One of my great fly-fishing pleasures is bugging for smallmouth along the shores of a beautiful lake. I don’t have to travel far because they inhabit a wide range of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs across North America. Smallmouth in stillwaters are the same species as those in flowing waters, but they tend to grow larger and require different (but just as exciting) methods to find and catch consistently. In fact, if I had just one week left to fish, I’d spend it with my wife, Emily, canoeing, camping, and fly fishing for smallmouth on the peaceful lakes of Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, during late July or August. That would be my preview of heaven.

Stillwater Seasons

Whether 50 or 5,000 acres in size, the best stillwaters are where bass can consistently find abundant food in water temperatures 55 to 85 degrees F. In North America, anglers are most likely to find the best fishing from late March to mid-October. As the chill of late fall and winter sets in, smallmouth head to deeper water, feed less, and are less aggressive. Some warmer, southern reservoirs provide the exception, where smallmouth remain active through the winter.

Before they spawn in the spring, smallmouth move near sun-warmed northern shorelines as water temperatures rise to around 55 degrees. They feed there until shoreline water temperatures reach 65 to 70 degrees, and then they begin spawning in two to six feet of water. After spawning, the females move to deeper water and the males remain to guard the nest and young fry for a week or two before also moving to deeper water. After resting and recovering from spawn stresses, both males and females resume feeding and seek areas where food and temperatures are ideal. Consistent prespawn fly fishing is best with subsurface imitations of minnows, leeches, and aquatic insects. The best topwater action is around late spring, after fish recuperate from spawning.

As water temperatures warm in the summer, surface fly fishing can be excellent in the mornings, late afternoons, and at night along shallow shorelines. But during the hottest hours of the day smallmouth usually retreat to cooler water, 20 to 30 feet deep or wherever the thermocline occurs.

As fall temperatures cool the shallows, smallmouth again prowl the shorelines. As the water temperatures drop below the fish’s comfort zone, they move to deep water again to find the warmest temperatures for wintering, usually offshore in 20 to 100 feet of water. Spin fishermen using bottom-bouncing (pig and jig) type rigs or lead-headed plastic grubs can find some smallmouth action all winter, but, practically speaking, it’s cold and tough for fly fishers. Reservoirs in the southern states offer some potential winter fly fishing, but even in those areas, fast-sinking lines and subsurface flies are usually required.

DAVE WHITLOCK PHOTO

Those of us who have experienced the excitement of hooking wild, stream smallmouth on a fly can’t help but fantasize about catching trophy-sized smallmouth. And although a big smallie occasionally smashes a surface fly, most are taken on subsurface flies.

I once got a phone call from my dear friend and lifetime smallmouth purist, Jack Allen. He just returned from his annual August pilgrimage to Maine’s magnificent Penobscot River. We talked before he left because he was puzzled about why he never caught smallmouth there over 18 inches when I have landed 19- to 22-inch fish in the same water. We discovered the reason was that most of my big bass were caught subsurface on my NearNuff Crayfish fly—and Jack only fishes surface bugs. This year I sent Jack a box of NearNuffs to experiment with on the Penobscot. He called excitedly to say they had indeed caught him much larger bass.

As you may know by now, smallmouth bass are my favorite fly-rod fish and I enjoy catching them most on surface flies. But, if I want to catch more and larger fish, I always go to swimming and bottom-crawling flies, especially if they imitate smallmouth favorites such as chubs, shad, shiners, darters, catfish, sculpins, and crayfish. In Part III of this series I’ll discuss these flies and the techniques I use.

I classify my streamers as swimming flies or bottom flies. Swimming flies are streamers I fish from just under the surface to the bottom. Bottom flies are streamers designed to sink fast and crawl or hop over bottom structure at depths from three inches to thirty feet. Fish a fly that swims at the proper depth based on the natural smallmouth food in the water you fish. Both types of flies are effective most of the year when water temperatures range between 45 to 85 degrees F. Below that temperature range, smallmouth are nearly dormant, and above that they can be sluggish or more focused on surface flies.

Subsurface Natural Foods

Smallmouth bass are masters at surprise and pursuit and even the fastest or most erratically swimming foods are no match for their superb agility and speed. Therefore, actively swimming prey such as minnows, leeches, nymphs, frogs, and crayfish are always on the menu.

Minnows such as chubs, smelt, ciscoes, shiners, dace, suckers, sunfish, perch, and shad are smallmouth favorites best imitated with Clouser Minnows, Sheep Minnows, Marabou Muddlers, bucktails, Woolly Buggers, Lefty’s Deceivers, and Matukas. Use patterns with the same color and the same size as the minnows in the waters you’re fishing. In my experience, especially with selective, older, and wiser bass, matching the color, shape, size, and action of the real minnow is important when fishing in clear water and bright daylight. On the other hand, when water visibility is restricted, a streamer with high-contrast colors such as black, white, chartreuse, yellow, and fluorescent orange works better than natural minnow patterns.

These flies are more effective if equipped with vibration generators like rattles, bulky-head muddler-type profiles, Petitjean’s Magic Heads, or revolving spinner blades. Like it or not, a revolving spinner blade in front of a streamer probably doubles its effectiveness. When I first began fly fishing for smallmouth, revolving-spinner flies were common. The spinner helps get the fly deep, gives it more action, and enhances low-frequency sound appeal. Today spinners are unpopular with most fly fishers, but there are times at night or when the water is stained that they are worth the extra trouble and weight. Hildebrandt still makes excellent straight-shafted spinners for straight, ring-eyed flies. Gold, black, and silver blades, in that order, are the best producers.

Smallmouth also key in on crayfish and small fish that live on or under bottom structure like sculpin, darters, suckers, and small catfish. In fact, most smallmouth fishers would probably vote crayfish as the number one smallmouth food, and I’d agree because my NearNuff Crayfish has enticed many nice smallmouth over the years and is my go-to fly. [See Stephen May’s “Lobster Dinners for Freshwater Fish,” March, 2006. The Editor] When tied in the correct color and size, this fast-sinking pattern also imitates streambottom fishes.

