Strike Indicator Techniques for Stillwaters with Phil Rowley (Littoral Zone #27)

WFS 983 Transcript 00:00:00 Phil Rowley: Welcome to the Littoral Zone Podcast. I’m your host, Phil Rowley. The littoral zone or shoal area of the lake is a place where the majority of the action takes place. My podcast is intended to do the same, put you where the action is to help you improve your Stillwater fly fishing. On each broadcast, I, along with guests from all over the world, will be providing you with information, tips and tricks, flies, presentation techniques along with different lakes or regions to explore. I hope you enjoy today’s podcast. Please feel free to email me with your Stillwater related fly fishing questions and comments. I do my best to answer as many as we can prior to each episode, just before the main content. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. There are many ways to fly fish lakes. I try to use as many methods as possible because I feel this gives me the best chance of success. However, when listening to other podcasts and Stillwater related fly fishing content and videos, I’m flattered when my name is mentioned. Unfortunately, I seem to have been pigeonholed as someone who only fishes lakes using indicators. This simply isn’t the case, but there is no doubting how effective fishing flies beneath an indicator is. Or as the English call them, bungs. So at the risk of further confirming, I am only an indicator fly fisher, I’m going to spend the next hour or so discussing in detail the how, the when, the where and the why of my Stillwater indicator approach. I also receive frequent enquiries about the many aspects of Stillwater indicator fishing, including leader setup, indicator choices, line choices, presentation strategies, and accessories. Hopefully this podcast will address these inquiries too. But before we take a deep dive into using strike indicators on lakes, let me answer a couple of great questions from Brad, who lives in Arizona, about anchor rope length and my bead preferences for long leaders and floating lines when using a technique we affectionately call the naked technique. As I mentioned in the intro, Brad from Arizona has a couple of questions he is hoping I can help with for an upcoming trip to fish some of the famous lakes located within beautiful British Columbia. Brad asks. I had a couple of questions you can possibly help me with. I’ll be bringing my drift boat to fish out of. I primarily use it for still waters and it is set up for that in Arizona. I rarely see water deeper than twenty feet and I’m generally set up to anchor in twenty five feet of water or less. How deep of water do you recommend I be prepared to anchor for in BC? I’ve added a windlass and I’m hoping it will be able to get me to able to anchor in fifty feet of water or less. The other question is in regards to longlining fishing, floating lines, long leaders, and weighted flies. I’ve watched a couple of videos and I think I get the technique okay. I know I need to practice and more. The technique is I establish my target fishing depth, use a leader that is twenty five percent longer than my target depth, and start there with a super slow retrieve. That’s the general rule as I understand it. What I haven’t seen is anything on the weight of the fly and how it will affect how deep it fishes. I’m guessing with time and practice I’ll get a feel for it. My question is with twenty five percent adder to the leader length is that for a fly with a bead of approx. Of what? Approximate size? Less than two point eight millimetres or bigger. Is there a general rule for shortening the extra leader length based on flyweight? Sometime during the trip, I know I’m going to tie on a leech and try and swim it through the feeding zone on a long line. I know I’ll need to shorten up my leader, as they typically have a three point two millimetres bead or larger. I tried a little bit of long lining on some mid column fish in about fifteen feet of water, just to try it. I did not hook up and I assumed I was not in the ballpark with my bugs since they had performed under a bobber. More practice. So here’s my answer. Brad. First of all, for my anchor ropes, my standard lake. For any lake I fish, whether it’s in British Columbia, Alberta, any western province or state is fifty feet. I rarely need to anchor in more than thirty five feet, but if I do, I need to anchor at fifty feet. I’ve got the length for it. If I have to anchor it some crazy depth and chironomids think about those, they can hatch in water over sixty feet. I do have a one hundred foot alternative route, though I seldom use it For the naked technique, fishing, floating line, long leaders and weighted flies coupled with a creepy, not creepy, but a very, very slow pedestrian retrieve. I almost always use brass bead patterns. Rarely do I use tungsten as it sinks too quickly for this method, making the slow retrieves that are required to work with very difficult to attain. To be consistently successful with this method, I’m trying to strike a balance between four key things the sink time. Literally how long I let my flies sink. I typically start with a thirty second sink rate, and then adjust my sink rates in fifteen second increments. When fishing into water twenty five feet or more, it is not uncommon to have your fly sink for over two minutes. I use my watch to keep my timings accurate. Leader length. Brad mentioned the twenty five percent rule. That’s because we’re using leaders that have some sort of leader foundation. A tapered leader foundation. I’ll explain in a second, but because that leader doesn’t sink straight off the end of the fly line and dangle straight down like it does below an indicator, you’re going to have to add some length to adjust for the the angled tapered approach that the leader sinks. So that’s why we have the twenty five percent rule of leader longer than the depth of water you’re targeting. However, if I’m using a mid tip, I will admit I often reduce that leader length to about ten percent to factor in for the sinking tip of an integrated midge tip line. Retrieve speed. The retrieves with the naked technique are ridiculously slow most times because you are trying to track your fly through the water in more or less a horizontal manner. If I retrieve too fast, my bugs will climb up through the water and I won’t be consistently placing them within the feeding zone where trout are cruising and holding. And of course, the use of weighted patterns, you pretty well need to use a weighted pattern all the time to compensate for the depth of water you’re fishing, and the impact wind has on creating induced currents within the water. When the wind is up, that lake starts to behave a little bit more like a river than it is a lake. So the the term stillwaters is a bit of a inaccurate one. Most of the time when we’re out on the water, because there’s always some form of wind we have to deal with and compensate for. So as I mentioned, wind can be a factor because it creates currents that not only affect your flies sink rate, but its ability to reach down where the fish often feed, which is typically near the bottom. So often we add swivels, we can add split shot, we can decrease the diameter of our tippet and decrease the length of the tapered leader we use for the foundation. As a general rule, the windier it gets, the finer the diameter of the tippet I use and leader. So I can get down through this wind induced current. So I often fish the naked technique from an anchored position as it allows for a complete control of my presentation. I’m not fighting the boat and having that influence negatively. My presentation technique. The boat is anchored. I can cast out. I can wait for that line to sink. I can retrieve it very slowly and have total control over everything so I can be ready for the soft takes that are often associated with this technique, and allow the circumstances for my leader and fly to get down where the fish are. But the windier it gets. Again, I mentioned I cut the diameter of the tippet down and I shorten that leader. So if I’m fishing um water that sorry, in conditions there’s a light wind. I may start with a twelve or even a fifteen foot taper tapered leader rather and add tippet to reach the desired depth. So let’s say I want to get down sixteen feet sixteen times twenty five percent is twenty. I’m going to need an overall leader length from fly line to fly of twenty feet. If the wind conditions are light, I can probably get away with a twelve or a fifteen foot leader and simply add eight or five feet, respectively, to make twenty feet. If the wind starts to come up again, it’s going to cause circulation currents. They’re going to start to move water horizontally. That’s going to impact negatively your ability to get the flies down to the zone you’re previously targeting. So you may start with that twelve or fifteen footer and have to adjust your leader to fish a nine or a seven and a half foot leader and add tip it from there. The tapered leader provides two benefits. First of all, it aids in the castability of these long rigs. They’re easily castable. But as you can imagine, the margin of error is quite narrow. But once you get the hang, you have good casting techniques. You know, proper rod stops, smooth application of power. Allow the line to shoot to the target. Take advantage of the properties of a weight forward line. This method. Casting these long leaders isn’t a problem because I often refer my oldest son, Brandon, when he was about eight or nine, maybe ten years old, he was casting eighteen and twenty foot leaders because he doesn’t know you weren’t supposed to. So don’t worry, it can be done. So that’s sort of the setup. Again, if the windier it gets, I’ve got to think about a river or stream in particular Euro nymphing where you’re using sometimes four x five x six x seven x or lighter diameter Tippets not so much for a presentation ability. And the fish can see the leader, that kind of thing. It’s simply because thinner diameter tippet slices through current more efficiently than thicker diameter stuff. So that’s why we decrease the tapered leader length and increase our tippet length and lessen the diameter within the appropriate conditions for the fish you’re expecting, etc., to get those flies down the tapered leader. Also, because that butt section sinks a little slower in that arched profile, it tends to hold the sink rate of the upper portion of the leader and the fly line. So it allows that the balance of the tippet to get back and help you track those flies horizontally. So hopefully that all makes sense. However, when I’m fishing from a moving boat using lock style techniques, my leader is almost completely level as I have to compensate for my drift speed to get my flies down where they need to be. So with all of that in mind, my bead size and weight doesn’t really come into it because I’m anchored, I’m prepared. I have the luxury of just allowing everything to sink. I just again simply find that tungsten sinks way too fast. Now, if you are using, you know, a jig leech or a balanced leech with a tungsten bead, then of course you’ve got to lessen your sink time and you’re probably going to have to increase your retrieve speed. But that’s not always bad because those food sources you’re imitating are capable of moving through the water at a much more increased clip than a mayfly nymph, a scud, or a chironomid, pupa, or larva. About the only time I use tungsten beads for smaller flies, and it’s primarily chironomids is when I’m fishing size sixteen, eighteen, maybe a fourteen where I’m going to use perhaps a, you know, a small five sixty-fourths tungsten bead simply because by the time that hole is drilled through the tungsten to facilitate the hook shank passing through it, there’s just not a lot of metal left. And again, if the wind is up, then I would probably use a tungsten bead in that case. And finally, the other reason I don’t use it is simple housekeeping. I am sloppy when I’m fishing. I’m changing flies. I’m putting them down. I’m putting them in slots that they didn’t come from. And quite often I have tungsten beads mixed in with brass beads, particularly with my smaller flies, and the whole thing’s a mess and tough to sort out. So again, probably the only flies I consistently use tungsten with both with and without indicators. Whether I’m fishing, the naked technique or some sort of sinking line would be leech patterns, either balanced leeches or jig leeches to help get that jigging motion in the fly. And also because those flies can work so well under an indicator. So hopefully Brad, that explains it. A bit long winded, but there’s lots of variables balls to juggle in this method. And that’s what makes it the naked technique a bit challenging to learn. But once you get the hang of it, it’s such a rewarding method. And if I had only one way to fish a lake, it would be with a floating line, long leader and weighted fly. All right, let’s take a deep dive into strike indicators for still waters. The techniques and tactics I use when using an indicator. So the goals of this podcast are pretty simple. There’s a number of them I’d like to discuss with you. First of all, why would you want to use indicators when scenarios when you would use an indicator over other presentation techniques, the indicator options we have available to us, and some guidelines on which indicators to use in which scenarios rod and line choices come into play, particularly when indicator fishing. We’re going to talk quite deep. Have quite a detailed discussion surrounding the indicator leader makeup. That’s arguably the most critical aspect of successful indicator fishing. We’ll talk a little bit about casting these rigs because they are a little different. I’ll talk about setting indicator depth and some tricks on how to set that from shore as well. And we’ll talk about some other setups on the leader swivels and bobber stops and and how I like to use them and some tricks and techniques. Um, that’ll help with your indicator fishing, hopefully. And, and perhaps if you’re not an indicator fisherman already, or you don’t really like to use them, maybe