True or false, trout will only eat a fly with a drag free drift? False, false, false. Some of the most sophisticated trout that grace our waterways can be fooled by a fly that is not dead drifted from time to time. BUT, just like the Supersize Your Flies article there is a time and place.

So what are some of the situations where you might want to swing, skate, or twitch a fly? First is "pre-hatch", by this I mean the time period before the main hatching activity when the nymphs are very active and a few insects can be seen hatching. At some point during the pre-hatch a lot of bugs are going to start popping off of the bottom of the stream, lake, or whatever you're fishing and the fish are going to be all over them. At some point this activity will switch to a full bore hatch but even then sometimes a swung nymph, emerger, or wet fly will knock the spots off of trout that will be harder to catch with a dry. This has held tru for smallies on the Susquehanna from time to time where the White Fly hatch was not in full swing and the fish were eager to take a small white wooly bugger or clouser minnow.

Another situation would be during most caddis activity on the water, pre-hatch with pupas when only a few caddis are popping, during the main hatch to imitate a crippled adult, and during the ovipositing(egg-laying) activity of the females. You'll know when the girls are back to drop their eggs because the "bounce" up and down on the surface of the water to break their eggs off or dive to the bottom of the stream. For diving caddis, we have been very successful fishing properly sized elk hair caddis patterns with split shot and swinging them or fishing them like a streamer with strips.

Terrestrials are usually fished better with twitches or small strips to imitate the distress that the naturals display. I have seen the pickiest fish on the Letort Spring Run or Big Spring Creek react to a twitched hopper when nothing else would arouse their interest. In low light a big terrestrial fished with big twitches will reward many anglers with the biggest fish in the river. As the sun sets lower and lower fish become much less wary and will take bigger chances on bigger prey. Likewise, early morning anglers can sometimes find amazing fishing by twitching a dry or skating it across a pool. In the late, spring and early summer months when I'm not guiding I like to wake early, before 5:00am, when I'm not to bushed and hit the stgream before sunrise when I can often catch more fish in two hours then I would for the rest of the day. The water is at it's coolest point and the fish are less wary from an evening of care free feeding.

Sometimes angler learn by mistake, usually during a caddis hatch, that dead drift is not always the drift. Adding some motion to your flies will sometimes produce when the perfect drift will not.

Tim S