Fishing with droppers

By John Berry

One way to improve your catch rate is to fish more than one fly. When I first took up fly fishing, lo these many years ago, one of the first things I learned was to fish a dropper. Back then it was a popper on top and a bream killer below. We would cast the rig into a bream bed. If we did not get any action immediately, we would gently twitch the flies and would be immediately rewarded with a strike, usually on the bream killer but sometimes on the popper. From time to time, we would get a bream on both. Now that was exciting. One bream would go one way and the other would head in the opposite direction.

I found that the same technique also worked for trout. I found droppers to be especially effective when fishing soft hackles. To rig them up, I would start with a seven and one half foot 4X leader on a floating fly line. I generally prefer a nine foot four weight fly rod for this type of fishing. I tie on a one and one half foot section of 5X tippet to the leader with a surgeons knot. I then tie on a two foot section of 6X tippet to the 5X tippet using a blood knot. I make sure that the tag ends of the blood knot are at least four inches long so that I will have plenty of material to work with. I trim off the 6X tag leaving the larger 5X tag. I tie a soft hackle (lets say a partridge and orange) on the four inch long 5X tag. I tie another soft hackle (a green butt soft hackle) to the end of the 6X tippet. I could conceivably tie on additional sections of tippet and additional flies.

I fish this rig basically the same way that I would fish a solitary soft hackle, except that when the fly hits the water and I strip a bit of line to sink the fly into the film, I do so with a bit more pressure to ensure that both flies sink. I never know which fly the will take and occasionally the take both resulting in a double.

Another way that I fish droppers is below a large dry fly. I was introduced to this technique several years ago when floating the Madison River in Southwestern Montana. We banged the bank using a hopper with a dropper. We tied the grass hopper on to a nine foot 4X leader with a simple improved clinch knot. We then tied a two foot section of 5X tippet to the bend of the hook. To finish off the rig, we tied a small pheasant tail nymph to the end of the 5X tippet. We set the hook any time the hopper sank or moved unnaturally. All of the fish seemed to take the small nymph. I do the same technique here. I prefer to use large foam hoppers as they float like corks and do not require dressing. To fish larger flies like grasshoppers, I prefer a medium fast six weight nine foot fly rod with a weight forward floating line.

The final way that I fish droppers is with nymphs. I am particularly fond of them in high water. I think that they significantly improve your chances of catching fish under these conditions. I rig them much like I do when fishing hoppers. I tie a two foot 5X tippet to my normal high water fly (usually a brightly colored San Juan worm). I tie a brightly colored egg fly to the other end of the 5X tippet. My regular leader tippet combination for fishing San Juan worms in high water is twelve feet long. This additional two feet makes it quite long. This length not only complicates landing the fish but makes the rig a bit more difficult to cast. The rewards can be great, however. This is a killer technique that has accounted for a lot of great fish in high water.

The problem that I encounter with fishing with droppers is that they are illegal in Catch and Release waters in the state of Arkansas. I have never really understood this law. I sometimes think it was an attempt to outlaw treble hooks in Catch and Release waters. They now allow trebles in the Catch and Release section below Bull Shoals Dam but no droppers. It is not logical. Droppers cause no more harm on trout than a single hook. As a member of the advisory board for the Trout Management Plan for the White and Norfork Rivers, I brought this point up but have heard nothing back on allowing droppers in Catch and Release areas. Therefore be careful and legal and do not use droppers of any kind in Catch and Release areas.

When fishing in non Catch and Release areas, try using droppers. It will double your chances of catching fish and double your fun catching them.