David Arcay
Many Thanks to A MOSCA magazine for their kind permission to use the article.
THE DRY FLY IN COMPETITION by David Arcay
When I started fly fishing, back in 2003 when I was 12 years old, the first thing I learnt was to tie flies and the next to cast a line. Now I realize that in the last 10-15 years, fly fishing in Spain, and in general, and in almost the whole world has changed radically, now you can be a fly fisherman and even a competitor with the odd good result just fishing nymph or tandem.
Those months of learning in which the fly fisherman spent days and days without catching a fish are left behind, which is very good, nowadays the information is so much greater and we also have options take courses with different fishing techniques offered throughout the national scene. The problem that I see is that we are forgetting the romanticism of fly fishing, and we are changing it for the pure and simple effectiveness.
I say this as a competitor, a lover of fly fishing and competition, a defender of nymph fishing, as a technique as licit as the dry fly, and also concerned that the essence and the most beautiful thing in fly fishing is not lost which is the dry fly.
I assume that part of the blame for this is my beloved competition, since it instills the catching of as many fish as possible in a given time, which I personally love and enjoy, and it is clear that the effectiveness, as a general rule, is with the nymph, as fish do not always feed on the surface. I also assume that the new generations and the new competitors, look at the other athletes who already have a career made in competitive fly fishing, and this is where I wanted to go to give my point of view.
To sum it up, for me there are two kinds of enjoyment in fly fishing, one of them is associated with my competition facet, quantity of fish, which makes me try to catch the largest number of fish in a limited stretch and time, and another, being a fly fishing lover, to the quality, to how, by giving value to wanting to catch that complicated fish under some overhanging branches, sipping from the surface, regardless of the size of the fish.
Really if we talk about the enjoyment of fly fishing, nothing can give us more satisfaction than nailing a fish on a dry fly that we see feeding at the surface. Every fly fisherman knows that this feeling is unique.
With the understanding of fishing in these two ways, I enjoy it to the fullest, and one does not have to be at odds with the other. What I mean by this is that not because we are competitors do we have to go to the river every day to try to get as many fish as we can, and not because we do not like competition, we have to eject very effective techniques that will save us on difficult days.
If we talk about dry fly fishing, the ignorance that exists worldwide is quite relevant. Let me explain, when I have gone to give fishing courses, in Canada, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand you notice that what catches the students attention at the beginning, is to learn the art of the Spanish nymph technique which has been so successful and that has won several world championships in recent years, but what really impresses them afterwards, is when they see a dry fly presentation with a leader that does not stretch at all and that is capable of producing a long natural drag free drift over many meters.
To achieve that natural drift we need to take into account the following points:
The Dry Fly Rod.
A dry fly rod, regardless of its length, must have a fast tip action to achieve precision with ease in our casts. You have to adapt the length and stiffness of the rod to the fishing conditions that you have, always depending on the size of the fish and the tippet with which we have to fish. If the conditions force us to use a fine tippet at short distances we will use softer rods, line 2 or 3; On the other hand, if we need to cast longer and the fish allow us to fish with stronger tippets, we can use 4 or even line 5 weight rods in extreme cases.
For the choice of the rod we will also have to take into account the size of the fish, a soft rod is more suitable to fish small or medium-sized fish, since we will always be more effective when taking them to the net than with a stiffer rod, with which we will lose more fish. If we go for larger fish, the choice of the rod will depend on the tippet that we can use, which has to be taken into consideration if we want to catch them on fine leaders, a soft rod will be more delicate and will not leave the fly in the fish’s mouth at the moment most susceptible to breakage, which is always the case when they are first hooked. If the fish allow us to use stronger leaders we can use stiffer rods without problem.
Regarding the length, we will adapt to the type of river we fish, although if I have to opt for one length, I would go for 9'6 ". It is important when choosing a dry rod, that we take into account that what we are looking for is a dry fly action rod, not a short nymph rod, and from my experience, as we have already mentioned, a dry fly rod has to be fast, soft or stiff, but fast.
The Reel.
For me the least important, it is a question of taste. If we opt for speed and comfort, the semiautomatic is king; or we can choose a manual, to be more aesthetic or because our line can be stored on a wider arbor that will produce less memory.
It should be noted that whenever we go fishing for large fish, which make our reels sing while pulling line at full speed, the most appropriate choice could be the manual reel, since there are fewer places where the line can get tangled in the heat of the fight.
The line.
One of the key elements in this type of fishing. We are used to choosing our lines depending a lot on the rod, something that is totally correct when we want to get the most out of the cast, whether it is training casting, or casting long distances as in lake fishing. For dry fly fishing, I give more priority to having a line that allows me to comfortably fish at normal fishing distance, but also as fine as possible to keep drag to a minimal.
In my case, I usually fish ninety-five percent of my days with a WF2 line, with a head of about 10-12 meters in length that allows me to also make a long cast if necessary. Also, I use this line, regardless of whether I use a 2-3 rod or a 3-4 rod. The reasoning is that if we do not need, or rather, we should not stretch our leader, it is not necessary to use such a heavy line, as long as we can master a light and thin one, since this will give us many more advantages.
Less drag, greater buoyancy, subtlety in the presentation and better hooking as it lifts easier from the water, and also we will not have the sagging of a fat heavy line during the fight with the fish, with a fine line everything will be more direct and it will be more difficult for the fish to come unhooked.
So we see that fishing with a fine line there are only advantages, but only as long as we can manage it, since we should not forget that one of the most important things to fish dry is to be precise in our casts, and if we do not achieve that, it will be better to use a heavier line at first and refine our technique until we can use a thinner line.