you’ll see some of the benefits, um, this setup can offer and, uh, you can add them to, and it may, if you’re using indicators already, perhaps I hope that some of this will, um, you can maybe adapt to your indicator systems. Well, I’d love to hear other methods and techniques you use out there as well and pass them on to me. As I said in the intro, things are always in flux and change with my indicator setups. Um, okay, so why would you want to use an indicator? Well, firstly, it allows you to surgically control both your presentation depth and your retrieve speed. And for those that are new to Stillwater fly fishing, when I see them guiding or through my schools and hosted trips, this is perhaps one thing a new Stillwater angler struggles with, and that’s getting your flies to the right depth and keeping them there and moving them in a slow, natural manner to successfully dupe a fish into taking your fly. Most people don’t let their flies sink long enough and don’t retrieve them slow enough, so an indicator allows you to do that because first of all, the distance from your indicator to your fly is set. So once that fly hangs below the indicator vertically, that’s the depth. It will fish from the start of the presentation to the end of the presentation. And you have the ability to control your retrieve speed as well, because the indicator doesn’t allow the fly to fall to the bottom once it reaches the end of its tether, if you will. It just hangs there so you can literally let it just sit there and let the chop on the surface bounce your indicator up and down, which transmits down to the fly and moves it quite seductively. Fish love that kind of presentation, but you also have the ability to use a hand twist, retrieve, or a slow strip, or a choppy little strip to move and animate the fly from. Once it’s settled right back till it’s time to cast again. So that’s probably one of the big reasons why indicators work so well. Because the fly can’t hit the bottom. There’s no risk of hitting any snags or fouling along the bottom if you let it sink too long. Um, if you’re, uh, like fishing chironomids both the pupil and larval stages, an indicator is probably the easiest way to fish these, um, patterns and get you into the game and catching fish. And that’s to me, one of the most important things when you’re starting out Stillwater fly fishing is to have some initial success. So you continue this journey and then hopefully get to love lakes as much as I do. You can cover shallow water, which makes it really easy because typically any other presentation methods, you’re always trying to balance your leader length, your retrieve speed, your pattern weight, how long you let it sink to keep your flies able to cover that water successfully without hanging up and obviously finding a feeding zone. The fish are at lots of times there’s weed pockets we have to work in and around. Uh, little openings and emergent weeds or little openings and submergent weeds. And, uh, an indicator is a great way to plop it in there and, uh, keep your fly in that area and snag free. Of course, if you hook a fish around those areas, it can be challenging to land them. But again, more fun to, uh, have. And of course, it’s fun. Um, there is something about an indicator disappearing under the water or sliding left or right, whatever kind of take you observe and setting the hook and knowing that a fish is the only thing that can do that and that makes it exciting, it becomes pretty addictive pretty quick. When fish are on the go and eating your flies and pulling them under. It’s a very exciting visual way to fish. Now, indicators are very versatile. Um, you know, for me, I started using indicators probably in the early eighties. And for us it was where I was in British Columbia. It was a perfect way to suggest chironomid pupa and larvae chironomid larvae bloodworms live on or near the bottom. So you want to always present your flies down there and have a way to keep your fly at, or just above the bottom, all the way through your retrieve. And once the pupa transformed from the larval stage, they suspend and often staggering numbers just above the bottom, a foot or two feet or three feet and slowly elevate their way up and the trout follow these, elevating pupa up to the surface and sort of stick with that horde of pupa, if you will. And an indicator is the best way to consistently hang your flies at the depth where those chironomid pupa are suspending and where the fish are feeding on them. And that’s how it started. And then we started evolving and fishing other flies underneath the indicator too. Um, scuds, damselflies, baitfish, leeches, all of these things. You can fish under an indicator. And I’m often asked sometimes, you know, what was the next fly after chironomid larvae and pupae you decided to spend under an indicator and it was leeches. And I’d like to say it was after years of analysis and thought and discussions and, and, you know, a really kind of scientific way to figure it out. It wasn’t that way at all. It was when my oldest son, Brandon, was about between eight or ten years old. We were fishing Roche Lake, uh, Lake located southwest of Kamloops. And we’d had some pretty good fishing, uh, hanging chironomid pupa under indicators one day. And eventually he decided he wanted to change a fly. So I said, okay, pick a fly. And I held out my chironomid box and he says, no, I don’t want to fish one of those. I want to fish this. And in the palm of his hand he had about a size ten. A simple pattern of good friend Brian Chan’s Las Vegas Leach just consisted of a size eight hook, two x or three x hook, a gold bead, a crystal chenille body peacock crystal chenille, a marabou tail with a little bit of crystal, flash or flash in it. And that’s what he wanted to fish. And I remember saying, we don’t fish those, you know, we fish chironomids under indicators. And he insisted. And, you know, I wanted to keep fishing and, uh, make my, uh, kid happy. So I said, what the heck? Tied it on, put it out there. And within minutes that indicator went under aggressively. And I’m thinking to myself, God, fish are stupid, man. They’ll do all kinds of crazy things. And so we unhooked the fish, released it, let it go, flopped it out there again. And it happened again and again and again. And it soon became that maybe hanging leeches under an indicator isn’t such a bad idea anyway. So my thanks go out to my son, Brandon for introducing me to that. And again, as I mentioned, we now fish scuds, damselflies, fish blobs, which sometimes can suggest a zooplankton or at least the color of their feeding on anything can be pretty well suspended under an indicator. And we can both now target using indicators, not only fish shallow, which is one of the reasons I mentioned why you do it, but also we can fish quite deep and keep our flies suspended. I have fished twenty five twenty six feet under an indicator. Yes, we are at the extremes of this technique, but it can be done. Other scenarios you think about using indicators when trout are really selective to depth. I mentioned those chironomid emergences trout can be really, um, you know, we could be fishing twelve feet of water and fish only want to feed on eleven feet or eleven and a half feet. An indicator allows you to consistently put your fly in that zone the fish are feeding out. I prefer to use indicators probably most often when I’m fishing water fifteen feet or shallower, when I start fishing deeper, there’s other options available to me. I like to have versatility in the presentations I use, but I certainly can and do use strike indicators in deeper water. I mentioned fishing around weed beds and pockets. They are great in windy conditions. Now, this might seem a little crazy because as we get into the leader and all the other bits and bobs we can put on there to help with our indicator presentations, there’s a lot of points of contact. It can be tangle prone, but the one benefit, and I learned this down in Argentina, fishing Jurassic Lake for the host of trips I do out down there each year is you can just make a roll cast, get your flies in the water and leave them there. There’s not as much casting in windy conditions and when the wind is up, we. We tend to overcompensate for the wind. We speed up our casting stroke. We don’t stop our rod properly, we apply power incorrectly, and we end up with a big tangled mess and we get frustrated. One roll cast, flop it out and you are fishing. And your indicator? The indicator. You simply catch more fish because your flies in the water longer, because you’re not casting as much. The fly is in the water working for you, doing its job, helping you catch fish. It’s great for kids or inexperienced casters. You know, sometimes when I guide or do trips, people are just on the beginning of their fly fishing journey. Their casting skills are still in development. I can teach somebody how to do a rudimentary roll cast, flop some line out, get that fly in the water suspended by an indicator, and they can catch fish and get hooked on this great sport as well. And in certain provinces and states, you can fish multiple rods. In British Columbia, for example, you’re not allowed to use droppers, but you can fish two rods when you’re by yourself and your boat, your float tube or your pontoon boat. So typically out in those scenarios, you would cast out with an indicator rig, safely secure your rod, and let that sort of drift around and bounce around out there. And then you could fish another type of presentation with the other rod, and have the opportunity to quickly eliminate what is and isn’t working. What depths are, um, fish feeding at? What are they feeding on? All those kind of things. Those two rods allow you to do that. So that’s another reason when you’d want to use indicators. And this is not just a technique for trout. Where I live in Alberta now, I have access to other species of fish and indicators work equally well. Walleye for example. Um, in the summer months when my local lakes get too warm and the oxygen content isn’t there to, you know, uh, properly trout, fish, you know, fish, the lakes because you’re going to stress and potentially put fish into shock and in worst case, kill them. We just, you know, stay off those lakes, but walleye have a different temperature range and are quite active in the summer months. And I need to fish. So I go chase walleye on the fly. And one of the ways I like to do it is using a strike indicator and suspending leech patterns or baitfish patterns at a set depth. It’s basically a slip ring, which is one of the key presentation conventional walleye anglers will use. I use them to catch lake whitefish. These are a very good fish to teach someone how to fish small nymphs and chironomids under an indicator. They school up, they get big. They can get an ideal conditions over six to eight pounds. They are scrappy. They’re fun. They pull and you get. Again, it’s a great introductory fish. I’ve got friends back east that use indicator techniques with great success for smallmouth and largemouth bass. Float and fly, which is a popular method in Oregon. Um, a friend of mine, Addison Rook Soggy Waters, I believe is on Instagram. Don’t have it in front of me, but he specializes in guides for largemouth and spotted bass. I believe he keeps inviting me down there. Haven’t done it yet with him, but I want to get down there with him sooner than later. And, uh, strike indicators are deadly down there. He showed me some pretty impressive pictures. I’ll be sure to put, uh, Addison’s, uh, water’s, uh, guide service, uh, link, uh, down there. Um, so perhaps you can book a trip with him and learn how to use the strike indicator techniques. Uh, for, uh, bass. 00:25:38 Speaker 2: Golden fly shop isn’t your average fly shop. They have a twelve foot shark painted like a cutthroat, hovering over a huge selection of the best rods in the business, a massive assortment of tying materials and their famous steakhouse streamer display. And it’s the hub for a community of anglers who never stop tinkering with new ways to catch fish. Sometimes the conversation behind the counter includes what hatches are going off and what techniques are working best. Then tales of destination fishing adventures sought after species are a good old congratulations. When a customer brings stories of finally connecting with that fish they’ve searched for forever With a growing online store and a budding YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along with their fun antics, international adventures, and helpful fly fishing tips. 