorging on bugs at the surface, as they do at least part of virtually every day of the season under normal conditions. At those times, worms and spinners and even weighted nymphs are almost useless, but anybody with modest skill and a dry fly that even vaguely resembles the insect the trout are eating can catch them easily.

* * *

The singular advantage that we dry-fly fishermen have over everybody else is that we can see what’s going on. There’s no hidden, subsurface mystery to guess at.

Consider:

1. When they feed off the surface, trout betray themselves and their precise locations. We dry-fly fishermen know when we’re casting to a hungry trout. This knowledge gives us the confidence, patience, and persistence to concentrate on our goal: To catch that trout.

2. We know that when trout are at the surface, their range of vision is limited. Because we can locate our targets, we can stalk them and, by approaching them from downstream, creep close to them so we can make short, accurate casts without spooking them.

3. When trout are eating bugs off the surface, there’s little guesswork to selecting the right fly. We can see what they’re eating simply by observing what floats past our waders. We don’t need any Latin to choose an imitation, and we know that a general approximation is usually close enough. If they’re feeding on big cream-colored mayflies, we simply tie on a big cream-colored dry fly.

4. We can see how our line, leader and fly drift on the water, so our mistakes are visible. If the fly fails to pass directly over the fish, our cast was inaccurate. If it drags unnaturally across the surface, that tells us why he didn’t eat it. Whatever we did wrong, we can make the obvious corrections until we see that we’ve got it right.

5. We can observe and analyze how the trout responds to our fly. If he sticks up his nose and sucks it in, we lift our rod, set the hook, and bring him in. Simple, efficient, fun. Foolproof, really. If he refuses a fly that floats directly over him without drag a few times, we know we must change flies or change tactics.

6. Even when trout aren’t actively rising, they’re usually happy to eat a dry fly. Drifting a bushy white-winged floater through riffles and pocket water is about as easy as trout fishing gets.

* * *

So the next time you encounter one of those dry-fly purists on the stream, tell him you’re not impressed. You know his secret.

The fact is, if you’re not fishing with dry flies, you’re the true sportsman. You’re the one who’s doing it the hard way.