Swimming and bottom streamers have the best action in the water if they are made from marabou, soft hackles, rabbit strips, fox or Icelandic sheep hair, and silicone rubber legs. For flash I prefer Flashabou and Flashabou Accent. Each of these materials breathes and wiggles with life at the slightest movement.

At the same time, former Alaska State Senator Rick Halford—a Republican who is proudly pro-business, and an advocate of the mining industry in Alaska—has come out strongly against the mine: “I believe in being able to use the bounty of the Earth, but I don’t believe in destroying it with this kind of a proposal. This is unique for me to be opposing this mine.”

Watch the video below for more details on the Bristol Bay region and on Rick Halford’s position on the Pebble mine:

The riffle gradually smoothed into a foamy green run, except for several swirling breaks as the water flowed over a distinctive, arching ledge two feet below the surface. My Red Fox Squirrel Hair Nymph and small indicator landed across and upstream, about ten feet above the ledge in the riffle’s last chop. It immediately began to drift down toward me, quickly sinking until it reached the vertical length of the tippet, just a few inches from the stream bottom. Several line strips to control the oncoming slack and one big upstream mend prevented the uneven currents from interfering with the nymph’s downstream drift. I intently focused on the orange yarn indicator with the confidence that something good was about to happen. The indicator drifted closer and closer, reached the submerged ledge and then nervously slowed, and in the next blink it was gone!

The hookset was so solid that I first thought my nymph caught the rock ledge. The water exploded as a blurred bulk of olive and gold shot into the air with a heart-stopping leap, twisting and distorting its compact form and throwing water everywhere before diving back beneath the surface. The slack line I recovered during the nymph’s downstream drift disappeared with a slapping hiss through the stripping guide, burning my index finger in the process.

Over the next ten minutes, it took all my skill and strength to get that tiger-striped, red-eyed bass tired enough to land. It was a couple inches shorter than I’d estimated but still a rock-solid 2 pounds of stream-toughened, wild smallmouth that felt three times that size. The power, speed, and relentless stamina of these creatures makes me think that every smallmouth I hook with a fly rod is bigger than it actually is.

I love nymphing, and over the last few years I’ve discovered that stream smallmouth bass take nymphs as readily as a trout. In fact, in early spring and late fall they often prefer nymphs to dry flies. For me, watching and reacting to underwater strikes, transmitted through my indicator, provides much of the same satisfaction as surface strikes. I try to create a visual image in my mind of the nymph drifting into the territory of a big, waiting bass. The telltale reaction of the indicator followed by the weight at my hookset always gives me goose bumps.

Smallmouth feed on nymphs almost all year, but they are less aggressive when the water temperature drops below 40 degrees F. When the water is cold, concentrate on the deepest, slowest runs and pools.

They tend to prefer large, animated imitations of aquatic insect larvae and nymphs such as stoneflies, mayflies, caddis, and dragonflies, and cranefly, fishfly, and Dobsonfly larvae (hellgrammites). Nymph imitations in sizes 2 to 12 are the most effective for adult smallmouth.

Unlike trout that often ignore a nymph unless it is perfectly dead-drifted, spurts of unnatural drag or unintended fly movement while mending often attracts smallmouth to a nymph. Overall, smallmouth tend to seize and bite down on nymphs more deliberately than trout, making it easier to detect strikes and set the hook. But because the larger fly size makes it more difficult to penetrate a fish’s mouth, I recommend setting the hook hard, and more than once with your rod tip and midsection to make sure it’s buried.

Stream Smallmouth Nymphing

Smallmouth are found in fast, slow, clear, and murky water and forage on nymphs crawling along the stream bottom, drifting with the current, swimming, or emerging near the surface. Each situation requires analysis to pick the technique that works best. The following should help with those decisions.

Drifting nymphs. When drifting nymphs to unseen bass, especially in riffles, runs, and pocketwater, I use a floating fly line, long leader, weighted nymph, and a buoyant strike indicator to control the depth I present the nymph. A strike indicator also allows me to monitor the speed and the direction of the drift, give the nymph a tantalizing, live action, and helps me detect strikes. Make as natural a drift as possible by using mends and line strips to adjust for changes in current, drag, or water depth.

In swift riffle water I set my indicator at two times the depth of the water, and in slow riffle or fast pools, at one and a half times the water depth. For slow runs and pools, set the indicator at the water depth. Expect the fly to bump the bottom occasionally—this means you’re in the right zone. If it bumps too often or never, then adjust the indicator accordingly. I usually cast upstream and slightly across so that my nymph drifts down and past me, 15 to 20 feet away, and below me until the line straightens. This presentation gives the longest natural, deep drift for each cast.

Another option is to cast your nymph and indicator down and slightly across stream. Then, by feeding slack line and mending, you can get a fairly long downstream drift. This is a less efficient method because strikes are harder to detect, hooking is less efficient, and a fish hooked downstream immediately has the advantage because you’re fighting the current, making it easier for the hook to dislodge. The advantage is that the fly line is less likely to alert the bass before it sees the fly. This down-and-across presentation is also the best position to animate the nymph or to imitate various emerging actions.

I was fortunate to discover fly fishing over 60 years ago and of all the techniques I’ve used and fish I’ve tackled, the two I enjoy the most are surface fishing and stream smallmouth bass. When I can do both at the same time, it just doesn’t get any better for me. Fly Fisherman editor and publisher John Randolph and I were discussing this pleasurable combination early this winter and he suggested that more readers might want to discover how special it is and include smallmouth bass as part of their annual, freshwater fly fishing.

According to statistics, most Fly Fisherman readers favor stream fishing with dry flies for trout. However, in many waters, trout fishing is not what it was when I was in my teens and twenties when most streams weren’t as crowded and were well-populated with wild trout. Today, if you want to find plentiful wild fish and uncrowded waters, your best chance is a smallmouth bass stream. Smallmouth, for the most part, are wild, abundant, and found in streams throughout the lower 48 states.