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That’s a strike indicator set up. Your dry fly serves as a strike indicator, allowing you to suspend a nymph or a pupa or whatever you want a leech pattern underneath an indicator. It’s commonly used in moving water, and it’s an excellent choice to use in still waters at times as well. This is a great option if fish are feeding on emerging insects, mayflies, chironomids, even damselflies where the the fish could be eating the adults on the surface that get knocked off the weeds where they emerge or blown in. And you can also fish a nymph. So you have the opportunity to not only fish a traditional dry dropper where the dry fly is comes first, and then you suspend the fly. Typically, I like off an independent dropper. I know other anglers like to tie off the bend of the hook. I prefer having my flies on their own tags, if you will, or leaders, so they don’t negatively impact each other. It makes fly lines flies rather easier to change. Lots of discussion on that, but that’s what I prefer to use. So it’s great there. It’s we can also set them up in a washing line configuration where we actually put the buoyant dry fly on the point and suspend the nymph or pupa pattern off a dropper in between that point fly and the fly line. This is an excellent setup when you’re fishing damselflies. For example, a number of years ago I was fishing with Curtis from Fly Fish Food in Utah. We were fishing from shore. Trout were in the shallows, aggressively feeding on not only emerging nymphs, but they would take a dry adult damsel as well, which made for some exciting fishing. If I fished a traditional dry droppers in in configuration in that system, we were so shallow that the dropper would just get into the weeds and get all mucked up. But by fishing this washing line technique and putting my adult damsel on the point and suspending a damsel nymph on a four to six inch dropper independent dropper tag. I could now slowly retrieve that fly that made that adult damsel kind of create a wake and look like a struggling adult. And of course, moving the fly makes that damsel nymph look like a nymph swimming towards shore or to shoreline vegetation to emerge. Very effective method. I find this dry dropper dry flies as a strike indicator. Best for shallow water or short distances between the, um, the dry and the nymph. If you’re using a traditional dry dropper, if you’re using washing line, you can have quite a bit of separation. Typically in that scenario, I might have my flies five to six feet apart. Sometimes I’ll close them up a little bit. If I’m casting the rising fish so I can drop flies within close proximity to that rise and get them to take either the adult or the nymph. But sometimes if you’ve got a long distance between your dry and your dropper in the traditional setup, it can be a little tangle prone and you’ve got to watch. Um, it also factors into your rod length because if you have too much separation between a dry and a dropper and you hook a fish on the dropper, the dry fly could bind up at your rod tip and now you’re having trouble landing the fish. And that’s not good. And you’ve got to remember that using two flies is not always legal. As I mentioned, British Columbia in Canada only allows single fly. So dry dropper is a no go. So you got to make sure always that that method is legal. But it certainly has a place and I certainly use it. I also use yarn indicators from time to time, whether they’re the sort of O-ring style yarn indicators or the New Zealand wool. Um, these work great in. For shallow water fishing, this is an indicator I would use when I’m fishing less than a rod length between my indicator and fly or flies. Again, as I mentioned with the dry dropper, the yarn indicators when they’re fixed to your leader are permanently mounted there. And a lot of them, I think the New Zealand style, you can get them through the guides from time to time, but definitely a yarn indicator o ring style is going to jam up at the guides. And of course that’s going to be a barrier to landing the fish. They’re easy to cast. You can dress them with float and they float well, and I like using them probably when I’m fishing. Clear, shallow situations when a traditional ball style indicator, Styrofoam or oral style indicator is going to make a bit too much of a disturbance when it lands and could possibly spook fish, the yarn style indicators look a little more natural on the water. Could be a leaf, could be something just not offensive to fish or doesn’t spook them. A great way to do that. The other benefit is you can put these indicators on and off the leader really quickly without having to thread an indicator, such as a quick release, which I’ll talk about in a second as well. Um, again, the drawbacks to this is that indicator, once it’s set doesn’t slide. So that limits the depth you can use. Again, I mentioned that you want to keep these indicators at or probably less than the rod length apart from your fly to indicator. So great for shallows and your ring style can, after a while put a little kink or set in your leader and after a while your leader starts to look more like a pigtail than a nice straight level leader. So that can happen as well. But they certainly have a place in my fly box. The next style of indicator I’ll talk about is what I call fixed position. These are indicators that once you put them on the leader, they are locked into place. And I know I just said a yarn indicators like that, but I’m talking your traditional Corky, which was sort of the first indicator style I experimented with, where you took a corky and jammed it in place with a toothpick. That worked well for many years. After a while, we stopped using toothpicks and started using a section of a rubber band that we would pull using a loop of thicker diameter mono, or even a bobbin threader from fly tying. Put the section of rubber band in the loop or in the bobbin threader and pull that into the hole on the indicator to help lock it in place. And the reason we like the rubber bands is because they were flexible. A toothpick sticking out could catch a leader cause a tangle. The rubber band was flexible. It never was stiff like a toothpick and our tangles were reduced. We often like to use bi colored Cauchy’s, meaning there’s two colors on the Cauchy. These were great tangle predictors. You could make a cast if you would set it up, for example, with an indicator that was half hot orange and half hot yellow if you would set it up so the hot orange, when it landed on the water, you would see that first if you made a cast and all of a sudden the yellow was looking at you, you knew maybe I’ve got a bit of a tangle there. That’s just beginning. It might have just caught around. The leader might have just caught around once around that toothpick or the indicator. You could recognize it and quickly fix it because repeated false casting just made a mess of everything. And then you would have to cut everything apart and start over again. The Cauchy’s have been replaced today by more of your oral style balloon type indicators, if you will. Kind of plastic with air in the middle. These things are really good. I love using these indicators in windy conditions. They don’t have the same mass as a styrofoam style indicator, so less tangle prone. They’re easily attached to your leader using a basically an oral style indicator, you unthread it into two halves as a male and female side. On the male side, there’s a slot. You line your leader up in there, carefully screw it back together, and you’ve locked that indicator in place. So these are great because you can easily add or subtract an indicator without having to disassemble your whole system like you would with a quick release indicator, which again, I’ll explain in a few seconds if you’re not familiar with those thingamabob styles also work, but you have to use a loop to loop connection as well, um, to attach them, which works great. But again, like a yarn indicator with an O-ring, they can put, uh, kink up your leader after a while. And, uh, you know, your leader again looks more like a a pigtail than a nice level leader, but they really work great. And again, in situations where I am fishing less than a rod length between my indicator and my fly as a guide, sometimes you can go a foot or two longer. If you’re in a boat and using a long handled net and can reach up and land the fish. It’s all about having a setup that allows you to use indicators, catch some fish, and land them so you can release them again to fight another day and not get frustrated because everything’s jammed up. But for many years, this type of indicators limited us to fishing in the shallows. Or I can remember when we first started indicator fishing, I would go down to Pass Lake with friends and we would watch some of the indicator fishermen down there, and they were using Cauchy’s and toothpicks and fishing very deep water. They were very successful, learned a lot from watching them. But you would have to at some point in the fight, usually early in the fight, you would have to grab your fly line. Carefully slide it down to the leader and bite the toothpick out to release the indicator. So you could land that fish because you were fishing eighteen nineteen feet down. And if you didn’t do that, that indicator would bind up at the rod tip. And now you can’t bring any more line in and you’ve got this fish flopping around nineteen feet away. It made landing it a real challenge. The drawback with biting a toothpick out is sometimes you got so focused on removing the toothpick that you would sort of hold while you sort of, you would hold the leader too long, too hard, and the fish is struggling and boom, you’d lose the fish. So we needed an indicator that would release in some way or allowed us to fish in deeper water. And along came the quick release or slip indicators. And for deep water fishing where you’re fishing twelve, fourteen, fifteen, eighteen, twenty five plus feet under an indicator, these are a godsend because what happens is these leaders work. They come in either ball or tapered in a variety of colors and different sizes, but they have the peg, a plastic peg that has a hole drilled through it. You thread your leader through the indicator, and when you get it to where you want on the leader, you would pull the peg out and then holding the indicator in your other hand and kind of on the back side of the indicator, just holding that leader in place, push the peg back towards the indicator because the leader can’t move. It buckles and forms a loop. And I like a relatively large loop half to three quarters of an inch. I find they release better. A tighter loop will bind and can sometimes cause separation anxiety where your leader breaks. And that’s not good fun. And then you push this peg back into the indicator. And what it does is it pinches that loop of leader between the peg and the inside of the indicator, holding it in place. So when you’re fishing around fishing, of course it behaves like any other indicator. But when you recognize a take and raise the rod to set, the fish obviously bolts and reacts and runs the other way. That puts the whole leader under tension and that releases the loop. And now that indicator is free to slide up and down the leader and not become a barrier to landing the fish. And they work really good. The drawback to this indicator is if you’re fishing shallow, it becomes an irritant after a while. Every time you catch a fish, this indicator does its job. It releases. You’ve got to reset it every time. And plus, when it releases, you’ve got to find a trick. Or at least we develop tricks to knowing where we set the indicator. So we didn’t have to go through an exhaustive process to set indicator depth. And we’re going to talk about both of those things in a few minutes as well on the podcast. The other disadvantage sometimes they’re a little heavier. So in windy conditions they tended to be more tangle prone. I took them down to Argentina on my first trips down there, and they worked well when we were fishing a little deeper most of the times. Thankfully down there you’re fishing water anywhere from five feet or three feet down below the indicator to maybe nine or ten, which made your oral style indicators, which is what we use nowadays, work so well, but I did try to take the quick release indicators to fish deeper. They certainly worked, but in the extreme wind you can get down there. There’s a lot of mass in that indicator as compared to other indicators. So the quick release indicator could become frustrating because it tangled a bit. Plus, to put the indicator system on and off, you had to thread the indicator onto your leader. You don’t have to do that with your fixed position indicators other than a traditional corky, but your oral style thingamabobs yarn indicators, New Zealand style indicators, you don’t have to do that, so you don’t have to stop for a second and get everything threaded through, which takes a little bit of time. You could just quickly add and subtract a fixed position indicator quite easily. Lee again. The when and when I thread the quick release indicators on. I like to have the black peg on the fly side of the indicator, not the fly line side of the indicator. And this is for two reasons. First of all, from a castability point of view, your leader is going to. When you’re laying out the cast, the leader is going and flies are going to roll away from the indicator. And if you drop your tail, your loop a little bit, there’s less risk of that fly catching the peg and kind of somersaulting the whole system and causing a tangle. And the other reason, and we’ll explain the use a little bit better in a few minutes is we use swivels to, uh, in our indicator setups close to the fly within about two feet. And if you break a fish off, of course, when you set, that’s going to trip the indicator. And if you break the fish off, there’s nothing to stop that indicator and peg from sliding off your leader and drifting downwind and, and not getting it back The swivel acts as a stopper because if you break a fish off, it should break off at the fly, or perhaps a little further up at the lower end of the swivel. That, of course, will trip the indicator and make it release, but everything slides down and hits that swivel because it acts as a stopper. The black peg hits the swivel first so it doesn’t slide off, and then the black peg in turn stops the indicator from sliding off as well. So if you haven’t tried these quick release indicators, I urge you to. If you’re doing any deep water fishing, I’ll put links to the indicators in the show notes so you can pick some up as well, because Brian Chan and I sell them on our online Stillwater fly fishing store. So I’ll have links there as well. So in summary, is there one perfect indicator out there? Unfortunately not. I think sometimes we’re all looking for silver bullets and meaning there’s just one solution, but there isn’t. It depends on many things. Light conditions for me play a role in indicator choice as to which colors I like to use. You know, on some days the light, I can see one particular color better over another. The water surface plays a role as well. The choppier it is typically the bigger the indicator I have to use um to see it. I do prefer to use the smallest indicator possible. Um, because when we fishing indicators it’s a short cast game. We’re not bombing large casts. A large great distance casts out there. We need to keep that indicator within eyesight and close proximity. So when we get a take, we can react to it. We can see the take and we react to it. And remember, not all indicator takes are your classic bubble trail where that indicator just gets yanked under