S5, Ep 45: Nymphing Essentials with Jason Randall Pt I

Marvin Cash: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. And as we promised, here's the first episode of Nymphing Essentials with Jason Randall getting in the zone. How are you, Jason?

Jason Randall: I'm doing great, Marvin, thanks. How you doing?

Marvin Cash: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. And you know, just as a reminder for folks, we're going to have three kind of educational sessions and a Q and A session. But the first thing we wanted to cover was basically getting in the strike zone.

And I wanted to get your thoughts, Jason, on why nymphing skills are so critical to fishing success.

Jason Randall: Well, I think all methods of nymph fishing are equally fun and also equally critical to success. But because trout feed underwater and subsurface so much more than they do from the surface, I think nymphing skills are particularly important.

I know when I go to the river, I love to get there for a hatch or a spinner fall, but more often than not I'm not seeing that. And so good nymphing skills are the key to catching trout day in and day out. In the absence of those events and hatches and other spinner falls.

Marvin Cash: Gives you something to do other than taking a nap on the bank, right?

Jason Randall: That's right. We can still catch fish.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so I know when you talk about nymphing, you like to break it down into kind of three core components. What are those?

Jason Randall: Yeah, I do. And I learned that over a long period of time. But we've defined three objectives. I don't, you know, they're goals, but really the biggest goal is catching fish. Right. So I guess these should either be intermediate goals or objectives.

But there's three and the first is getting your flies to the level where the trout are feeding. Because if our flies aren't there, then we're not really presenting them to the trout. We call that level the strike zone. So we've got to get our flies to the strike zone.

The second is getting that same type of perfect drag-free drift that we strive for with our dry flies. We want to get that same drag-free drift when we're nymphing as well. And that's the second goal.

And the third goal is we've just got to have a more accurate and sensitive means of detecting strikes. Too often we have that, you know, that sinking feeling that we're missing fish. We have no idea where our flies are. We think we're at the bottom, but more often than not. We're in mid current and we have no idea what that presentation looks like. And we just, like I said, we have that sick feeling that we're just missing fish.

When I was, when I was just learning, I probably shouldn't even refer to it that way, because we're all learning. Fly fishing is a life learning sport. And I think that if you stop learning, you are at that point the best angler you'll ever be. So learning is important wherever you are in that journey.

But when I was a novice angler, I should say just learning and getting familiar with nymphing, I would be the guy that was changing flies every 15 minutes, wondering why I wasn't catching fish. Blaming the fly when it really isn't the fly, it's how I'm fishing it. Because you're going to catch more fish with the wrong fly in the right presentation than you will with the right fly that's poorly presented. So it's not the fly's fault.

And if we define and really reach these three objectives, we'll get to that larger goal of catching more fish when we're nymphing. And the cool thing about the system that we're describing based on these three goals is you can really tell when you're reaching those objectives. You can. In other words, you can tell when you're doing it. Right. Which is one of the most commonly asked questions that I get when I'm teaching classes.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And the great thing about that is not some kind of funny answer like, you know, when you're. Cause you're catching fish.

Jason Randall: Right, Right. Well, that's obvious, right? If you're catching fish, something's gotta be right. Yeah. But I got tired of listening to the sixth sense of nymphing and ESP and all this other stuff that I didn't have. And I really wanted some kind of a fundamental system that was really something that I could rely on when I was nymphing. And it just takes all that guesswork out of it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to kind of put a finer point on it, you know, when you talk about getting your flies in the zone. What do you mean?

Jason Randall: Well, let's refer to that first illustration, which is a graph. It's from an old college textbook, actually. And it shows on the x axis or the vertical axis, it shows the vertical water column with the stream bed at the top. I'm sorry, with the stream surface at the top and the stream bed at the bottom. And then it shows a total velocity percentage of the total velocity of that section of the stream on the Y axis.

And you can see that there's quite a difference in the velocity of the current from the top of the stream to the bottom. And the reason is, is that there are two forces in the movement of water that governs the dynamics of flowing water. Obviously that first force is gravity. It's a downhill slope that imparts the desire of that water to move in the first place. And so it pushes it downstream on its journey.

And the opposing force then is friction. So wherever there's friction, that's going to slow the water. And at the surface, at the air water interface, there's a slight degree or slight amount of friction that slows a very thin layer of water. Just beneath that you see the fastest flowing current. And then closer to the bottom, the friction created by the stream bed is profound and it slows that water dramatically the closer it gets to the bottom.

So every section of water, you have the fastest flowing water just beneath the surface. And then, closer to the bottom you get slower and slower moving water. That current gradient literally pushes the food towards the bottom. And because the food's at the bottom, the trout are at the bottom. They're at the bottom also because they face less current expense in that slower moving water. So if the food is there and the trout are there, our flies need to be there too.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's amazing. Always it's interesting, you know, because most anglers know about cushions in front of and behind rocks and things like that. But when you ask them to raise their hands about the current speed kind of through the water column, it's always interesting to see that people don't universally appreciate that. And that's a super powerful thing, right?

