Orvis product developer Jesse Haller, the guy in charge of flies and accessories, is a pretty active competition fly fisherman, and he’s big proponent of tightline nymphing. The technique, developed by European competitive anglers, is so effective because it gets the flies quickly into the trout’s strike zone and keeps them there. In his new how-to video, Jesse describes the three factors that affect how fast your flies sink–fly weight, tippet diameter, and how the flies enter the water–and shows you exactly how to set up and cast to maximize the time your flies spend in the strike zone.
Click here to see our European-Nymphing Collection.
I always enjoy hearing from Jesse on Tom’s podcasts!
(This style of logical deduction / presentation rewarded me with a heavy Rainbow from a current seam yesterday morning, an area passed up by most, simply by adjusting to a slightly heavier bead head nymph and a tuck cast.)
Thank you Jesse!
Love it! Most of my ‘tenkara’ fishing is done trying to emulate this sort of thing.
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Would would Hank Patterson say?
Please note that this style of nymphing was also developed in southeastern PA back in the mid-70’s about the same time it was developed in certain areas of Europe. That includes the sighter material in the leader and the type(s) of casts to most effectively deliver the nymphs. It was popularized when some of our anglers were introduced to it in competition fishing. I’ve used and taught this style of nymphing longer than the vast majority of American anglers have known about it.
This is a technique that has been independently developed around the world many times. I developed a similar style I call Utah tightline nymphing starting in about 2000 without knowledge that it had been done in places like Japan and Italy for over a century. Siters, indicators and bobbers aren’t needed when done right unless someone has impaired sensation of their hands. Adapt the technique to the waters you fish. I do use this basic technique with weight streamers when fishing for salmon in Alaska with tremendous success. The only glaring error is that fishing 2 flies is almost always subpar. Of course you can catch fish on both but you’ll almost always catch less fish. The flies effect the drift and sensitivity of what the fishermen feels. There is an Utah pro that posted a youtube video comparing tightline nymphing with 2 vs 1 fly. He always caught more with 1. That was very obvious to me and I dropped 2 in my very first year of developing this technique.
This style of logical deduction / presentation rewarded me with a heavy Rainbow from a current seam yesterday morning, an area passed up by most, simply by adjusting to a slightly heavier bead head nymph and a tuck cast.
https://www.jessicaclarktherapyservices.com
Even though this technique has been around for centuries and developed independently in places as wide apart as pennsylvania, Japan and Europe, like the two posters above, I invented it last week. No need to thank me or acknowledge my significance.