aggressively. Love those when it happens. But sometimes, particularly when they’re eating small bugs or the fish are kind of moody and not really feeding aggressively, but they are feeding. That indicator may slide left or right, and you need to be able to see it and of course, react to it. People see colors differently. I mentioned that I’ve got friends that prefer one colour over another because they just say, I can’t see that colour, but I can really see that colour. So that has an effect. How deep you are. Fishing influences the indicator because if you’re fishing shallow, then you could use a yarn indicator. You could go dry dropper if it’s illegal and appropriate to do. You could use oral style indicators, Corky’s, those kind of things. If you’re fishing deep, then you’d want to consider using a quick release indicator so that indicator trips and releases on the strike allowing you to fish suspended flies in deeper water. Pattern weight has an influence. If we use a lot of balanced flies, I’ll touch on those in a little bit as well. These are flies that use tungsten in their construction or jig flies now with a lot of jig hooks available using um, head turner beads or um, inverting beads, depending on the manufacturer or the distributor. These are heavy. And they will pull a small indicator under the surface or flush with the surface, making it difficult to see. So that has an impact on their water clarity. I mentioned scenarios where you’re fishing shallow, clear, calm water, a dry fly, a dry dropper, or a New Zealand style or yarn style indicator is best in those scenarios because they land more delicately and they look more natural. So, you know, a big orange ball landing amongst a bunch of feeding fish in shallow waters can spook them and, uh, you know, make them difficult to catch or spook them to the point they never come back. Another thing to think about is the mood of the fish. And this comes into play when you’re talking about a ball style indicator versus a teardrop or tapered style indicator when fish are taking softly, the takes, as I mentioned, aren’t always aggressive with that indicator is pulled under and it’s easy to see. You’ve got to take. Sometimes fish will, as they grab that fly and they put it in their mouth, they immediately know they made a mistake. It’s not soft and chewy like they thought it was going to be. And in those scenarios, fish can expel a flying. Take it in and spit it out in the blink of an eye. So when a fish grabs that fly and it’s cruising in a lake, it’s moving, it starts to feel that the fly isn’t right. Tension is coming on it, and they’re starting to reject it. And in that scenario, a tapered indicator, just as a take happens, will often stand up vertically and then lay back down. And if that happens, that’s a fish that’s taking your fly in its mouth, realize it’s a fraud and it’s expelled it. And the only sort of take sensation or visualization of a take is that indicator standing up and laying down. So that’s one of the benefits you get from how the the style or shape of the indicator comes into play. And that’s why when you recognize a take with a using indicators, almost all of your fish are hooked firmly in the top of the snout because that fish takes the fly and realizes, oops, wasn’t what I thought it was. And you recognize the take. You raise the rod to set the hook because you’ve got this ninety degree connection. Your line and leader goes out to the indicator, and then your leader below the indicator falls vertically. You don’t have that direct connection. You would as if you were pulling or retrieving a fly through the water where you’re in constant contact with the fly. So when you set on that hook, you’re actually, I believe, pulling that fly up into the tip of the snout, which is a very good hook set. And that’s how you’re driving the fish, the fly home. So again, just having the, some kind of indicator to allow you to get those subtle takes will help recognize that. So the next thing we’ll talk about in the equipment category is fly rods for indicator fishing. I am a definite fan of long rods nine and a half to ten feet long. Um, this allows for and this is just generally in Stillwater fishing in general. I love these rod lengths, but for indicator fishing it really comes in. So a nine and a half or Five or ten foot or I use the mystic M series ten foot three inch rods right now. I like a small, moderate, fast action, not super stiff. These rods allow for great role casts, which is a primary presentation cast for me, because the flies only come out of the water when you make that. After the D loop is formed, that final push to a stop and the flies roll over and land on the water, there’s no chance of getting tangles because when you cast, as we get into the leader construction and the other bits and bobs we put on the leader, um, they can be tangle prone. So we like those, uh, the long rods allow a greater indicator, um, your ability to set a depth at a greater depth between indicator and fly. Because the longer the rod, the greater the distance you can have between your indicator and fly. And this comes into play when you’re using those fixed position indicators, your oral style thingamabob or um, yarn type indicators, for example. Um, you can steer and control fish um, around the boat. So, um, you know, you got that fish on, you’re fishing from an anchored position, which is what we are doing ninety percent of the time with indicators. You can fish them lock style on a light wind day, but ninety percent of the time we’re fishing from an anchored position, often double anchored if we’re in a boat or a pontoon boat. And, um, there’s a chance official wrap itself around the anchor. So that long, um, reach of the rod, that length allows you to extend your arm out and steer that fish around, um, the, those obstacles so they don’t get all hung up as well. So again, some of the benefits of the long rods for those indicators. They also, if you are going to cast a traditional overhead cast, and typically I just pick it up and lay it down, that’s all you need. You’re not again, not making a long distance cast. My general rule when I’m fishing under an indicator is the deeper I am fishing, the closer I fish with that indicator to me. So sometimes it’s a rod length or less a fly line on the surface, because when that indicator is down at depth eighteen, nineteen, twenty plus feet and a fish grabs it and starts to move away with it, there’s a bit of a delay and that strike registering at the indicator and you reacting, and the further away it is, the less likely you’re going to see those subtle grabs. And it’s tough to react once you do it. So again, the closer, um, the deeper I’m fishing, rather the closer I keep my indicator. If I’m fishing five, six, seven feet down in the shallows, of course, I’m going to probably have more separation between myself and my flies just for presentation purposes. Stealth. Um, you know, fish are not usually going to swim right underneath me. To take the fly, you need to have some separation between yourself and also fishing from shore. These long rods are great because of the roll cast. You don’t have to worry about backcast issues. You know, fishing places like Pyramid Lake in Nevada or Jurassic Lake in Argentina. Lots of rocky shores, fish from shore there all the time because it’s the safe, wise things to do and the fish are feeding along the shore. Anyway. There’s no need to get out on that water and risk yourself in those windy, choppy, swell, ocean like conditions. Um, you those rocks. Of course, you don’t want to be making false casts behind you because you can break off indicators and flies and everything else on those rocks. This is where the role cast works. In fact, nowadays when I’m fishing from shore using indicators, I am using a eleven foot three inch switch rod. I’m using line like reels, lake chucker line, excellent line for indicators. It was designed by the good folks at Pyramid Fly Company for fishing these scenarios and using these these lines to turn over indicator rigs. It’s a great way to fish indicators and to fish any lake from shore using a switch rod. So that’s the rod thoughts. The next thing we’ll talk about is fly lines. Fly lines are a critical aspect of indicator fishing because not every floating line will work. Many floating lines are designed for casting to surface feeding fish, so the line manufacturers move the mass of the line away from the tip of the line, where you connect your leader. So that fly line, that energy dissipates easily and gracefully, if you will, as the line lands on the water and allows a delicate presentation. So when your line and leader and fly land, it does not start a spook or startle the fish that works against you. When you’re trying to cast indicators, you need. When you’re casting indicators, you’ve got the mass of the indicator, multiple flies, perhaps bead heads, a swivel, um, those kind of things on the leader. Um, you need mass to move that mass. So you need the mass of the line closer to the tip of the line. So a good indicator line would be any line designed to cast big flies in windy conditions. If you’ve listened to my podcast, you know, I’m an ambassador for realign, so I know their lines intimately, but there’s other great line choices out there as well. But the in touch Stillwater floater that I worked with Rio to help design was designed specifically for casting complex indicator rigs and floating lines and long leaders and weighted flies, a technique we affectionately call the naked technique. So we’ve got the mass of this line towards the front. For example, a traditional dry fly line will have a front taper that could be eight to ten feet long. On the indicator lines, it’s about three feet. It’s abrupt. It’s not ideally the best dry fly line you’re ever going to see because of the risk that’s going to land heavy. But when we’re casting indicators, it’s perfect. We also use lines. We actually oversize the head deliberately. Okay, so a six weight Stillwater floater or my ambassador series Stillwater floater that features the tippet ring. Um, we integrated the tippet ring into these lines because I saw many anglers frustrated with welded loops, you know, binding at the wrong times on a guide or at a tip top causing a lost fish or worse, in worst case scenarios could actually break a rod tip. You gotta remember with a, a long skinny rod, like a ten foot or ten foot three inch or longer rod. There’s not a lot of graphite at the tip. So you got to be careful with the tips of these rods because they can be prone to breakage if you’re a little aggressive or careless with the rod. Um, so that became a source of frustration. And anglers would just, I talked to many seasoned anglers that just the first thing they said was as soon as they took a fly line and loaded it in the reel, was they lopped off that welded loop. So I wanted something that was a little more out of the box because they would use a nail knot connection. They would strip the line down to its core and make a micro loop. A common thing to do in European nymphing or epoxy splices, where they actually took a section, butt section, and threaded it up inside the core of the line and used epoxy to hold it in place. A very strong, clean connection. But these are extra steps you’d have to take. And if some of them failed in the field and you didn’t have the gear with you to fix it, you were kind of, you know, at odds as to what to do. Again, I wanted something out of the box, and I started experimenting by putting split rings through the welded loops. And it works good for some lines, but in order to get on thicker lines, a split ring on there, it, uh, involved a bigger split ring and it was cumbersome and you could damage the line. And I didn’t like that either, but the good folks at Rio said to me, well, we could just weld a tippet ring in the end of the line. And these have been a godsend because we’re using long leaders. So these lines slide through the guides lickety split. They don’t bind you just clinch not your leader to the tippet ring. So you take that. The leader comes and we’ll talk about leaders in a second. Comes with the perfection loop already on it. You just trim that off and use a clinch knot and tie that right to the welded loop so this connection slides through the guides. Easy getting started. The line comes out right away. If you’re fighting a fish and you’ve got a because of a long leader, you’ve got to bring some of that leader in part of the way or all the way into the guides and down to the reel. It’s going to slide back and forth and not become a source of frustration if it binds and breaks off. And the other benefit of these tippet ring lines is line changes. So that can be frustrating or challenging when you’re on the water, because threading the rod is a problem. And I can remember back in my float tube days when I used them a lot when I was first starting out, those first generation float tubes that look more like inflatable toilet seats than actual tubes that we’ve got today. Um, and you would, uh, you know, you’re trying to pass this line through the guides, using your fins to hold it up or standing up in a boat. And if the boat’s a little tippy, that could be potentially dangerous. And it just got in a scenario that changing a line was such a hassle, you wouldn’t do it, and you might miss out on some great fishing because a line change might have been ordered. You know, an indicator wasn’t the right technique to use that day. Or maybe stripping leeches under using a clear intermediate line wasn’t a good thing after all, anyway. Suspending leeches under an indicator might have been the better reason. So lots of reasons for line changes with the tippet ring connection, all you got to do is reel the line in, ideally. So the connection of line and leader is between the first stripping guide and your real. I take a wooden clothes peg. I peg that leader against the blank nippers, trim the connection, cut the leader to line. Take my spool off or my reel off. Put the new one in. Pull out the end of the leader. The end of the line off that spool. Clinch knot. Trim it. A couple of false casts. You threaded the rod, you get a little bit of practice. You can change a line in under a minute. So if some of you are wondering what the heck was Phil thinking when it came up with these ambassador series of lines, that’s where it came up with the tippet ring. So hopefully you’ll give those. I’ll make sure to put a link to those lines as well into the site. Um, but I mentioned, um the oversized line we actually use on the head section, the Stillwater floater. And no other manufacturers do it too. We’re two line weights heavier. So with an eight weight line, sorry, with a six weight into Stillwater floater. The head section is the same grain weight as an eight weight. And some people go, oh, that’s a lot. Between a six and an eight weight is about forty grains of difference over that length, and that’s about the thickness of two, maybe three business cards. Not very much. But what this extra mass does is help turn over that indicator. It provides a little more surface area, so that friction of the line on the water helps with your roll casting. It makes easier the rod to load when you’re doing a single overhand cast to present. Um, we also have a long rear taper on these lines. The rear taper. The longer the taper is, the easier. The more you can, the more line you can roll cast and the easier it is to pick up more line off the surface. So that’s what you’ll see in these indicator style lines. Again, if you’re struggling casting indicators, it could be because you have a traditional dry fly line on and you’re just asking too much of it. Um, again, if you’re going to really get into the indicator fishing, which I hopefully encourage you to do because it’s a very valuable Stillwater presentation technique to use, having the right tools for the job in the form of that long rod. And these lines suited to casting indicators makes life way easier. 