I mean, because when you know where the fish are and the food is, it makes things, you know, so much easier. And I always try to tell people, you know, kind of like on the energy return perspective, you know, that the trout are going to stay because they can't basically expend more energy to eat than they take in. And so I always tell people it's kind of like if I'm running on a treadmill and I only get one Dorito every hour, at some point I'm going to look really, really good. But then it's another point I'm going to starve to death.

Jason Randall: Right, that's true and it applies to trout too. But also I think it's sometimes easier to understand if we think of the same stream that we see from the surface in the center of the stream as we look across it. At the surface you have that fastest flowing water. But close to the stream edges at the banks, because friction occurs there as well and slows that water down. You see a very slower moving layer or section of water. And in between the fast flow and then the slower flow, you see a very sharply defined seam or break seam that separates fast from slow. Same thing happens vertically too.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting too. Right, because then when the water comes up, when it rains, right. That's going to push those fish to those edges and push them onto structure for all those reasons.

Jason Randall: That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, it's going to push those slip seams closer to the banks and the fish will be hugging those banks for sure.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so, you know, Jason, why is it so difficult to get our flies in the strike zone?

Jason Randall: Well, just if we look at that horizontal stream again from the surface when we cast our flies across fast current and we want our flies to drift in the slow current, but our line is laying across the faster water, what do we get? We get drag. And because we're crossing faster water and trying to keep our flies in the softer water edges, the same happens vertically we encounter in nymphing. Our same old arch enemy, drag.

Because if we cross that fast water overhead and we try to reach the slower water of the strike zone, we're going to have drag as our leader or our tippet passes through that faster flowing current. And if we look at the illustration that we included, you can see the effect that is going to produce.

The drag has the same negative consequences on our nymph that it has on our dry fly. And if we think back to that dry fly when we have drag, it's going to pull our dry fly out of the soft water edge, reposition it into the faster flowing current. It's going to accelerate that fly. Right. And it's going to spoil your presentation. Your dead drifting dry fly is going to look like a little jet skier zooming across the surface. Right.

So the same drag occurs then on our nymphs as we cross that fast water overhead. That's going to want to tend to reposition our flies, lifting them out of the strike zone and trapping them in mid current, accelerating that drift, and spoiling our presentation. We're going to look like instead of, you know, freely floating drag-free insects, it's going to look like little torpedoes.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. To talk about that a little bit more. You're really talking about when you're trying to nymph in the bottom. But there are times, right, when you want a more active presentation where you would do something a little bit different than kind of this general rule we're talking about.

Jason Randall: Right, right. Just as we do with dry fly. Sometimes we're not looking for a drag-free drift. Sometimes we want to skate that, like skating a dry fly across the surface or twitching it or activating it. Sometimes we do that to our nymphs.

But if we look at the second illustration, it really shows those consequences of drag and that's the one that defines the strike zone because that the drag that we encounter lifts, accelerates and spoils the presentation.

And when I was that novice angler flailing away at the water, I would cast it out there and time after time I'd wonder why I wasn't catching any fish. And when I was catching fish I noticed that I was catching it either at the very beginning of the drift or at the very end. And it wasn't until later that I realized that it was only during the beginning of the drift before drag took over, that I was actually having a drag-free natural presentation in the strike zone. So I was literally reaching those three goals until drag took over.

And then again at the end of the drift. How many times have you gone to recast your nymph and had a fish all of a sudden on it and you're like oh, man, I missed another one. But it really wasn't until then that you really looked good. Because once you stop the strike indicator before recasting, the flies would swing down and out in back in the strike zone and start to rise like a natural insect. So they actually looked enticing to the trout. And that's when the trout took. And it wasn't until much later that I realized that those are the only times during the drift that I was actually tempting the trout.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's funny you say that. I actually caught a 24 inch brown trout doing that in Montana.

Jason Randall: That's why Leisenring was so brilliant back what, 50, 60 years ago when he designed that Leisenring lift where again it imitates a natural activity that the trout will respond to.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And you know, it's interesting too, right? Because Jason, the strike zone doesn't stay the same percentage of the water column, does it?

Jason Randall: No, it really doesn't. The strike zone changes from fast water to slower water. And that's why we have to rig differently in faster water than slower water. In fast water, that strike zone can be very narrow and fixed strictly to the bottom. It can be the bottom 20% of the vertical column. But as the water slows, that strike zone can open up and broaden. And in slower water, medium to slower water, it can literally be from top to bottom.

Trout will feed from the top to the bottom, and we have to rig accordingly for that as well. So we have to rig and change and respond to the fact that the strike zone will change in different water types.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, and I know we're going to dive into this in more detail in our last episode, but just because folks want to go fish between now and then, you know, how do we know that we're in the strike zone?

Jason Randall: Well, as you said earlier, usually the fish tell you, they'll be the first to respond. Usually when you're reaching those three goals, but occasionally it's okay to tick bottom once in a while and to even snag once in a while. Even though you might lose a fly, it does tell you you're in the strike zone.