But that’s just part of the attraction. These tough fish are stronger, more durable, much more prolific, and more intelligent than trout. They have an admirable and uncompromising personality of a true gamefish, eagerly attacking the fly and, once hooked, respond with wild, acrobatic jumps, hard runs, and a strong, stubborn fight that earned them the reputation of being pound-for-pound the hardest-fighting freshwater fish. In my opinion, only a wild brown trout, Great Lakes carp, or Argentine golden dorado approaches the smallmouth as the noblest freshwater, fly-fishing quarry. My granddad used to say that you could tie a 3-pound smallmouth tail-to-tail to a 5-pound trout and the smallmouth would drag that trout to death.

I’ve yet to see a smallmouth roll over and give up in exhaustion. They may eventually tire, but they’ll never surrender to you like a trout. Because of that, it’s easy to underestimate their strength. I’ve probably lost more big smallmouth than any other freshwater fish. They always seem to have one more run in them and often immediately dash away when released. The size of a smallmouth is probably the most exaggerated of any freshwater fish because, when you hook one, they feel bigger than they really are.

To fish for stream smallmouth on the surface you don’t have to change flies, tactics, or tackle from what you normally use to fish for river trout. Smallmouth will eat anything a trout will and a lot more. It’s even theorized they have split personalities. One day they’ll act like trout—sipping spinners and emergers. The next they’re all bass—attacking and swallowing a minnow, mouse, snake, or crayfish. I can honestly say that I’ve never been bored fly fishing for them.

A couple of summers ago I experienced an amazing smallmouth response to my yellow popper. I was floating a river in Maine with my wife Emily and our guide, Art Webster. A short 2 or 3 seconds after the popper hit the water, two 16-inch smallmouth launched themselves out of the water from opposite directions and then came down on my fly! Only one got it, but what an incredible surface display it was.

Finding Smallmouth

The native range of smallmouth was limited to the Ohio and Mississippi River drainages and the Great Lakes, but by the late 1800s they were well on their way to colonizing the Northeast. Since then, smallmouth have successfully been stocked in most states and in southern Canada and are now naturally reproducing. It may be surprising to note that three of the United States’ best smallmouth states are Oregon, Washington, and Texas.

Smallmouth do well in clear, low-silt streams and lakes that are seasonally considered cool waters. Though they prefer water temperatures of 55 to 85 degrees F., they can live and are often caught in water systems that are much colder. The sleek, rare Neosho bass, the most troutlike of smallmouth, evolved in the 54-degree spring creeks of the western Ozarks.

It’s not uncommon to find smallmouth in the lower sections of rivers known for their trout, steelhead, or salmon, and I’ve often caught both species out of the same stretches in rivers such as Grand Lake Stream in Maine, the White and Norfork in Missouri and Arkansas, the Guadalupe in Texas, and Oregon’s Umpqua.

Smallmouth usually cope better with environmental and over-fishing problems than trout. The only drawback (if you can call it that) with these co-inhabitants is when a 17-inch smallmouth sips a dry fly that’s intended for a trout, it will most likely own your fly before you realize it’s not a monster trout.

One of my favorite dry-fly fishing experiences happened on a balmy spring morning near my home on the White River, just below the confluence of Crooked Creek. A friend and I were fishing for trout with caddis emergers. I presented a #14 caddis-pupa emerger and Elk-hair Caddis combo on 5X tippet with a 3-weight rod. A nice fish ate my offering and I hooked it. At first it looked like a golden-flanked brown trout, but as the fight continued, the fish repeatedly took line. I decided I either hooked two trout, had foul-hooked a fish, or maybe my first trout had been eaten by a larger one.

My friend stopped fishing to help land the fish. Eventually, with half of my backing stripped from the reel, the fish jumped twice. It was a magnificent Crooked Creek smallmouth! Finally, after a long battle ending 50 yards below the spot he was hooked, my friend netted the stubborn bass and we saw that the red-eyed brute had taken both my flies. I was worn out but the bass apparently wasn’t. When I released the 17-incher, it splashed me with several tail sweeps as it dashed out of sight.

Lee Wulff was once asked, “What is the greatest improvement you’ve seen in fly fishing?” His reply, “The tippet.”

In A. J. McClane’s The Practical Fly Fisherman, published in 1953, the author included a tippet chart that rated 0X as 2-pound-test! Today, the best 6X tippets have tested nearly double that, with an average breaking strength of 3.78 pounds.

Fly-fishing tippet, as well as the equipment to test it, have also come a long way since 1986, when my father George Anderson conducted his original “Tippet Materials Shootout” in the June issue of Fly Fisherman. Back then, fluorocarbon did not exist. To record breaking strength, George used a bronze, spring-loaded Chatillon fish scale, “eyeballing” tippet breaking strength to the half pound. Somewhat crude, but surprisingly effective, it was groundbreaking at the time.

More than 25 years later, George and I knew we needed a more scientific way to test tippet materials. Luckily, our friend John Bailey, owner of Dan Bailey’s fly shop, provided us with his impressive Chatillon TCD-200 testing machine, which easily costs more than my drift boat. Equipped with a digital force gauge, it accurately records peak breaking strength to the hundredths decimal place, in pounds. It also provides a measure of stretch, before breakage, to the thousandth of an inch.

Here in the US we designate an “X” to our tippet sizes, based on thousandths of an inch. The X system itself can be confusing to beginners. For example, 6X does not mean the tippet is 6-pound-test, it means that tippet diameter is .005 inches. 0X tippet is .011″ and each step “up” in X size is .001″ in diameter smaller.

Most extruded monofilaments are produced in Germany or Japan, and some tippet labels designate materials in millimeters.

John Stiehl from TroutHunter was kind enough to lend us a micrometer from Japan, which measures from 0.01 to 10 mm. This gave us the ability to measure materials more accurately than we could on our dial micrometer measuring to .001″. For example, 4X, which is .007″, measures .178 mm. If you are in the market for a micrometer, try to find one that reads in mm. Good ones cost between $200-$400.

If cost were not an issue, an Instron tester, the world’s foremost machine for testing tensile strength would have been the best for collecting our data. However, at a rumored $50,000, these machines are not easy to come by. No doubt, the data collected would have been more accurate, but we did the best we could with the technology we had available.