00:58:06 Speaker 2: Let on to Mark Lodge give you the Montana fly fishing experience you deserve. The gin clear waters of the Missouri River offer a world class experience with one of the finest rainbow trout and brown trout fisheries in the world. Whether you’re a seasoned angler or new to the sport, there are. Family of guides will tailor a trip just for you. You can head over to on Lodge dot com to fish one of the great trout streams in the country. Pescador on the fly offers a full range of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget, with premium rods delivered directly to you. The El Rey G6 is the most packable, high performance fly rod on the market, performing like a four piece rod but with unmatched portability in six pieces, and you can get ten percent off your next order. Right now, if you use the code Wet Fly, swing at Pescador on the fly dot com. Never fly without your G6. Discover the El Rey series and more at Pescador on the fly dot com. 00:58:58 Phil Rowley: Okay, so rods lines, let’s talk about leaders, the terminal setup, if you will. Um, it’s the most critical part of successful indicator fishing in my humble opinion, is you need to have level leader from your indicator to your fly. So when you set for ten feet from indicator to fly, your fly is going to suspend ten feet. So you want to avoid using a standard seven and a half foot, nine foot, twelve or fifteen foot tapered leader as your foundation. Because these leaders are built like a fly rod. They are thick at one end, thin at the other. And because you have this differing thickness of leader along its length, they don’t sink at the same rate. This ends up with a leader, an indicator having to sinking in an arched fashion when you are using a traditional leader. So what I like to use to get this is I kind of blend it to. I know some dedicated indicator fisherman, fly fishers just use straight level leader, meaning they’re using ten pound, uh, from the fly line to the fly or flies. And that works very good. But I have over the years really favored using indicator or nymphing style leaders. They are marketed on the package as a tapered leader. So don’t think I’m misleading you, but what these leaders are, the ones I like to use from Rio again are ten feet long. Regardless of breaking strain, I typically using three x or two x, maybe four x. That’s all you need. Um, for this indicator setup. This leader is ten feet long. It features a short three foot butt section. And the rest of that leader is level. So you’ve got a ten foot leader, three foot of butt section, seven feet of level leader in the package as it is. And the reason I like these flies with this short but section is first of all for cast ability. You’ve got that little butt section because when you’re fishing indicators for cast ability, you want to keep that indicator within close proximity of your fly line three, maybe four feet from the end of the fly line, you start getting that indicator further distance from your fly line. Everything gets awkward, ungainly. You’ve got your mass in the wrong spot and it becomes difficult to cast. We tend to overpower the cast to compensate, and that just leads us to a whole pile of troubles with tailing loops and tangles. So you want to keep the indicator close. So I keep that indicator right on the junction of where the thicker butt section tapers, quickly tapers into that level leader section. So I keep it right there. So between my indicator and my fly line, I have a little bit of backbone to help with cast ability. The other thing I like is these leaders are nylon. So nylon tends to float. So you will have between your indicator and your fly line, you will have the leader laying on the surface. If you use level fluorocarbon, which certainly works. I’m not trying to say don’t do it, but there is a risk of that. Fluorocarbon, because of its increased density, will sink below the surface. So when you recognize a take and go to set, you’ve got to get that line out of the water and it may cost you a fish if they’re taking softly. The other reason, if you are still using a traditional fly line with a loop to loop connection, it’s got the welded loop on there. This is a much easier fly friendly connection to use a welded loop on there than using narrow diameter tippet in a loop to loop setup, because it could cut into the fly line coating. Now that’s not going to turn your floating line into a sink tip, but a lot of people, after spending good money, good, hard earned money on a fly line, they don’t like having little cuts and nicks in it. It’s sort of like having door dings on your new car. Um, you want to keep that, um, connection nice and smooth so it doesn’t cut in like that. And I know some, I’ve got some friends that say, well, what I like to do to avoid that is I’ll take a short section of thicker twenty, thirty pound, fifty pound butt material or mono or maxima, whatever you want to use. And I’ll put two perfections loops, and I’ll loop one end to the fly line and to the other end. I just tie my leader on and I’m like, well, that’s kind of to me. More connections, more lumps and bumps in your leader set up. Um, all of that stuff with the indicator leader, it’s a nice smooth knotless transition down the leader. So that’s sort of the way, but maybe got off on again, a bit of a tangent. Um, but hopefully that explains that. So out of the package, this leader allows you in theory to fish seven feet down. Well, when we have, uh, the total leader I use is built into thirds, if you will. So I have the indicator leader as my foundation, seven feet of level leader right out of the package. Then I have a midsection, which I’ll come back to in a second in more detail. And then we have our final tippet section. And our final tippet section is typically, I like it about two feet long. And quite often we’re using a barrel swivel between that, um, the final tippet section and the balance of the leader. And we’ll talk about swivels in a little bit more detail in a second, but we have a swivel there. I want to keep my swivel and my bottom fly within about two feet. So if we’re fishing in a lot of swells, there can be a bit of a pendulum effect where the fly is getting caught up in those, in that moving water that the wind is creating, and the fly sways back and forth. And if you have your indicator and fly too far apart, that can cause your fly to sort of be in and out of the strike zone. Now, if you’re using two tungsten based flies or two heavier bass flies, you can have your swivel up above that. And I know the boys at Pyramid Lake at Pyramid Fly Company, when we’re fishing there, we’ll have a swivel down to a chironomid about two feet there, and then another two feet below that. Those heavy contact points will keep all of that leader hanging vertically. That’s what we’re trying to do here. But when I tend to when I’m not fishing places like pyramid, I tend to keep my swivel and my point fly about two feet apart. So if I connect my swivel to, um, my indicator leader and add two feet of fluorocarbon tippet of equal or maybe one x less diameter to my point, fly. I can fish nine feet down, but that’s not real. We may want to fish twelve, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen feet or greater between the fly. I need to add additional leader material in there somewhere so I can get my flies down the depth, and I do it in the middle portion of the leader, a section between the indicator leader and my swivel that connects me to my final tippet section. And I affectionately call this the adjustment zone, because that’s where I ebb and flow my leader length. So just stay with me here. This is some simple math and this is most complicated leader I use out of the package. If I have my indicator leader to a swivel and my final two feet section, I can fish nine feet down. If I want to fish sixteen feet down, I just subtract that number nine from the depth I want to fish, and that tells me how much leader or tippet material. Rather, I need to add between the indicator leader and the swivel. So nine less sixteen in that example is six feet. So I need to add six feet of tippet between the indicator leader and the swivel to reach that depth. So I connect that tippet section to the indicator using a triple surgeon’s knot. And then I connect the other end of that to the swivel using a clinch knot or improved clinch knot and the same knot again. Improve, clinch or clinch knot to the final two feet section and I have enough leader between my indicator and my fly to get down to sixteen feet. So if you add all of this up you’ve got a ten foot indicator leader, six feet of midsection plus two feet of final tippet section. That’s eighteen feet of leader. So again, this is where that roll cast and minimal false cast comes into play when you’re casting this, because this level leader has no taper for casting, so it can be a little bit unforgiving if you’re a little aggressive or overcast. The setup. Now I call it the adjustment zone because that’s where again, I said earlier, I ebb and flow the leader length. I literally remove some or all of it if I want to fish shallower. So if I’m fishing that eighteen foot, um, total leader length, I’m fishing so I can fish sixteen feet down and I’m fishing away and I’m getting fish. And one of my buddies says, hey, they’re feeding in shallow now. I’m getting them nine feet below the leader below my indicator. I’m going to obviously go in there and fish with them, try to poach his fish, maybe. Just kidding. And then I’m going to cut in that scenario, I’m going to cut that midsection right out because one thing you don’t want to do is fish a leader length longer than is necessary, or fall into the temptation and says, oh, I’ll just slide my indicator further down the leader so I can fish nine feet again. That becomes awkward, ungainly. You’re fishing a leader that’s too long for the scenario, and you’re going to get tangles and it’s going to get frustrating. So this may seem trivial that this thin diameter, this whole leader set up, um, you know, that shouldn’t matter. And I’ve had discussions with friends who were not doing as well as I thought they could. And I said, well, let’s have a discussion about the leader. And they kind of blew it off. But I have been I remember one day, uh, in Manitoba years ago when I used to do schools and trips out there, two students in my boat, um, both fishing. It was, I think we were fishing about twelve feet down using Chironomids. The one student on in the bow seat is catching fish pretty regularly. He’s using the leader setup I just described. The angler who’s sitting in the stern of my boat is not catching. In fact, he hasn’t touched anything in over an hour, and I can hear the huffs and puffs and the sounds of frustration. So I know as the host guide, I’ve got to help figure this out. So we go through the usual, you know, thought processes, what fly, what color, what size, what depth, and still no joy. So eventually the, the angler wasn’t catching fish because I still don’t think I’m deep enough. Can we just put the two indicators together and stroke the leader from the indicator to the fly to make sure I’m at the right depth? So I went through this exercise. I grabbed both indicators carefully so they didn’t tangle up. The leaders didn’t tangle up, and I stroke from the indicator to the flies and to the millimeter. They were the same distance, but in that process, I could feel one leader was nice, thin and level from indicator to flies. The other was thick for a while and then became level. And I asked him, I said, what leader setup are you using? He said, well, I just put a twelve foot leader on. I said, I think it’s your leader. And he sort of got a, you know, after a few days together, You get a bit of a repertoire between you. He says, ah, that can’t be the difference. I says, well, let’s give it a try. Let’s go to the setup I’ve just described with the indicator leader, the midsection, all that stuff. Give it a try. What have you got to lose? You haven’t caught a fish anyway, so we changed them up. Did that whole indicator leader midsection, swivel flies, final two feet of section. Got them all set up. After about five ten minutes, he cast out there. Everything settled. First cast. He gets a fish kind of look. Looks at me. Land that fish. Next cast