Sure we all love the action of a trout slamming a dry with wild abandon, with an ensuing battle of proper line tension, mixed in with occasional aerial displays.....nothing quite like it! But when they are not cooperating, we have to change up strategies, go deep! On this particular day, after much frustration with near perfect drifts of a SpongeBob, I tied on one of my favorite wet flies and a size B split shot about 6 inches above, tossed it into the air with and enormous ugly loop followed by a huge splash, right in to the base of a plunge, waited about 3 seconds, started my strip and about 2 seconds later.....WHAMO! I was rewarded with this, not a monster, but not a dink either, and it put up a nice fight on the 2wt.
I found this article on fly fishing with split shot, and thought it would be helpful for those that are newer to the sport, obviously you seasoned veterans already know this, but in the spirit of this site and the sharing of knowledge.........hope you find it useful.
What's "Heavy Enough"
Some Thoughts on Split Shot
It's November, and for the most part we fly-fishers must accept the reality that there won't be much dry-fly fishing for the next few months.
Yes, there are exceptions, especially in more southern areas and on tailwaters, where fish can sometimes be found rising in every month of the year. But the exceptions prove the rule. Trout can still be caught, but for the most part we're going to need to fish deeply to catch them.
How deeply, of course, depends on the depth of the water you're fishing. It's not a big challenge to get a fly near the bottom of a knee-deep run. But if you've had the chance to fish in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that trout are absent from many of the shallower places you had been finding them in the summer and early fall. They're in deeper holes now, where the current is less demanding, which suits them because cold water and lack of food causes their metabolism to slow down considerably.
Trout still feed in the winter and will take flies - if you can get the fly deep enough. That brings us to this month's topic - Adding Stuff to Your Leader So You Can Fish Deep.
We all enjoy casting nice, tight loops when our terminal tackle is virtually weightless. Add a string of split shot, however, and out casting becomes something you probably wouldn't want to post on YouTube. In fact, if you add enough weight, it's not fly-casting at all anymore. Fly-casting means you cast the line and the leader and fly go along for the ride. When casting a heavy fly and plenty of lead, you're flinging the weight, which pulls the line behind it as it flies to the target. It's called chuck and duck, and you can do it with a spinning rod if it has the right action.
Nonetheless, if we want to bounce the bottom of a six-foot pool, we need lead. Or lead substitute.
All kinds of sinkers are available for fly line leaders, from the twist-on stuff that used to come in what looked like a matchbook, to the "slinkies" (lengths of paracord hollowed out and stuffed with shot, with a snap at the top for attaching to a three-way swivel) used by Great Lakes steelheaders to reach the bottoms of tributary pools. But regular split shot is probably the best choice for most situations, because it's a simple matter to customize your weight by adding or removing shot.
The key to using split shot properly is being willing to fuss with it until you get it right - that is, adding more if you're not bouncing the bottom and removing some if you move to a shallower lie. This seems obvious, yet it's human nature to prefer fishing to fussing, especially when the weather's below freezing.
If you've got enough shot on your leader to make casting a pain in the neck, you may be tempted to decide you're sufficiently weighted and take your chances. But that might mean your fly is drifting well above the trout's position - too far away for the fish to notice, or even if they do notice it, farther away than wintertime fish are generally willing to go for a snack. That's why it's crucial to feel your fly bumping along a little bit in every cast. Your fly needs to be where the fish are. So don't settle for "pretty heavy" - keep adding shot until you achieve "heavy enough."
Of course, you're bound to get hung up on a regular basis, with your fly catching a drowned limb (or another angler's broken-off snag), or your split shot itself wedging between rocks. Usually this means breaking off your tackle and tying on a new tippet and fly and adding the split shot all over again. More fussing. But when winter fish are holding deep, it's often the only way.
You can help achieve the depth you need with a heavy fly. Weighted patterns like the Copper John or Czech nymphs sink very well on their own and can reduce the amount of shot needed on your cast. Weighted nymphs catch an awful lot of fish every year, both winter and summer, but some anglers don't like them because they find their action in the water too heavy and unrealistic. For these anglers, plenty of split shot and a relatively buoyant nymph like the Pheasant Tail or Hare's Ear is a more effective way to fish.
That great tight loop you cast all summer when trout were rising is long gone. Your loop now is big and round, and where all that lead will land is never quite certain. It's the price you pay for trout (sometimes big trout) when the rivers are cold.