Testing Procedures
Chances are, you work for a living and have neither the time nor the resources to test tippet all day. We took the time, and after a month oftesting more than 30 products and tying 2,500 knots, we have come to some conclusions.

First, we all came to the conclusion that comparing tippet is a nightmare. Unlike the fly rod shootouts we do annually at The Yellowstone Angler, we couldn’t just pick up a piece of tippet and get a “feel” for it like we do with fly rods. Instead we had to rely primarily on numerical data.

The first problem we faced with collecting data was how many variables were involved with testing tippet products and tying knots. We did our best to keep everything “apples to apples” but there were numerous variables to juggle at any given time. While we did our due diligence performing each trial to the best of our ability, we’ll be the first to admit that further testing could refine the data we’ve collected, and make it scientifically valid.

To get truly accurate data worthy of a scientific study, we feel that each strand of tippet, and each knot should be tested a minimum of 50 times in order to reach accurate averages for breaking strengths. However, if we had taken the time to test 30 materials in three different sizes, 50 times each per strand and per knot, you’d be reading the “2012 Tippet Shootout” in a 2020 issue.

In the beginning, we started testing each strand with each knot ten times, but after a day or so of this (and still trying to run a fly shop) we had to narrow it down to six tests per knot. In the case of an aberrant test, we threw out the worst test, leaving five tests to give us a pretty good average. If all six breaks looked consistent, we averaged all six. While less than ideal, this gave all brands a chance to strut their stuff.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting an accurate diameter for each tippet strand. We found that the diameter of the tippet on any given spool frequently varied enough to affect our test results. After pulling 3 to 4 feet off the spool, and slowly pulling the tippet though the rubber jaws of the micrometer, we could clearly see the material was not an exact uniform diameter. This was true of every product from every company. For example, RIO Powerflex 2X ranged anywhere between .225 mm to .230 mm. We tried to use the best average we could and in this case we averaged RIO Powerflex 2X at .228 mm, which came in just under the industry standard of 2X, or .229 mm.

In testing the different diameters of these materials, we stated what the manufacturers advertised, but we also reported on how this size varied from the industry standard for a given X size. For example, 4X, which should measure .007″, equals .178 mm. Obviously if a material is substantially larger (or smaller) than the advertised X size, it will test significantly stronger or weaker, which we took into consideration when rating materials. In our charts you’ll see the exact size of each material and how it varied from the norm. You can find more commentary on each product at ­flyfisherman.com/?p=10182 and yellowstoneangler.com.

In the “Final Results” sidebar on page 27, you’ll see which materials we feel are the best and why. In addition to all the laboratory-style tests, we were able to use these materials on the water the summer of 2011, and of course we have fished several of these for years now, providing us with a baseline of knowledge to help judge overall tippet performance.

Difficult to Measure
Over the years, people who have tested monofilaments have come to some general conclusions that we found difficult to prove one way or the other.

Abrasion resistance. Most fly fishers agree that one of the big advantages of fluorocarbon over nylon is abrasion resistance. This makes perfect sense because the material is denser. From our own fishing experiences, especially in salt water, it seems that fluorocarbon is slightly more abrasion resistant, but nothing is going to hold up to a 10-pound bonefish or 25-pound permit running through coral.

We tried to simulate this kind of abrasion resistance by rubbing materials back and forth (with equal pressure) over different grits of sandpaper. It was difficult to see, let alone measure any difference. Since fluorocarbon is denser than nylon, we’ll take the manufacturers’ word for it. All the comments we have gotten from other anglers support the opinion that fluorocarbon is more abrasion resistant than they nylon. Perhaps down the road someone will come up with a better test for abrasion resistance.

Visibility. Manufacturers regularly claim that fluorocarbon is nearly invisible underwater. Seaguar’s web site tells us that water has a refractive index of 1.33, fluorocarbon has a refractive index of 1.42, and nylon has a refractive index of 1.62. This means that ­fluorocarbon refracts light more similarly to water than does nylon, thus making it more difficult to see underwater.

While this theory makes sense, we were unable to come up with a good method to independently confirm this. We tried examining both monofilament and fluorocarbon side-by-side underwater, but to our eyes, there didn’t seem to be a huge difference. Of course, that’s with our eyes. Who knows what the fish see?

[Also keep in mind that refraction is the change in light direction as it passes through a material. If light is passing through the material and then to the eyes of the fish, then refraction may be important. If the light is behind the fish, then light is likely reflecting off the tippet material and the reflective qualities become more important in regard to visibility. The Editor.]

After years of fishing clear spring creeks, local lakes, and saltwater flats, we have come to the conclusion that the majority of the time, presentation and the action of your fly are crucial to what triggers an eat or initiates a refusal. For the refusals, it is certainly possible the fish was spooked by the light reflecting off the tippet, or that the fish is able to see the tippet itself.

Any advantage an angler can use to get a fish to strike is worth a try. Our own experiences with fluorocarbon in both fresh and salt water seem to confirm that fluorocarbon does make a difference, especially in stillwaters and salt water. We just wish we could have come up with a conclusive test to quantify the difference.

Flexibility. We found no easy way to measure the suppleness of fluorocarbon and nylon. We pulled a few feet of material off the spool and by handling it, we could feel some difference in flexibility. The “memory” of a material from being wound around the spool made some materials appear stiffer than others, with little or no memory.

One of the ways RIO tests suppleness is to cut lengths of monofilament at exactly 6 inches, and then hang them over the counter. When we tried to duplicate this test it was difficult to tell which materials were softer or stiffer (except for a few extremes).

Also, a material with thinner diameter is by nature more supple, and hangs lower than the others. This is why we shift down in tippet size to get a more flawless, drag-free drift with a dry fly or nymph. In the end, we just went by our gut feeling after handling these materials for long periods of time, running our tests on the machine, and tying all those knots. In general, the fluorocarbons were stiffer than the nylons.

Many good fly fishers have found the stiffness of fluorocarbon to be an advantage in obtaining casting accuracy, especially with fine tippets like 5X, 6X, and 7X. While getting a perfect drag-free drift is the key to technical dry-fly fishing and nymph fishing, good anglers can usually find ways to induce the necessary slack they need to get a dead-drift by mending, feeding out line, or using casting techniques such as a reach cast or slack-line cast.