he gets a fish and so on and so on. And they went pretty well toe to toe. As long as those fish were in the area and feeding like they were that little subtle change in leader diameter. And having that level leader from indicator to fly makes all the difference. The only thing I’ll add to this that I’ve started doing in recent years, because I do fish, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I do fish deeper depths over that fifteen foot, you know, you could be fishing eighteen, nineteen, Nineteen twenty feet below the indicator with the system I just described, the greater the leader length, the more elasticity that gets into the leader. And when you’re using a quick release indicator for fishing deep, because it’s a necessity to do that, because you need that indicator release so you can catch land the fish with that built in elasticity. When you go to set the hook, that leader kind of expands and contracts absorbing your strike and the indicator doesn’t release consistently. This gets to be frustrating because the indicator is supposed to release. How come it’s not releasing anymore? So, you know, obviously you got two options. First of all, you start setting on fish like their marlin. That’s probably going to break some fish off and cause frustrations. Or your quick release indicator has now basically turned into a traditional toothpick and quirky setup. And you have to bring that indicator in close at some point in the fight and use your teeth or your fingers or a buddy to pop that peg out of the indicator so it can release and you can land the fish successfully. And so what you need to do in these scenarios is add a little bit of no stretch into your leader. So for many years and I learnt this fishing with a guy down in California, Ernie Gully on Crowley Lake, where they routinely fish deep depth, you know, deep, long distances between indicators and flies for some really good brown and rainbows down there. If you ever get a chance to go down, give Ernie a call. I’ll put his links to his, um, guide service in there as well. Along with I’ve been mentioning Pyramid Fly company as well, so we’ll do that if you ever want to go down and experience those lakes. Um, but what they were doing to compensate for that is they would integrate braided leader material into their leader setups. So when we’re talking like Fireline power pro spider wire, um, those braids, no stretch braids, um, that conventional anglers use for bass, walleye and other species, we would literally tie those in. I was tying those into that mid-section, that adjustment zone for fishing, um, these deep waters, because that added an element of no stretch into the leader, which then stopped my indicators from not releasing. They started releasing properly again because when I set the hook, the, the no stretch section kept the elasticity to a minimum, and I was able to successfully fish those deep waters and have my indicators released. The drawback with the braid is, um, it’s not always easy to connect nylon to braid. It is very, very supple. So it does not cast well. It’s not fun. It’s a definite role cast, short distance cast. Uh, try to avoid any kind of overhead casting with it. And if it got a knot in it, there was no undoing it. You just cut it and start it over again. Um, now again, sorry to apologize if you’re not a real person. But Rio has just come out with a new ticket called E.S.P. It only stretches at three percent. So the, um, the ambassador series of lines, for example, are a low stretch core as well. They only stretch to six percent. So this tippet has virtually no stretch in it. So it’s a lot easier to work with than braid. And I use this now for the midsection of my leader all the time regardless of depth. So that adjustment zone is always ESP. So it’s indicator leader section of ESP if needed. Swivel and final tippet section of fluorocarbon for reduced visibility a little more flexible. Um, this ESP falls between kind of falls between traditional nylon and fluorocarbon. It’s less visible than nylon, but not as invisible, if you will, if that’s the right term as fluorocarbon. Um, it has more density than traditional nylon, but less density than fluoro. It’s kind of this mid-range stuff, but I’ve been using it for a couple of years now and have been really impressed with what it offers, not only for indicator fishing, but any kind of, um, Stillwater situation where bite detection, where you want to have that more direct contact with your fly, um, can be, um, this stuff is really, really good. Um, okay, so swivels, I’ve mentioned those a couple of times. The reason we like to use barrel swivels. Uh, and we’re talking small barrel swivels, not the size of a marble. Um, we are using them and there’s really no consistency, but small size fourteen, sixteen, or twelve. Uh, again, like hooks, the bigger the number, the bigger the swivel. Um, first of all, they add weight to your system. Um, this is an option as opposed to trying to pinch split shot on your leader all the time. It’s tied in, it’s not going to fly off when you’re casting. It’s going to stay there all the time. The bigger, the larger the swivel. When there’s lots of surface chop and wind induced current, The. The larger swivels have more mass, more weight are going to hold everything vertically in the water and dampen the effect that those wind induced currents can do. When you’re connecting fluorocarbon to nylon or SP, sometimes you can, uh, the stiffer, harder fluorocarbon can cut into those materials, and when they come under tension, it can break. Or as I jokingly call it, separation anxiety. So they act as a buffer between the two because the two materials never talk to each other. They are connected to the swivel, each end of the swivel by a clinch or improved clinch knot. They spin and rotate so they reduce tangles. As I mentioned earlier, they can help reduce quick release indicator loss because if you use just a standard triple surgeon’s or blood knot to connect tippet um sections together and one breaks or it breaks at the fly, the tension of that hook set that breaks off the fish will cause that indicator to trip. And of course, that black peg being plastic slides off and sinks, and the indicator slides off the end of the leader and drifts downwind, and you’ll have a tough time going to get it. Um, and it also helps determine depth and color on your flies, particularly when we’re fishing chironomids. Because you can, uh, have a fish come up and try to eat the swivel. They’re curious creatures. They’re not sure what it is. They think it’s food. They put it in their mouth. They may think it’s a pupa. If you’re fishing in a corona situation. And what will typically happen is you’ll get a firm pull down, you’ll set the hook and get nothing, or you’ll accidentally foul hook the fish because when the fish grabs the swivel and you set, you pull the fly underneath of it up into its chin or its pectoral fin. If this consistently happens, the fish are telling you, eh, maybe they like that color a swivel. You should change your fly to that color. Or probably more. Um. I believe they’re telling you that they’re actually a little higher up in the water than you think they are. So you might want to just adjust your depth between indicator and fly to hang your flies in the same location that the swivel is. The other thing swivels do, especially in Chironomid hatch, is if you play around with the colors gold, silver, nickel, they attract and flash, and they can pull fish over. And when you’re fishing in a chironomid scenario where you may have thousands upon thousands of suspending pupa that are gassing up and getting shiny and bright, that flash of light is a trigger to a trout that tells it. That’s food, that’s a pupa and catches them. You can use that flash of the swivel to maybe pull some fish over and take your fly instead. So some of the reasons we like to use swivels, I most often use the smallest swivel I can get away with, just easier to cast less flash in the water, because there are times that you want to remove the swivel. I have had situations where you’re fishing shallow, clear water on a bright day. Fish see any kind of flash they are put off. You know, we’re using yarn indicators, as I mentioned earlier, perhaps a small Oros, uh, style indicator or it used to be able to, if you can find them, those clear thingamabobs that look more like a bubble on the water. Um, so they land gently. We don’t want any flash in our system, so there’s no swivel. Even the flies, no bead heads, no flash. Very subtle. Somber because I’ve had scenarios where trout just if there’s any flash, they won’t touch the fly. So that’s about the only scenario. I don’t use a swivel or use a very, very small one. Another thing we use now more and more are bobber stops. These are the rubberized stops used by conventional anglers to set slip bobber depth or when tossing um bass. Fishermen use tungsten weights to keep the weights at the end of their leader. We use these rubberized bobber stops and originally I only used one. So these come on a little plastic um disc. They are on wires that are looped wire. That’s what the bobber stop is, and the loop is open at the top. To add them to your leader, you push about an inch or so of leader through the loop. Grab that rubberized, stop, pull on it. It slides up the wire loop and eventually off the loop and folds your leader and that little tag you put through in half. And you just keep pulling and pulling and pulling on it. And eventually that tag pops out the other side and you’ve transferred your bobber stopper from that wire loop onto your leader. And then you, I moisten the leader to avoid any friction, and I slide it as far up when I’m building my indicator leader setups. The bobber stop or bobber stops. Now go on first and you could again, we’ve got these bobber stops. If you’re not familiar with them on my online store, or you can get them. Most conventional tackle shops carry them. If you’ve got any bass fishing, any slip bobbing, that kind of thing going on in your neighborhood, you can find them. And what we’re using them for, the primary purpose is purposes when we’re using releasing indicators. Once we get the depth set, and I’ll talk about some ways to set that in a second, we are going to put that indicator in place. And then I slide the bobber stop down to the indicator marking its spot. So when that indicator releases and I land and release that fish, I want to get back in the game. I just slide my quick release indicator back up to that bobber and then re-engage it, you know, pull the pin out, form the loop, lock it in place, and you’re ready to go again. So that was the first time we started using these things was to mark indicator depth. But in recent years we have started adding, I now put three bobber stops onto my, um leader. And again, these go on first. So the leader is built. You get your leader, your indicator leader on slide on your bobber stops, put on your quick release indicator. If you’re going to use it, put on that midsection, attach your barrel swivel final two feet of tippet. Then your point fly. That’s how I build it. So why the three rubberized bobber stops? Well, and this started from a good friend of mine who I fished with locally. Jack. I caught him doing it one day. He had two bobber stops on. I said, Jack, why the two bobber stops? So when he’s setting depth and you might as well talk about that right now when we set depth, you know, quite often you can just, um, you know, use a ruler, an arm width, an approximate depth can work, but sometimes you need to be really surgical. So if that’s the case on the gunnels of my boat, or when I’m fishing out of a pontoon boat or my float tube, they have, you know, typically the apron has a ruler on it. And I use that to accurately measure out my depth, my distance between my indicator and my fly. And once I’ve done that, then I would slide that bobber stop down and lock it in place. But when you want to be really surgical or you know, you’re not sure what depth, because typically when we’re setting depth, I’m trying to start about a foot off the bottom and work my way up in one foot increments. Typically when we’re using cast and retrieve techniques, sinking lines, leeches, that kind of thing, we start fishing from the surface down to find the feeding depth with indicators, because the fish typically feed at or near the bottom, where the food is and where it’s safe to feed. That’s why we start at the bottom and work our way up. And at least I do in one foot increments. All right. So sometimes that measurement works great if you’re using larger flies like a balanced leech. Those flies, I think the fish because they’re larger will move further for them up in the water, down on the water. But when they’re fish feeding on small stuff like chironomid, pupa, little scuds, things like that, lots of calories in those items, but they’re not going to waste calories to chase one around. If it’s at their level, they’ll certainly inhale it, feed it and move on, feed on it, and move on to the next one. So this is where the surgical depth comes into play. So what we do is once I’ve approximately set my depth is I attach a weight to my leader. It can be a pair of hemostats or these. What I use are these ice fishing depth locators. Again, we have those available on our store as well. And we clip these carefully to the fly and lowered over the side of the boat. And it’s going to pull down to the bottom. And of course it’s going to pull your indicator underneath the surface. So when I’m using this three bobber stop method, right at the junction of where the leader comes in contact to the surface, when that weight is holding it all vertically in the water, I slide at least one bobber stop to that point. So I know from the bobber stop to my fly how deep of the water I’m fishing in. If I want to fish a foot off the bottom, I’m going to adjust my indicator so it is one foot below the surface because when I take the weight off, the buoyancy of the indicator is going to pull it up to the surface. And now that one foot distance between the surface of my indicator translates down or transpires, or change or