Red’s Tired of Tangling Your Nymph Rig?

At Red’s we use this rig in many of our University of Fly Fishing clinics and see great success.  Anglers experience efficiency and suffer less negative distraction. Your setup should be a joy to fish and cast, this rig in the diagram below does just that.  In order for you to get good at drifting and presenting a fly you need REPS.  Many reps.  Lots of casts, thousands of drifts.  An angler must have a smooth and efficient tempo, presenting their fly over and over again and in this process they become skilled. You’ll become a Ninja in no time if you can just stay untangled!

Many anglers spend half of their time retying and untangling some complicated rig they learned on YouTube. Probably from Red’s haha and that’s a shame.  Simple is awesome.  Follow this recipe, get back to the basics and go have a great time moving fluidly throughout your fishery.

While there are anglers that can and should utilize more complex rigs, if you are looking to improve your fishing abilities; the “Keep it Simple Stupid” approach is best.  If some things on the list below annoy you while fishing, try the setup diagramed here and free yourself of distraction. You’ll be faster to rig up, and now able to focus on all the other skills like mending, stalking trout, and reading water because you won’t be picking apart a birds nest every 5-10 minutes at 15 minutes a pop.

Threats to a Nymph Angler’s Tempo and Efficiency:

1. Tangling your fly/indicator/tippet
2. Snagging Bottom (most of the time your nymph really just needs to be in the bottom HALF of the water column)
3. Snagging Behind You
4. Standing on Your Line (or snagging your handling line in the grass/shrubs)
5. Trying to cast too far
6. Trying to feed too much slack line downstream
7. Changing flies too much
8. Setups that take too long setup (2 fly rigs)
9. Not Having a Well Developed Casting Strategy (consistent use of roll, overhead, or water based casts) for every drift. Simple rigs will help you develop this.
10. Nymph setups that are too heavy (see #1 and #2)

The Pro’s Notes:

• Indicator MUST be position and the point on the leader where the taper is most extreme.  This leaves exclusively fine tippet below the indicator allowing the nymph to sink fast and suspend directly below the indicator.
• 7.5′ 4X Leaders are perfect for this. 9′ leaders can be more challenging to cast. You can repair your leader with Fluorocarbon tippet, but don’t overthink this. Start with a leader right out of the package.  No tippet material required.
• Yarn as an indictor material is essential. To fish a nymph suspended it must float slower than the surface currents. The weight of a Tungsten nymph will actually slow the yarn down.  Other “bobbers” won’t do this.
• Tungsten Jig Nymphs are a huge advantage. Don’t try and fake it. Get a good nymph