For these reasons, we feel stiffer materials are better. However, we know other anglers prefer more supple monofilaments like Dai-Riki Dynamic, or TroutHunter nylon, that more easily flow with swirling currents.

Water absorption. Since nylon absorbs water and fluorocarbon is supposed to be impervious to it, we tried a few knot tests with materials that had been soaked for three to four hours. We found both the straight-pull break strength and knot strength for nylons decrease about 20 percent when wet. Breaking strengths for fluorocarbon decreased by 3 to 5 percent.

As a practical matter, most of the time your tippet won’t be getting soaked for more than a few minutes at a time, so unless trolling is part of your program, we felt this was non-issue.

Sink factor. Anglers sometimes worry about fluorocarbon sinking more rapidly, since it has a heavier specific gravity than nylon. (The specific gravity of water is 1.0, nylon has a specific gravity of 1.05 to 1.10; fluorocarbon is denser and runs 1.75 to 1.90.) To put this in perspective, tungsten, used as a powder in sinking tips, has a specific gravity of 19.25. So there really is not a substantial difference between nylon and ­fluorocarbon, ­especially when most anglers are just using fluorocarbon for the tippet.

A much bigger factor is surface tension. If you are using small-diameter tippets and a small dry fly, the surface tension won’t usually allow either nylon or fluorocarbon to break through the surface. This seems to apply for tippets 3X or smaller.

Also, once they are under the water, there is almost no practical difference in the sink rates of nylon or fluorocarbon tippets. If you are using a full tapered leader of fluorocarbon, only then does the weight become slightly more of a factor.

Top Contenders
For the first round of our shootout we focused on tippet diameter and straight-pull break strength. The materials that had larger diameters, yet lower breaking strengths, went to the bottom of the list. In general, the materials that tested within industry average—yet had the highest breaking strengths—moved on to our knot shootout. We wish we could have tested everyone’s knot strength; we simply didn’t have the time. For our final shootout, we limited the results to what we determined were the top three fluorocarbons, and the top three nylons.

For fluorocarbon, the top three materials based on average breaking strength and correct diameter were Seaguar Grand MAX, TroutHunter, and RIO Fluoroflex Plus. With RIO holding the greatest market share and having the most stretch out of all the fluorocarbons tested, we were curious to see how it would compare.

For nylon, Stroft GTM, RIO Powerflex, and Dai-Riki GTS had thestrongest average breaking strength by diameter. However we decided to include Frog Hair rather than Dai-Riki GTS, due to Frog Hair’s higher breaking strength in 4X and 6X.

Knot Strength
This article ended up being as much a knot shootout as a tippet shootout. We had not anticipated putting so much emphasis on the knots until we noticed that once knots were introduced into the equation, breaking strength immediately decreased by 20 to 30 percent, and sometimes by as much as 50 percent.

Clearly knot strength is even more important than straight-pull break strength of the material itself. By looking at the tables, you can see what knots perform the best and then learn how to tie them quickly yourself. Some knots are easier to tie than others, and most anglers prefer to stick to the easiest knots, even if they are weaker.

When we crunched the data, the weakest link ended up being tippet-to-tippet knots. This was a surprise, since our angling experience suggests that the tippet-to-fly is the weakest link. But further tests we did with a rod rigged up out on the lawn confirmed that the tippet-to-tippet knot broke more often than the tippet-to-fly knot.

To our surprise, the J knot proved to be the strongest line connection knot, at least for joining materials from 2X to 4X and 4X to 6X. One of our favorites, the improved blood knot proved to be strong as well, and is noticeably smaller than either the J knot or a triple surgeon’s knot. The standard blood knot and triple surgeon’s knot, used by the wide majority of anglers, turned out to be slightly weaker.

The good news is that the improved clinch, which almost everyone uses, ended up testing the third strongest out of 15 different tippet-to-fly knots. Only the San Diego jam and double improved clinch averaged stronger.

The double improved clinch is similar to the regular improved clinch—you simply double the material before going through the hook eye. Obviously, it is more difficult to tie with small flies. Since most anglers already know the clinch knot, the double clinch is an easy knot to add to the repertoire.

The San Diego jam is a cousin to the 16/20 knot, and instructions are at netknots.com. For the ultimate tippet-to-fly connection and special situations we recommend these, but for general angling the improved clinch is hard to beat.

We were also surprised to see that the Davy knot, which is fast to tie and therefore popular in competitive fly-fishing circles, actually tested weaker than a wind knot.

In order to determine which material produced the strongest knots, we averaged the breaking strengths of 2X, 4X, and 6X for each of the 22 knots we tested with each material. For our final results, we had to factor in the diameter of the material we were testing, since larger diameters would obviously test stronger. For example, in several cases, Stroft or Frog Hair had the strongest breaking strengths, but we had to handicap them for being slightly over the industry’s average diameter.

Nylon vs. fluorocarbon. In straight-pull break strength, when we averaged the figures, nylon and fluorocarbon were about equal. But once we started adding knots, nylon was stronger. The differences were not huge, but we gathered enough evidence to declare nylon the clear winner in knot strength. But in our own fishing experiences we have felt that the fluorocarbons have provided sufficiently strong and reliable knots, especially when we’ve used a lubricant like lip balm in tying the knots.

From experience we know that fluorocarbon tippet ties well to nylon leaders. The best we’ve found though are Seaguar Grand MAX and TroutHunter because these are made with a “double structure.” A high-density interior resin improves tensile strength and sensitivity, while the softer exterior resin enhances knot strength. This softer exterior is close to nylon, allowing for better grip and stronger knots.

Conclusions
If price and knot strength are priorities, our shootout proved nylon monofilaments are runaway winners. However, almost every expert fly fisher we know uses fluorocarbon, despite its higher cost. Experienced fly fishers feel that superior abrasion resistance leads to fewer lost fish, and decreased visibility underwater leads to more takes, especially in critical conditions where the fish are getting a clear look at your fly. Break strength and knot strength for the best fluorocarbons, although not quite up to the best nylons, have proved to be adequate, as has the overall reliability of using nylon leaders with fluorocarbon tippets.

