Competition Flies

One of the changes in fly fishing is that as fishable waters get harder to find there has been a trend in Europe and somewhat in the United States of creating a different style of fishing.  You have heard no doubt of Euro Nymphing, Czechz Nymphing, French Nymphing, and Spanish Nymphing.  They are all similar but share a few things in common.

The flies they use are mostly with Tungsten beads so they will sink very fast. Tungsten sinks three times as fast as lead and so gets down to the bottom of the stream much quicker.  This type of fly is especially useful in fast moving water.  Since all the fishing is not done in fast water, standard flies like Phesant tails, Hare’s ears and the like still have their place, as do streamers and dry flies.

A second consideration is to get a good drift where the fly is moving at the same speed as the water.  To do this rather than use a tapered leader where there are different diameters of line going through the water at different speeds, the same size leader is used for all the line that would be beneath the water.

There are lots of other considerations, but the next most important one is the use of a “sighter” rather than using a strike indicator.  The sighter is a line about the same size as the tippet but it is colored with red, green, yellow or other highly visible colors.

The sighter has an 0 ring at the end of it and the 5x or smaller tippet is used the rest of the way.

The big advantage of the sighter is that you eliminate the strike indicator and can do from shallow water to a deeper pool without having to adjust or move and indicator.

As time allows I will post some of the flies listed on the left.  Check this for starters.

If you would like to see a convenient Bead Chart that you can carry in your wallet that shows bead sizes for various hooks.  Chick here Bead Chart.