"Fishing with a fine line brings only advantages, but only as long as as we can handle it. "
The Leader.
The most important thing in my point of view. You can have everything else, the best rod, the best line, and even a great casting technique, but if you don't have a good leader, everything will be more complicated. It is the penultimate step to reach the fish, and it will depend on the leader for the last step, the fly, drifts properly to deceive the fish.
Leaders can be tapered or knotted. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but for me the knotted win by a landslide. A knotted leader can be made to your liking, while the tapered one depends on the manufacturer, and for my taste, there are still no tapered leaders that allow you to do what a knotted leader can do. The tapered leader has only the advantage of having no knots, something which is useful if we fish in rivers with a lot of debris which would remain deposited on the knots.
The knotted leader has the only disadvantage that it has knots, but at the same time those knots also become an advantage, since they provide power to the leader in casts that require precision. The end of the fly line must be in relation to beginning leader section, which we will make starting with a fairly thick diameter, let's put a 0.40 millimeter, and we will decrease the distance between knots and monofilament thickness, as we get closer to the tippet. This leader must be powerful and balanced, since it will have to land stretched out on the water. Next, we must generate a decompensation to create slack line and thus ensure that the drift of the fly is sufficiently drag free and natural, as well as prolonged in the current.
This decompensation is generated by using, a final section leader, from 0.16 millimeters for example, to 0.10 or 0.12 directly, using a micro-ring or a perfection loop to always keep the main section of the leader the same. The tippet must also have a sufficient length to generate the slack line we were talking about, at least two meters, reaching even three meters in situations with a lot of current where we need to generate more slack line.
The casting technique.
Another of the key parts, since we will need to be precise in our casts to present the fly in a delicate, natural way and ready for a good drift. When I say ready for a good drift, I mean that a good cast should not need mending, at least in the first meters of drift, since we are supposed to be presenting the fly taking into account the conditions of the place we are fishing. Mending should only be necessary on long drifts or in particularly difficult places to keep the fly in place floating drag free.
We have to bear in mind that when using these long Leades that we discussed previously, that slack line will generate a curve in our presentation. That curve will benefit us in that the fly derives naturally, so that the fly is the first thing the fish sees, since we will never drift the leader over it. The leader will behave in such a way that if we cast from our right, the curve will be drawn to the right, and if we throw from our left, the curve will be drawn to the left.
If we are located in the center of the river, being right-handed, whenever we cast to a fish to our right, we will have to cast forehand, and if we have to cast to a fish located to our left, we will throw backhand, It can be difficult to describe and understand, but if you put it into practice you will see it right away.
The fly.
The most and the least important. Many times we give excessive importance to the fly, both dry and nymph, so that we cant see the forest for the trees.
The fly is the most important because it is the element that makes the fish take, but without paying attention to everything else the fly is worth nothing. We have to give much more importance to everything else that we have talked about previously, since a bad fly well presented is worth a lot more, than a very good fly with a poor presentation. With experience, you realize that you don't need so many fly models to fish in all parts of the world and in all possible situations. It is clear that every fly fisherman must carry a complete assortment in his box:caddis, mayflies, diptera, terrestrials and a few more flies as a whole, in various sizes and colors they will allow us to fish anywhere without a problem.
Reduce the importance of whether it is this tying silk, which feather or which color of dubbing. I think we should pay more attention on how to do it than than what to do it with.
Finally, I end with a personal reflection. It is true that the dry fly is less present in competitions and with competitors, but the best dry fly fishermen I have seen are competitors themselves.
Additional Notes taken from a web interview with David Arcay about Dry Fly fishing.
Knots
I use the Clinch knot, Blood knot for thick leaders, The Surgeons Knot for thin leaders and the Duncan Loop.
Leaders
The leader, Tippet is the most important part of the system.
I almost always use 0.12 mm tippet.
I use Leaders of 4 meters with 2 meters of tippet. I like mono not fluorocarbon.
I always use Maxima Chameleon.
1, the first part of the leader should be conical. I always use knotted leaders because I never found one that really works. Start with 0.40 and finish with 0.16.The more difficult the presentation the more tippet you need. If the river has many currents you need a long leader.The tippet should never be shorter than 1.5 meters I always use 2 to 2.5 meter of tippet. I always grease my my line before I start fishing and also in the afternoon.
Flies
I use 3 flies CDC upright, ants and an Olive caddis. Dry fly rods need to ne rapid with precision and also some times long casts.
I believe more in technique than in the fly.
Rods
Normally mid fast 8,6 to 9,6 line weight 3/4. In competitiion we can only use 2 rod lengths of leader that’s why we use longer rods.
Reel
Semi automatic the allow you to be fast and in contact with the fish.
Lines
WF or triangle taper
Favourite set up World Cup 9.6 3/4 Rod with WF 2 Line with an 11 meter head.
I fish 90% with WF2.
Casting
The most important thing in Dry fly fishing is casting, this is fundamental.
If you want to play football you look for a coach same with tennis. Get a coach learn faster save money.
There is not one rule where to cast from, there are situations where you have to place your self in the best position.
Never cast directly up stream to a fish always position your self to the side of the fish. Even better is to place yourself directly opposite the fish and present down stream.
One of the most important things in dry fly fishing is to be accurate with precision.
The first cast counts.
Drift this is the key! In all the books from America all the presentation have a straight leader.
In Spain it is different we need slack line so that we get a drift that is totally natural and subtle, this is the key.
Be alert look what’s going on! Study the rise.