James Anderson worked with his father George and the rest of the staff at The Yellowstone Angler to ­produce this ­report.

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Fluorocarbon Results

Photo | Arlen Thomason

If your first thought upon seeing this image is of prehistoric monsters, you aren’t too far off the mark. Nearly 250 million years ago this fellow’s ancestors, bearing mugs not all that dissimilar, lumbered from the water and onto the land in much the same way as this salmonfly nymph did. The next step was the same, too—splitting open the nymphal encasement to free the winged adult inside. Sorry to say, the emerging adult then or now would be no more likely than this youngster to win a beauty contest. At least not if humans were judging. Fish, on the other hand, might have a different take on the matter.

Salmonflies in a Nutshell
Stonefly nymphs of the family Pteronarcyidae, genus Pteronarcys are among the largest in North America. The major Western species, P. californica, goes by the common name giant stonefly, or more widely, the salmonfly.

The salmonfly emergence on some rivers of the West is among the most famous and most anticipated hatches in the country. Who can resist scads of giant insects falling on the water, often greeted by large gaping trout mouths?

You might think that a two-inch nymph with a face like this would be among the fiercest predators prowling the river bottoms.

But you would be wrong. For all its size and fearsome appearance, a salmonfly nymph is more cud chewer than carnivore. Nothing makes it happier than grazing peacefully on algae and detrital fungi accumulated within the crannies of streambed cobble. Yet it has been reported to feed on juvenile insects on occasion, when opportunity arises and the unfortunate youngster fails to move out of the way.

Salmonfly nymphs generally spend two to three years in the water, depending on temperatures and food supply.

Their favorite places are brawling rivers with lots of medium to large rocks, serving not only as debris catchers and hiding places but also to churn lots of oxygen into the water. Stoneflies in the family Pteronarcyidae have the most complex gills of all stoneflies, sporting branched, feathery gills at the base of each leg, as well as on some abdominal segments. The only other stoneflies to have similar branched gills are the golden stoneflies, family Perlidae, though in that family gills are absent from the abdomen. Nevertheless, their gills apparently leave something to be desired when it comes to respiratory efficiency, since both groups prefer fast, well-oxygenated water.

Most cool Western streams with good water quality and sufficiently turbulent flow to provide aeration hold some salmonfly nymphs. But it is the largest such rivers that contain the greatest numbers. A special few of them, like Montana’s Madison,
Idaho’s Henry’s Fork, and Oregon’s Deschutes, support superhatches that are legendary.

Hatches begin in mid-April among many of the rivers west of the Cascades, and in May and June for most of those in the interior West. A couple of weeks before that, the big nymphs get itchy feet and start migrating toward shore.

Doing so exposes them to perilous currents and they often find themselves swept into the drift. A drifting salmonfly nymph is a sad sight. All it can do is curl into the fetal position and hope to touch down on a rock before it enters a trout’s belly. Many don’t make it.

The ones that do arrive safely at the shoreline need to choose their exit strategy carefully. Lots of big juicy nymphs emerging from the water are sure to attract attention from above as well as below. It is better to wait until most of the birds go to bed, and sight-hunting trout lose the advantage of good vision. So salmonfly nymphs lumber ashore at dusk and a little after, in the dark. They usually look for something close to climb on. Tall weeds will do, or the trunks of alders and cottonwoods. If they don’t encounter such a perch nearby, they will sometimes crawl quite a distance to find one. Once they’ve gained some altitude and a vertical position, the molting process begins, and before long another salmonfly adult has entered the world. The morning light often finds it perched on a limb, overseeing its riverside domain, with thoughts of a mate on its mind.

Have you wondered where the name salmonfly comes from? If you look at one from below, the answer becomes apparent. Whereas the top of a P. californica adult is mostly brown, the bottom is a striking orange or salmon color. Though I’ve also read that the origin of the name may lie in the fact that these bugs hatch at the same time as salmon return to the rivers in the Pacific Northwest.

Over the next few days the principal salmonfly business is finding that perfect someone. On prolific bug waters that isn’t difficult; there are so many close cohorts of the proper persuasion that bumping into Mr. or Ms. Right is a foregone conclusion. But in most places with average populations, the job requires a little more effort. It is here that the stonefly musical talents come into play. The male starts drumming his beat; a female answers with hers. Love found, they climb the willow altar together. Conjugal bliss is the conclusion, and before long the posterior end of the female’s abdomen is flush with a mass of fertilized eggs.

If the weather is right—a warm sunny day, usually in the late afternoon—her wings whir into action and she helicopters out over the water, dropping her eggs as she goes. And so the cycle starts again. Unless, that is, an aeronautical accident—which occurs all too frequently—takes her prematurely onto the water’s surface, where a hungry trout engulfs her, eggs and all.

Fishing the Hatch
My first significant encounter with a salmonfly hatch was in June 1996 on Montana’s Madison River. I was spending that summer in Bozeman near Yellowstone Park, and was determined to fish all the famous and not-so-famous rivers in the land of fly-fishing legends. The storied salmonfly hatch was high on my list. Unfortunately, that was a spring with record runoff, and many of the area rivers were blown out well into the summer. The Yellowstone River flooded parts of Livingston and even washed out the renowned spring creeks nearby, which took several years to fully recover. That river didn’t fall back into fishable shape until the end of July.

Though the water was a little higher than I would have liked, by the end of June the Madison was accessible to a careful wader. I had heard that the salmonfly hatch was happening, so I drove over one day to see for myself. And it was spectacular. Every bankside bush was covered with brown and orange bugs as big as 747s. I imagined this was what the biblical locust plagues must have looked like. It was hard to conceive that such large insects could be present in such huge numbers.

But I was puzzled. With so many bugs in the bushes, inevitably quite a few of them were falling into the water. I kept my eye on one after another as it struggled on the surface, expecting a malevolent swirl at any moment. But for the longest time, every drifting bug went unmolested. And my big imitating flies drew the same response.