shows the distance my fly is going to hang off the bottom. Okay, so when we’re fishing indicators, we are typically fishing within relationship to the bottom or relationship to the surface. Now, most times we’re fishing in relationship to the bottom. When we’re fishing, balance leeches, chironomid larvae, scuds, mayfly nymphs, things like that. Underneath an indicator. We want to know where we are in relation to the surface. So if you remember when I set the weight, I would slide that bobber stop right to the junction of the surface and the um where the leader contacts the surface. And I know that distance from that bobber stop to my fly is how deep I’m fishing. If I’m fishing in relationship to the surface, I then slide the second bobber sorry, relationship to the bottom. My confusion. I slide the second bobber stop adjacent to that one I marked at the surface. Because when you put two barber stops together, they’ll bind and they won’t move. I want to keep that. Best I can keep that distance from the surface to the bottom constant. So I know where I am all the time in relation to that. The third um bobber stop. I then slide down adjacent to the indicator when I set the depth. So if I want to start a foot off the bottom and uh, after a few casts, I don’t get anything, I can then maybe go to two feet off the bottom. So the distance between the two bobber stops closest to my fly line, and my indicator is now two feet apart to the third bobber stop. Maybe I want to go three feet. So now I would have three feet of distance between the two bobber stops closest to the fly line and the bobber stop adjacent to the indicator. And if I’m staying in the same depth and everything else remains constant, I could fish one foot off the bottom, two feet off the bottom, three feet off the bottom, four feet off the bottom, and maybe I catch fish four feet off the bottom. And all of a sudden, for some reason, the fish start feeding deeper again and I can quickly adjust without having to go through that whole remeasurement process because I have those two barber stops set closest to the fly line so they don’t move and I can then ebb and flow my indicator a foot to two feet to three feet away from those two barber stops. That’s when you’re fishing. In relation to the bottom, I will have two bobber stops close to the fly line and then one bobber stop, one foot, two foot, three foot away from that is where I set my indicator. But there are times you could be fishing deep water. You could be fishing twenty five feet of water, but the fish are suspending twelve fifteen feet down. This can happen, you know, in a bad weather situation, the fish slide off the shoals and just stage in deep water. Or they’re out there fishing on zooplankton. And one of the tactics we use when they’re on zooplankton is to hang beadhead blobs ten feet, twelve feet, fifteen feet from the surface. So in that scenario, I am more concerned. I don’t really care in twenty five feet of water if I’m fishing twelve feet down, I don’t really care where I am in relation to the bottom. I do care where I am in relation to the surface. So in that scenario I would set my depth using a ruler, something like that. An arm width that you know, I always it’s always a good point. I like to know I’ve taken a tape measure from the middle of my chest to my fingertips and measured that distance. So I know one arm length in the middle of my chest in my case equals three feet. So I know if I want to go twelve feet down, I need to do four lengths of that and I’m at twelve feet. So I would set that indicator twelve feet from my fly. And in that scenario, I slide two bobber stops adjacent to the indicator. Because when I’m fishing in relation to the surface, I want to make sure if that indicator pops, that I can reset it back. So the flies hang at twelve feet below the surface again, because again, it’s all about two bobber stops together. These rubberized stops bind and they won’t slide a single bobber stop on a thin leader that’s wet going through the guides can slide and move out of the way. Another benefit to having the bobber stops. If you are using an oral style indicator that threads apart on a moist leader, they can slide. Especially if you’re an aggressive caster or, you know, make a hard roll cast, something like that. They can slide. So what I often do in those scenarios is I will set my indicator depth, and I will put the two bobber stops so they don’t slide between the indicator and the fly. And the other single bobber stop on the fly line side of the Oros to basically sandwich that indicator between the bobber stops so it doesn’t move or slide. I’m just sort of holding it in place, if you will. If you’re sliding around, that’s another benefit for those bobber stops. So hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. Again, just to summarize, if I am fishing in relationship to the bottom, I measure using a weight. Those depth locators I mentioned. I hang that weight to pull that indicator under the water. So when that weight hits the bottom, the distance from that weight to where the leader contacts the surface, that tells me how deep I am. I put two bobber stops adjacent to each other at that point so they don’t slide apart. Then I, when I set my indicator one feet, two feet above the bottom, I slide that third single bobber stop against the indicator. So when it pops, I know where it was and I can reset it. If I am fishing in relation to the surface over deep water where I want to fish ten feet down, twelve feet down, fifteen feet down, I don’t really care. I’m over thirty feet, forty feet, one hundred feet of water doesn’t matter. Then I would measure out. If I want to fish twelve feet down, I would measure out to ensure I am twelve feet from my indicator to my fly. And then I would slide the two bobber stops adjacent to the indicator. So when that indicator pops, those two bobber stops won’t move and I can quickly reset and have my fly at the correct depth again. So that’s the reason for the three barber stops. It works much better visually than it does me trying to explain it. So hopefully I did a good job. Um, another thing, um, we mentioned setting depth. You can get these depth locators in two weights. Most people gravitate towards the heavy one. I use the one appropriate for the bottom conditions. If my bottom is soft and muddy, rather than using a heavy three quarter ounce depth locator, I will use a half ounce. That’s enough weight to pull that indicator under, and it’s less likely to plunge into the mud and give you an inaccurate depth setting. Because if you allow the depth locator to plummet down there and plunge into the mud, it could go down six or eight inches into that mud. And now your depth is not going to be accurate because you’re not just touching the bottom, you’re actually in the bottom muck. So keep that in mind when you’re using these. That’s why I have two scenarios. If it’s a hard bottom, I might use the three quarter ounce one because it’s going to hit that bottom and stay there. But if it’s a soft gooey bottom, then I am going to probably use a lighter weight so it doesn’t plummet deep into the muck and give me an erroneous depth setting. Now setting depth like that is all great from a boat or a float tube or a pontoon boat. But what if you do? If you’re fishing onshore? I mentioned, you know, you could be fishing, Pyramid Lake, Jurassic Lake, or any body of water from the shore. How do you know what your depth is? There’s two ways I can do this. First of all is using trigonometry. Yeah. That stuff you took in school you vowed you’d never do again. You can read the shoreline, and this is basically a ballpark method in that you are using making a guesstimation of as that shoreline, the land slides into the lake. What degree is it? Is it ten degrees, fifteen degrees, twenty degrees, forty five degrees? And just sort of extend that out and with a little trigonometry hold soh-cah-toa what was that sine or whatever it was. Um, you can figure it out. Thankfully. You can go on Google and it’ll do it all for you. You don’t have to sit and figure this out. So for example, if you are, you estimate your shoreline to be fifteen degrees into the water, knowing twenty feet, thirty feet or forty feet out. Because forty feet in most scenarios is a long indicator cast with trigonometry. When I at a fifteen degree angle into the the short, the you know, the bottom goes fifteen degrees down, twenty feet out is five point four feet deep, thirty feet out, eight feet deep, forty feet out, ten point seven. Conversely, if it’s a thirty degree angle from shore, the shoreline in. At twenty feet out, you’re at eleven and a half feet to the bottom thirty feet. You’re seventeen point three feet to the bottom and forty feet. You’re twenty three feet out. So this you can use to, you know, and this is the kind of thing you could, you know, keep on your iPhone as a pitcher. That’s what I do. Or have some kind of note in your phone to help you with this. Of course, the drawback to this method is shorelines don’t typically go out at a fifteen degree angle forever. They often go out maybe ten twelve feet and then plummet off a drop or irregular or hit. Anyway, lots of reasons, but it gets you in the park. When I was fishing with the boys from Pyramid Fly Company, I learned a great way from then to really accurately do this using a rubber core sinker. You get one that’s, uh, castable not too big. Again, we’re mostly using in this scenario switch rods. So if you’re using a single hand rod, go with the lightest weight you can. And because we’re typically fishing under ten feet in depth, we’re using a lot of the oral style indicators that are lighter the cast than these, uh, um, Styrofoam based quick release indicators. What you do is you take your fly, you stab it through the core of the rubber core sinker, right? Make a best guess of how deep you think it is and make a big loopy roll cast and lob this thing out. And of course, that weight is going to land in the water, plummet down to the bottom and sit there and it’s going to drag your indicator under the water. And you keep experimenting with this until you make a cast. The weight hits the bottom and your indicator sits right at the surface. Now you know the distance from your indicator to that weight is how deep of water you’re fishing. And then with your bobber stops in place, you take the weight off, adjust it so your foot or two feet off the bottom and you know where you are all the time. With a single handed rod, I often use the smallest thingamabob I can find or I can find combined with the smallest weight, because that’s an easier system to cast. And once I got it set up, then I might change out that indicator for a larger style one, because maybe I’m fishing heavier flies, or it’s choppy conditions and I need to use the bigger indicator. So again, you attach the weight to the fly, make a best guess of how deep you think it is. Carefully roll, cast that weight and fly out. It might take you a few casts to experiment until you make a cast where that weight hits the bottom and your indicator is sitting right flush with the surface. So you know at that point, from your indicator to the weight and fly on the bottom is how deep the water you’re fishing. Then you’re going to bring it in, unhook the weight from the fly, you know, slide your bobber stop to where the depth of water was, and then slide your indicator down a foot or so. If you want to fish a foot off the bottom or two feet off the bottom, do the whole bobber stop setup. And now you know you are fishing appropriately at the right depth off the bottom. So very handy. Um, a few other things before we close up. Quick release indicator. Um, just a few things to extend their life or any indicator with a painted surface on it, they can get chipped and beat up. So what I often do is before I take them out, if I’ve got time is I will take Brushable super glue or Sally Hansen’s Hard as Nails. I’ll hold that indicator by the black peg and I will paint it and put a protective coating on it just to extend the life. These are not the most expensive things on the planet, and they are not the most durable. But anything you can do to add durability, having that Sally Hansen’s and Krazy Glue in your boat bag or on you is always a good thing too, particularly the super glue. If you don’t tie your own chironomid patterns and you’re not sure whether those flies have a coating on them, you can prolong their life with a little thin coating, allow it to dry a few seconds, or any other scenario you think you might want to glue something. The other thing you can do with the quick release indicators is over time, when you set and reset and set and reset, the peg in the hole in the indicator can become enlarged. I always joke this is usually a good thing, because that means that indicator has been releasing a lot because you’ve been catching a lot of fish, but you’re at some point in the day, you know you’re going to have to replace that indicator, but you want to keep fishing. You don’t want to have to rerig the whole time while the fishing is good. So what I do is I have a roll of black electrician’s tape with me in my boat bag, or in my pockets of my float tube or pontoon boat, and I pull off about an inch or so of the black electrician’s tape, and I wrap it around the peg to build up its outside diameter, so it better fits in that enlarged hole. Yes. At some point you are going to have to replace that indicator and retire it to the Indicator Hall of Fame. But at that moment, you need to be able to stay in the game and catch fish, and you can replace that indicator at a later time. So again, that black electrician’s tape wrapped around the peg a few times can certainly extend that quick release indicator life and keep you catching fish. So again, I talked about casting indicators, a few basic rules. This is just basic casting. Um, you know, we are fishing somewhat tangle prone systems with long level leaders, indicators, bobber stops, swivels, multiple flies. This can become problematic. So just remember your basic some basic guidelines here. First of all, indicator fishing is a short cast game, typically