Whether dead drifting traditional nymphs along the bottom of your local trout stream or bouncing salmon flesh/egg imitations down a run in Western Alaska, the technique of nymphing (i.e. dead-drifting subsurface flies to feeding fish) is without a doubt one of the most effective methods for catching trout in moving water.
Moreover, when nymphing for trout its hard to argue against the effectiveness of a strike indicator. Not only do they allow you to better monitor your drift, indicators also help detect subtle strikes that might otherwise go unnoticed.. Both good things.
That being said, if you’ve spent enough time fishing under an indicator, odds are you’ve witnessed a fish or two trying to eat your indicator rather than, you know, your fly! Sound familiar?
During the back-half of our season in Alaska, particularly once our resident trout and dolly varden begin to key in on salmon eggs and flesh, we notice a huge increase in the likelihood of trout and dolly varden smacking large ‘bobber-style’ strike indicators, especially those in colors that resemble salmon eggs (reds, oranges, pinks, etc.).
Sounds kind of cool, right? It is, except that every fish that attacks your indicator is one less fish keying in on your fly, not to mention the number of fish who may have looked up at your indicator as your offering drifted on by unnoticed.
The solution? Fish neutral color indicators! For most of our nymphing needs, we’ve resorted to strike indicators in colors such as white, black, yellow, or green. We see far less fish attempting to eat them on the surface, and it certainly gives us more confidence that the fish are focusing on what counts.. Our fly!
Either that or maybe you could fish DRY FLIES!!!!!!!
If you don’t see that as a sign that trout want to eat on top then it’s possible that this sport is not for you and it might be time to go back to golfing.
I agree with you put a hook on that indicator. this is why when I nymph fish I just use a big 8 or 10 dry as an indicator, cause ya never know.
Hi Kevin,
Perhaps. However, while certainly an indication that trout are willing to look up (i.e. an opportunity to fish dry flies), in our neck of the woods when trout begin to key into the egg drop and flesh breakdown from multiple species of salmon, we find mostly only dolly varden and trout of small-ish size classes are those that are most often ‘fooled’ by a floating indicator. The larger “smarter” trout, which we prefer to target, rarely stray far from their holding lie, thus making a subsurface offering far more productive. Therefore, by fishing neutral color indicators, we’re able to keep our fly in the zone, uninhibited by smaller trout and dollies, for a longer period of time for the quality of fish we’re after.
Good call, Jason! Unfortunately, in Alaska we’re restricted to only one fly, or else we’d do just that. Love those tandem rigs! Thanks for weighing in and have fun out there!
I have fished trout in Alaska before too and faced the same problem. Two of my indicators got eaten in a day. I will look into fish neutral indicators on amazon this evening. Thanks for the interesting info.