About 5 or 6 P.M. most of the female salmonflies suddenly took to the air—by the thousands, in a cloud headed upstream. As I stood casting in the river, one after another of them flew clumsily into me, crawling up my arms, on my head, and under my shirt collar. There is nothing quite so creepy as a bunch of prickly salmonfly claws rasping down the back of your neck. It makes it difficult to concentrate on your casting, but somehow I managed.

Of course the number of bugs falling on the water was even greater than had crawled under my shirt, and finally a few fish were taking advantage. A big splash here, another one over there. Still, it was nothing like I expected. With so many steaks on the water, why weren’t more fish chowing down? And what’s worse, all the rises were to naturals; not a single one came to my flies.

Back at the fly shop, I related my exciting but frustrating experience to some sympathetic ears. “Yep,” I was told, “that’s nothing out of the ­ordinary.”

It seems that by the time the salmonfly hatch reaches its peak in a particular section of the river, the trout have been gorging themselves on migrating nymphs and returning adults for two to three weeks. They’re stuffed, and will only move occasionally to take anything from the surface.

The advice: as the hatch movesupstream over a several-week period, try to stay at its leading edge, where fish are just starting to see the ­activity.

“Go way upstream and try again tomorrow,” the locals said—and then further advised, “don’t just fish dry flies imitating adults; give some big, heavy dark nymphs a shot.”

The next day found me upriver ten to fifteen miles, checking the banks for evidence of salmonflies. Here there were moderate numbers of nymphal shucks, indicating that the hatch had begun in this section, but just a few adults were evident on the shoreline. I tied on a big Clark’s Stonefly and cast it along an undercut bank with overhanging bushes. It was immediately smacked by a nice fish, and several minutes later a pretty 15-inch brown trout was at my feet.

Despite the auspicious beginning, forty-five minutes and several dry-fly changes later, there had been no further action. So I went to Plan B. Off came the dry fly, and on went a heavily weighted Kaufmann’s Stonefly nymph. That turned out to be the ticket. In another two hours of fishing, I caught eight or ten trout, up to 21 inches. These trout wanted their steaks all right, but they were more interested in deep dining than having a surface snack. It was important to dead-drift the nymph right along the bottom, letting the artificial tumble in the current the same way a hapless natural that had lost its grip on the bottom would do.

That’s a lesson that I have never forgotten. Though I’ve since enjoyed excellent fishing during salmonfly hatches on a number of rivers, including Oregon’s Deschutes, dry-fly action can be fickle. If you head to one of the famous Western rivers in search of the celebrated salmonfly hatch, with expectations of stupendous dry-fly action, there is a good chance you will be disappointed. You often have to time it just right for success on the surface. But nymph fishing can be another story. Rick Hafele and Dave Hughes wrote in The Complete Book of Western Hatches that they would rather be on a good salmonfly stream in the two weeks prior to the hatch than during it. I’m not sure I agree—because fishing the big dry flies is so much fun—but they are probably right that the odds of catching good numbers of big fish are improved.

Lest you get the wrong impression, I hasten to add that there is nothing more exciting than the spectacular mistake of a big fish exploding on a floating salmonfly imitation.

There is also nothing tentative about the take, and the sudden shock of the attack has caused many an angler to break off the fish with an overly enthusiastic reaction. (Use strong tippet, at least 3X, to help avoid that; trout eating salmonflies aren’t leader shy.)
So for many of us it’s worth taking the chance of a poor catching day just to have a shot at such an experience. And good days do come along; otherwise, you wouldn’t hear all those stories about the fantastic salmonfly hatch. One good day like that can make up for a lot of near misses.

To improve the odds, especially on popular rivers with a heavily fished hatch, look for difficult-to-access places with deeper water right off the bank and an overhanging tree.

Big fish lie in such spots waiting for a clumsy salmonfly to lose its grip and tumble in. Cast a big fly—something like a size 4 to 8 Stimulator, Clark’s Stone, or Sofa Pillow is a good choice—right under the tree.

This is not like fishing over a mayfly hatch, so you don’t need to be very gentle about it when using a relatively light fly like these three. There is nothing delicate or graceful about a salmonfly hitting the water. Once there, it often struggles mightily but uselessly to make headway toward shore. From underwater, the view is of a lot of kicking and commotion.

Flies
Plenty of patterns have been developed to imitate both the nymphal and adult forms of salmonflies, and most of them work in various situations. Large, heavily weighted nymphs are appropriate for deep or swift water, whereas smaller and lighter patterns are better suited to more moderate flows. I’m fond of the dark Kaufmann Stone tied with black rubber legs, especially when fishing some of the Montana rivers in years with a heavy spring runoff. For dry flies, traditional ties or the newer foam-body stonefly imitations both have their places, depending on water conditions.

The popular Improved Sofa Pillow or the similar all-purpose Stimulator tied with an orange body take more than their share of fish when adult salmonflies are on the water.

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1.

“To climb out on the stick or not?” this nymph seems to be asking itself.

Arlen Thomason is a molecular biologist in biomedical research. He lives with his wife Susie along Oregon’s McKenzie River.

When you spend years working in a fly shop, you become callous to the many items that surround you. I believe it’s an acquired defense mechanism that stops you from going broke by purchasing everything you see—sort of like my teenage summer job in a bagel shop, which prohibited me from eating cinnamon raisin bagels for the following decade. For a fly tier, this is especially true of the tying department, where we actually have an entire wall dedicated to chenille, enough dubbing to stuff a mattress, and too many dyed animal parts to count.

Most days, my eyes glaze over as I stare at the psychedelic array of colored materials covering our walls. But there are moments when just the right levels of nicotine and caffeine combine in my brain to provide clarity. It was one of these moments—after I suddenly took notice of the array of colored deer tails hanging from pegs—which gave me the idea for my bucktail-body dry flies.

I have always loved the look and fish-catching ability of quill-bodied dry flies. But taking pencil erasers to peacock herl, stripping feather fibers to procure poorly dyed hackle stems, or soaking various types of manufactured quills to make them pliable, have all diminished my desire to tie these flies. These body materials often produce brittle flies that can unravel when they are exposed to a large trout’s sharp teeth. They also limit color options by forcing tiers to create bodies with solid colors. Few things in nature, including aquatic insects, are monotone in color.