We don't want to be dragging the bottom either because trout are not bottom feeders. They're either forward or up lookers. So we want to be tracking that bottom 20% of the water column, not necessarily dragging the bottom.

And so, but it's important to really troubleshoot each drift against these three objectives. Look at each drift. Did my flies reach the strike zone? You know, did I get a natural drag-free presentation? Did I have accurate strike detection? Or did I perhaps miss fish? And so we're always troubleshooting each drift, asking ourselves, making adjustments.

I change flies more commonly now for weight than I do changing for a specific fly type because it's more important for me to get that fly to the strike zone and have that natural presentation. Because we know when trout are feeding on subsurface foods, there's not a specific event that's really tightening their feeding focus to only one prey species. As a result, they're feeding more indiscriminately. They'll take a wider variety of different flies if we present them well. So I change more because of weight, and that's based on reaching those three objectives. So my goal now in changing flies is usually weight, rather than the look of the fly itself.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I guess the only thing I can kind of add in the short version is, you know, if you're using a suspension device and you know that the current at the top is faster than the current at the bottom, you need to kind of mark your suspension device against bubbles and leaves on the top and make sure that it's moving slower than those because otherwise you're not down.

Jason Randall: That's right. That's right. You know, we've got to troubleshoot that drift and ask ourselves, you know, are we getting those three objectives? And some techniques and methods are easier to get those goals than others. One of the harder goals, one of the harder methods to reach those goals is flotation devices, especially large plastic devices that are. It's very, very difficult to get the flies to depth and to get the appropriate presentation.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, you definitely on the suspension stuff, you have to take the bitter with the better.

Jason Randall: Yeah, that's true.

Marvin Cash: Yeah.

Jason Randall: You know, there's a learning curve like anything else. But we, you know, it's hard to really cover this in such a short segment. But our system is really built on reaching those three goals and we really dig into that in classes and boot camps and on stream instructional opportunities and it really gives us a chance to really build that system.

But I want a system that I can look at a specific water type, I can choose the correct method, I can rig appropriately to cover the strike zone and then I know that I should be catching fish. And that's the kind of system that I can rely on and eliminates the guesswork. There's no ESP or sixth sense. There's no little nuances in it, you get better as you practice like anything else and there's some subtleties involved, but you are going to see your catch rate go up.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. You know folks, if you, probably about a week before this episode dropped, you should have seen on Instagram the handouts. But they're also in the show notes. So if you didn't see those on Instagram, if you check the show notes, all the pictures that Jason talked about will be in there.

And then also we've got a great promotion for the series. And what we're going to do is we love questions. And so to make things easy for Jason, if you will DM me your questions on Instagram or shoot me an email at mcash@thearticulatefly.com we're going to collect questions for the final Q and A episode and everyone that sends in a question will get entered into a drawing for a signed copy of Nymph Masters from Jason. But then if we select your questions for the final episode, those folks are going to get in a drawing for a TFO stealth rod with a matching reel and a Euro nymphing line from Scientific Anglers.

Jason Randall: That's pretty exciting. You know, I'm really glad, you know, the level of support that we see in our industry for education. It's just so refreshing and so unique to our sport.

But before, you know, we leave those illustrations, I'd like to point out that photo that we put in there. And that photo, what we did is we marked a leader every six inches with a tiny tuft of yarn so that we could see it in underwater photography. And we photographed that and we videoed that. And you can see the effect of drag. You can see the fact that your flies are lifted up out of the strike zone. They're trapped in mid current, they're being presented at full speed for that current. And with all that subsurface slack in there, you can see how inaccurate strike detection is.

And so it shows, it really highlights not only the importance of reaching these three objectives but also how easy it is to fail with a lot of current and popular methods at reaching those three methods. And it really underscores why we're not catching as many fish as we should when we're fishing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And you know folks, please send us questions. We love questions. And I want to thank TFO and SA for supporting us. And I know Jason, before you go that you and Mac Brown are teaming up in early June to do one of these boot camps. You want to let folks know about it and where they can find more information.

Jason Randall: We are, we're really excited about that. This is you know, Mac and I are teaming up and we have really good complimentary educational backgrounds. Mac is a premier casting instructor and I think it's going to be a fun three day event. The first one is going to be in early June. I'm going to be sharing my own home waters in the driftless streams of Wisconsin, which is a very technical classroom.

Spring creeks and small water can be a great place to learn and sharpen your skills. But you know, just a lot of classroom instruction, a lot of casting, hands on instruction, a lot of demonstrations, rigging, knots, all the different things that we really dig into, then we will take to the water and fish together and critique, you know, each angler and measuring, you know, not just the success of catching fish, because we're going to be, you know, not necessarily basing it on that, but just how good a job are we doing, especially in nymphing and meeting these three objectives?

Marvin Cash: Very neat. And I'll drop a link to that and all of your contact info and social media handles in the show notes as well. And folks, you know, it's warming up. Take, you know, what we talked about, and, you know, if nothing else, you need to go out there and catch a few fish. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines. Jason, thanks.

Jason Randall: Good night to you, too. Marvin.