Techniques:
Dry Fly: Finding a fish or a pod of half a dozen or more eating on the surface in the fall is one of the awe-inspiring sites in fly fishing. Connecting with a beautiful rainbow or “buttered up” brown on a dry fly while site-casting to it is one of the great accomplishments for an angler. Using a small dry fly on 4x or 5x tippet is critical but being accurate with your presentation is the most important thing. For fish tuned into tricos or blue winged olives there are generally so many stuck on the surface or in the film that the fish don’t have to move very far to eat.
What this means to the fly fisher is that your casting window is very narrow. We hear all the time in the shop people saying they cast 5 different flies to the fish and it didn’t eat one of them. Most likely the fish never saw the fly in its narrow feeding lane. As long as you are close in size and shape the actual pattern makes very little difference. You only have about a 6 to 8 inch wide by 2 foot long “lane.”. Basically think about putting the fly in the fish's mouth. Feed the fish and your success rate will rise dramatically.
Sometimes a downstream presentation works the best on pods of fish so they see the fly first. Generally though, to fish feeding on the edge a standard upstream presentation will work. Just remember to have slack in your tippet (the nice S curves near your fly) and ensure the fly is drag free.
Using a moderate or medium-to-soft action fly rod is useful for this type of fishing. When using 5x tippet you need a rod that can be a good shock absorber to handle the power of the Bow rver fish. Regardless of your setup in the fall, expect your hooked-to-landed ratio to drop! The fish are at their most powerful and you will simply lose them on the small flies. This was very obvious last fall as the Bow River fish were like small salmon and simply bending out hooks due to their weight and how they use the current to fight you.
Hopper Dropper: A fun way to fish a small nymph dropper is to put it behind a foam style hopper pattern. Yes you can get them on the hopper but we’re concentrating on the dropper for this article. A size 16 to 20 tungsten bead head nymph on 4x tippet tied to the bend of the hook of the hopper pattern anywhere from 16” to 36” is an absolute killer technique. There are many ways to set up a hopper dropper rig but simply tying to the bend of the hook is the fastest and easiest. You can use 2x or 3x to the hopper to help turn the rig over and minimize tangles.
Concentrate this technique on the riffled water in the fall any you will be successful. Vary the length of the dropper depending on the type and depth of water you are finding the fish feeding in.
Standard Nymphing: A typical two fly nymph rig works well. Tie the small fly off of a san juan worm or a larger prince nymph and you’re set. Just remember that you will be using lighter tippet, 4x typically, due to the smaller size of the fly and extreme water clarity of late summer-fall.
Streamer Dropper: This may be a new technique to some people, but Bow river anglers have been using it for years. It is the same idea as the hopper-dropper but with a streamer as your top fly. Generally the fly we put behind the streamer (clinch knot to the bend of the hook) is a water boatman pattern in a #14 or 16 on 3x tippet. A very successful fly set up is a Clouser minnow with a prince nymph or some other water boatman pattern behind it.
Enjoy the fall fishing and truly appreciate the very special fish we have here on the Bow River. Fishing the beautiful fall season with small flies is always a highlight of the season and accentuates what an amazing river we have.