OK, the run's about 100' long, about 30' wide, about 8' deep at the deepest and starts with a chute that runs through a neck, dumping abruptly into a hole then slowing down and broadening as it tails out. Shallower riffles to the right, huge back eddie and frog water to the left of the run after it clears the neck.
While standing at the head and to one side (the only decent place to stand), cast slightly upstream into the shallow top of the chute using 8' of T-14, 3' leader and a VERY heavy fly (2" Waddington + nickel plated lead eyes). Fly plunges to the bottom and occasionally hits.
After the upstream mend, the rod is held far back and high, dropping the tip toward the fly, maintaining a light tension and allowing it to sink. The fly is basically dropping back and down while facing upstream, moving slightly left to right. As the rod completes the drop and is pointed at the fly, full tension comes on the line and the fly begins to move more left to right and rises. The backwards motion is almost stopped. Near the end of the swing, some slow strips are introduced to swim the fly onto the dangle and raise it in preparation for the lift.
Any alternatives to this? It's basically a vertical presentation, going deep as quickly as possible, then running the fly the length of the run, going across only when there's no line left to feed into the drift with the dropping rod tip.
The problem as I see it is that for much of the drift, the fly is presenting its ass end to the fish as it's dropping back and down. It is swimming, but slowly resisting the current. Perhaps a decent imitation of a weak prey item, but not much of a profile presented. perhaps this approach should be run shallower?
I always find these sorts of features easy to fish with a nymph but tough to fish with the swung fly so this was about the best I could come up with.
While standing at the head and to one side (the only decent place to stand), cast slightly upstream into the shallow top of the chute using 8' of T-14, 3' leader and a VERY heavy fly (2" Waddington + nickel plated lead eyes). Fly plunges to the bottom and occasionally hits.
After the upstream mend, the rod is held far back and high, dropping the tip toward the fly, maintaining a light tension and allowing it to sink. The fly is basically dropping back and down while facing upstream, moving slightly left to right. As the rod completes the drop and is pointed at the fly, full tension comes on the line and the fly begins to move more left to right and rises. The backwards motion is almost stopped. Near the end of the swing, some slow strips are introduced to swim the fly onto the dangle and raise it in preparation for the lift.
Any alternatives to this? It's basically a vertical presentation, going deep as quickly as possible, then running the fly the length of the run, going across only when there's no line left to feed into the drift with the dropping rod tip.
The problem as I see it is that for much of the drift, the fly is presenting its ass end to the fish as it's dropping back and down. It is swimming, but slowly resisting the current. Perhaps a decent imitation of a weak prey item, but not much of a profile presented. perhaps this approach should be run shallower?
I always find these sorts of features easy to fish with a nymph but tough to fish with the swung fly so this was about the best I could come up with.