forty feet right where the your head section of your floating line meets the running line is often manufacturers have a color change there to identify that juncture in the line. That’s about as far as you want to cast. If I’m fishing shallow, if I’m fishing deep, I mentioned earlier, sometimes I have a rod length of line or less out of the rod so I can watch that indicator, and if it’s so much as quivers, I can hit it. The roll cast is your friend. With indicators. The less time you have these complex indicator rigs, airlines going back and forth above you, the less tangles you’re going to have. So just a good rule cast. Bring the that rod and reel up just above your your ear. Let that loop form good deep de loop a big de push to that stop. Do not lower the rod until the indicator and line, and everything else has rolled out and landed on the surface. Then lower. Avoid the temptation to lower the rod too soon, because you tend to move that tip in a circular path and it doesn’t cast very well. If you’re finding yourself punching out too much fly line, use smaller indicators if you can, because they’re harder to see. It keeps yourself honest, makes you keep those casts closer. Remember to keep the indicator close to the fly line for cast ability. Avoid situations where you have the indicator way out from the end of your fly line four, five, six, seven, eight, ten feet. Particularly with those heavier Styrofoam quick release indicators, everything just becomes awkward. You can break your wrist slightly if you’re going to overhead cast to for more open loops to keep everything from tangling up and only make because you’re not making a long distance cast. If you’ve got that, um, appropriate indicator line that I talked about earlier, you can just pick up, get that line false cast once and drop it down. That’s it. You’re done. Okay. Um, if you’re fishing heavy balanced flies, tungsten beads, Those flies, once they’ve sunk to depth, are tough to get out of the water. So you can do a series of roll pickups to cycle that fly up near the surface. And to be honest, a lot of times when I’m fishing those flies, I just do my roll cast. I cast the indicator. The fly doesn’t have enough momentum attached to it to come out of the water, but the indicator flops back out there. Settles. Of course, that flies going to settle underneath. Not the prettiest cast out there, but it definitely gets the job done. You’re fishing not necessarily in a casting competition or a casting demonstration. If you want to get that fly out of the water, when you do your roll cast, bring that rod back so that line moves quickly across the water. And what’s going to happen that causes or helps cause the indicator, sorry, not the indicator. The leader to come up near the surface and the fly will be up there too. As soon as that loop forms, it’s gone. There’s no prolonged weight, there’s no sort of checks of the D loop and all the other things. This is the rod and right position. You’re going to bring it up, bring that line back quickly. That swings the leader and fly up near the surface. As soon as the de loop forms, you push to a stop and flip it over, and then that fly will is more likely to come out of the water and cast properly for you. So you’re satisfied. Um, always. If you’re going to cast traditionally apply smooth power, don’t punch. These are not scenarios you want to have tailing loops form. Let that back cast lay out completely. So when you cast back, you almost want to look if you want or feel that whole system sort of tug at the rod tip, then you know that line is straightened out. Then you can smoothly power forward and lay that out. Remember, you’re using a weight forward line. You don’t need to make multiple false casts. Once you get that head aerolized, the mass of that line will pull the balance of the line and leader out and land. So understand? Shoot to the target. Don’t water slap. I see sometimes people lay their line out. That indicator slaps on the surface. As soon as it does, they pick it up and recast and continue to extend line. That way you’re making a lot of disturbance on the surface. You run the risk of spooking fish. You always want to. If you’re going to start out the day, you’re going to make a cast strip off line a little bit more than you think you can have. Make a cast, maybe a second false cast and shoot it to the target. Once you get your range dialed in, then you can reel the excess line up to the reel so it doesn’t get in the way when that line turns over. Sorry. When the line lands and your leader an indicator and swivel and flies turn over. Get in the habit of looking for distinct plops and splashes. You want to see separation between all those elements on your leader. If they all land within close proximity to each other, you want to check that out. You may have a tangle, and if you can identify that tangle early, you have a better chance of resolving it positively so you don’t end up with a big mess and have to cut everything apart. Um, those are the basic tricks for casting indicators. And most of those are common just to casting in general. Lastly, let’s talk about retrieves and we’ll let you get on your way. Um, I use four basic retrieves when I’m fishing. Indicators static a hand twist or pinch strip a six to twelve inch strip and an upwind presentation. The static is basically, as Gary Borger said, heave it and leave it right. You cast it out, let it sit, settle, and just leave it there. This is the kind of thing I do when water temperatures are really cool. Early spring or right before ice on when water temperatures are cool, the trouts metabolism has slowed or the fish’s metabolism has slowed, and they’re not going to want to chase that fly. They just let it hang there and taunt them as it bounces delicately by this any surface chop. You can also do this when you’re fishing obviously inactive food sources like a blob to suggest zooplankton or a chironomid or bloodworm that are just suspending their. Or if fish are off due to environmental conditions, weather, you know trout for can become aggressive or not aggressive. And of course, a static presentation is great when they’re in a non-aggressive frame of mind. When the indicator lands and sits and settles, fish have to come within, let’s say for math purposes. Ten feet of your fly. See the fly like it and eat it. Don’t get hung up on that ten feet. I’m using it as a point of reference. If you can move that little ten foot circle or that area of visibility around your fly, you cover more water, you catch more fish. So this is where you can use a hand twist or a pinch strip where literally you put your two your rod hand and then take your retrieve hand and touch your fingertips to the back of your hand on your rod hand. And just use your thumb and forefinger to pinch the line in in little one quarter or three quarter to one inch increments, you can’t go fast and or you can just use a figure eight hand twist or hand weave, retrieve and gather that line in and bring it back. And all you’re going to do is literally slowly track your fly from where it landed and settled to where you’re going to cast again. And of course, you track that fly through that area of water, you expose your fly to more fish, typically in an indicator presentation, I am going to quarter the cast to the left or the right because I’m right handed. It’s typically a left handed cast. I’m going to cast it out. I’m going to reach cast. I’m going to mend again. This is where another benefit of the long rod is. And I’m going to try and watch the fly line and just let it drift downwind, just like you were nymphing on a river and just let it drift down. You want to try and keep that fly line behind the indicator. You don’t want to let a big C form in the indicator because when that happens, what happens is that the accelerates your drift and in extreme circumstances can cause that leader to no longer hang vertically. But now, because it’s being pulled, it’s on more of an angle and your flies no longer needs to be. So we will cast out, let that swing around until it’s straight down below. And then I start that pinch strip or hand twist retrieve to track it back. I call that moving the strike zone. I am using the wind induced current to move that fly downwind, and then I’m going to retrieve it back towards me to cover all that water. Much better presentation than just pitching it straight down below you and hoping the fish move to the fly and find it. The other thing you can do is, um, a six to twelve inch strip. So when you take your fly line and you give it a long, slow pull, not a bass pop or pop, but a long, slow pull that causes your indicator to wake down below. Your fly rises up and when you stop the strip, the fly falls back down. That rise fall motion often induces a take. So that’s the time you do not want to take your eyes off the fly. Now, one of the criticisms of indicator fishing on lakes is it’s boring and I am no different than anybody else. I get bored to. The cure for boredom is move the fly. So if you. I quite often combine all three. The static hand twist, pinch strip and the strip all together I will cast out. Let that fly. Swing down below. Let it sit for a little bit. I get bored, move the fly. Maybe a three or four or five turn hand twist or pinch strip. Let it settle. Get bored again. Six to twelve inch pull. Nothing happens. And keep doing that until it’s time to cast again or you get a pull down. If you get a pull down, the indicator goes under. Try to remember what you were doing because that might be the trigger that day or that portion of the day that the fish want. So if you get bored with things, move the fly. No sense in becoming bored and staring around like this is one of the the bad parts of indicator fishing, I guess, is people just think it’s boring and it’s the only way to fish a lake. There’s more ways than indicator fishing to fish a lake, but if you have to fish indicators stay engaged, keep the fly moving. If you’re engaged, you’re not going to miss those takes and you’re going to get more enjoyment out of this. The last way to fish this works very well with leech and minnow patterns is on a light wind day is to cast upwind. Trout and lakes like to feed into wind induced currents, so they’re moving upwind. You’ve cast your fly upwind and just let it drift back towards you. Just gather line and now you’ve got this your fly, particularly if it’s a balanced fly, undulating in a horizontal manner down towards the fish. That can be a very good tactic to use. Obviously, if the wind is very strong, you can’t use that kind of approach because you’ll just be punching flies into the wind and getting frustrated and tangled. So upwind is great on a light wind day. So I know we’ve covered a lot. This is a podcast that is longer than my usual ones, but it’s one I get so many questions about indicators, what indicators to use, what lidar setups, what’s a bobber stop? How do I use it, why should I? What’s the best indicator to use? When should I all these different questions. How does rod line choices all come in? So we have talked about when you use indicators why you use indicators, the indicators that are out there, the dry dropper, your fixed position, your yarn style New Zealand style, quick release style. All these different types of indicators, when to use them, when not to use them, that kind of thing. Talked about rod choices, the long rods and the benefits of that for indicators. Choosing the right fly line to help you cast an indicator is critical as well. Look for those lines with aggressive short front tapers like, um, the Rio, uh, Bassador series, Stillwater floater or the regular Stillwater floater line. That’s a line I worked with Rio, um, specifically for using with indicators and long leader presentations. We talked in depth about leader. Remember the most important part of any indicator leader set up you decide to use is make sure from your indicator to your fly and flies is the same level consistency. So when you set your flies to sink at ten feet, they’re going to hang at ten feet. Avoid using a standard nine, twelve, or fifteen foot tapered leader. Your. They sink at a different rate along the length. You’re going to have a situation where you’re going to set your fly for ten feet, and it’s not going to get there because of the arc, the way that leader falls off the indicator, it’s not going to fish vertically. We talked about casting, just good basic casting strokes. Keep your false casts to a minimum. Shoot the line. The roll cast is your friend. If you can just use a roll cast, you’re going to have a much better time with indicators. We talked about setting depth, about using weights to set depth, and then once we did that, how we set the bobber stops, whether I’m fishing in relation to the bottom or relation to the surface. We also talked about how to set indicator depth from shore, either using trigonometry on a bit of a table or using a rubber core slip sinker with an and making a cast, and through a bit of experimentation, finding where the bottom is at the where you’re casting and then adjusting your setup from there. Once you know the depth of water you’re sitting in, um, other tricks and techniques using super glue or nail polish to protect the coating on a Styrofoam style indicator that’s painted. Or when that quick release indicator, the. The. The middle of the indicator gets worn out. Um, using black electrician’s tape to build up the outside diameter of that peg. So again, it, you can use it. You’re gonna have to replace that indicator at some point. But, uh, while the fish are biting, you want to keep fishing. So hopefully you found that useful. There’s a lot of information in there. I know a bit of a fire hose approach. Hopefully it made sense, especially the bobber stop discussion. Um, if you’ve got any questions at all, by all means reach out to me. But uh, if you haven’t given indicators a try, I suggest you do. They’re very rewarding. It’s a lot of fun and, uh, can be an excellent way to fly fish lakes. And remember, it’s not the only way to fly fish a lake. So until next time. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this podcast.