In Charlie Meck’s book The Hatches Made Simple, he eloquently describes the color of E. invaria sulphurs as “usually pale yellow with an orange (and sometimes ­olive-orange) cast.” Charlie was tying the flies in his book with dubbing, so various dubbing colors could be mixed to achieve his recommended body colors. But if you prefer quill-bodied flies, how are you supposed to imitate Sulphurs with a dyed hackle stem or the prepackaged sulphur Quill Body that most shops sell? You can’t do it with any single quill-body material. But you can do by combining various colors of bucktail and thread to create a body.

Bucktails can be found in seemingly endless color options in most fly shops. And once you purchase one, you have a near-lifetime supply of quill-body material in that color. Each fly takes only a couple fibers from the tail, and there’s a lot of hair on a buck’s back end.

The length of a standard bucktail fiber may become problematic when you tie flies size 10 and larger, but you can always purchase oversize saltwater bucktails for big drys. And the necessary bucktail fiber length is somewhat reduced by using dubbing for the thorax of the fly. Dubbing adds bulk to the thorax, and contributes to the overall body taper, which is important for imitating the proper form of most aquatic insects. The dubbing also helps a dry fly or emerger appear more refined by covering the butts of wings, whether they’re hair, hackle, or a synthetic material.

I hate using glues of any kind when tying dry flies. I’ve long believed glue to be little more than a crutch to help keep poorly tied drys from falling apart. But tiers often coat quill-bodied dry flies with head cement to keep their bodies from unraveling.

There is another way to ensure that the first trout to eat your fly doesn’t shred it. I twist my tying thread around the bucktail, forming a rope with the combined materials to keep the body together, and then wrap the rope around the shank to create the body.

Fly tiers have been using thread in conjunction with brittle peacock herl this way for a long time. When you wrap this rope on the hook, it lashesall the fibers many times along the shank. That way even if one bucktail fiber breaks, the rest is held in place by the preceding and following thread wraps. If a bucktail fiber breaks and protrudes from the body, you simply clip it off with your nippers and continue fishing.

There is another advantage to using your thread this way. You can choose a thread color that adds another shade to the body’s color. For instance, if I were tying the Sulphur that Charlie described in his book, I would take four pale yellow bucktail fibers mixed with two orange fibers, and twist them with light olive thread. Then there are elements of all the possible shades within the fly.

Aquatic insect colors vary from stream to stream, so the best course is to sample insects from your streams and then create the bucktail and thread combinations to match them.

You can incorporate bucktail bodies into any fly pattern, including caddis and stonefly drys. I also use them for tying nymphs and wet flies, often twisting strands of Krystal Flash with the hair and thread to add a little brilliance to the body.

When you use bucktail bodies in subsurface flies, the hair quickly absorbs water and helps the flies sink. But when they are tied as dry flies, they also absorb liquid or gel floatants, ensuring that the flies don’t sink. A quick dusting of dry desiccant after catching a fish revitalizes the flies and quickly has them riding the surface again.

Perhaps the truest test of the bucktail bodied fly’s effectiveness came during FUDR’s (Friends of the Upper Delaware River) annual One Bug fundraising tournament a few years ago. My partner, Andy Tumalo, and I each used my Hendrickson Snowshoe and Bucktail emergers. In the One Bug, you are limited to one fly per day, so if your fly falls apart, you’re done. But our flies remained intact, even after they caught the two 21-inch brown trout that won the competition for us.

If the Delaware’s famously selective wild brown trout eat bucktail dry flies on the river’s flat pools, they’ll work on your home waters too. Bucktail-bodied flies will be found in my boxes wherever I fish, even if there isn’t a clear Lucite trophy on the line.

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Step 1

Tie in the Darlon trailing shuck and bind down the Darlon for approximately three quarters of the hook shank, stopping where you intend to tie in the wing. This forms a smooth foundation for the bucktail body material.

Paul Weamer is the Fly Fisherman northeast field editor, and author of the Fly-Fishing Guide to the Upper Delaware River.

Bruce Chard Photo

Scientific Anglers has come out with some great new sunscreen for fishing in the salt.

The new 3M Ultrathon sun lotion and spray is safe for contact with fly lines and is offered in a SPF 50 lotion and a SPF 30 non aerosol spray which allows the spray to work at any angle even upside down.

Both the lotion and spray have 80 minutes of water and sweat resistance and is none greasy.

Both lotions are sold in 3 once containers and offer both UVA and UVB protection.  This makes it easy to legally carry on the plane with you on your next salt water trip.

Even though this lotion is a product extension from Ultrathon this lotion has no bug repeleant at all and is just a sun lotion.

Check it out online or at your local fly shop.

All lines have a core and a coating.  Most floating lines get a little flotation out of the core but most of the flotation comes from micro-balloons mixed into the coating and the hydrophobic coating added to the line. Since most modern lines taper, there’s less flotation at the tip of the line because there’s less coating. The core of a line is the same thickness from end to end causing all the tapering to be done with the coating. With the taper getting thinner near the fishing end of the line there are less micro-balloons causing less flotation.  This is a bit ironic since the tip is where we need the most flotation.

A line with a welded loop at the tip often floats better than one without a loop due to the increased surface area of the loop (much to my dismay as I dislike loop to loop connections).

The other common cause of a fly line sinking is dirt.  Dirt clinging to the coating of a fly line adds density, causing the line to sink.  Keep your line clean and it will help flotation.  Soaking a fly line in lukewarm water with mild dish soap will help loosen up dirt and allow you to clean the line.  Soak the line for a few minutes, then wipe a clean cloth over the coating.  Repeat this process until the cloth is no longer taking dirt off the line (evidenced by a clean cloth after running the fly line through it).  Scientific Anglers sells a micro-abrasive pad that can be used to remove dirt from their fly lines but be careful, it isn’t safe to use on all brands.  The SA pad can be used dry.

Keep your floating line high and dry to make your time on the water more enjoyable.