I always considered myself a pretty good fisherman, fly or otherwise. That conclusion came after years of fishing worms and assorted spinning lures in all types of water, from tiny brooks to the main stem Delaware River. Fishing with natural bait taught me to read water and learn where trout lived. That’s why I had an advantage when fly fishing took the place of dunking worms. 

That transition, however, was not easy. While I often caught a limit of trout with bait or lures, I caught very few when I began to fly fish. And of course it was not easy, in that the friend I fished with was not altruistic, and continued to fill his basket with plenty of nice trout caught on bait. 

Nevertheless, I persevered, and slowly my success improved. First, it was a few trout on wet flies, then a few more on nymphs and finally I graduated to the dry fly.

Over time, when I didn’t find surface activity no matter where I was fishing, two nymphs were tied to my tippet, and that’s how I fished. While in Montana over several years, I had very good success fishing nymphs in Rock Creek and Lolo Creek.

Then, many years later, upon my return to the Big Sky, I did very well fishing the Madison River, near West Yellowstone, using a pair of Prince Nymphs, with one split shot to get the flies near the bottom. But back in New York, with the same technique, I had very little success. 

Fortunately, there was enough surface activity, so the dry fly became the lure of choice. So I honed my skills, using imitations of the various mayflies and caddisflies that hatched throughout the season along our Catskill rivers. 

So during a period of about 20 years, I became particularly adept at catching large brown trout at dusk, using a Rusty Spinner. Unfortunately, mayfly hatches appear to be on the decline, and as a result, surface feeding also appears to be on the decline. To me that means catching trout on the dry fly is becoming more and more difficult. And since fishing nymphs or wet flies has not been that productive, I’m wondering what to do.

About a week ago, I was looking around the internet and came across a YouTube video in which a guy is fishing the lower East Branch of the Delaware River, to the degree that I recognize some of the pools. Interested to see how this guy was doing, I watched as he cast his flies upstream on a 45-degree angle so they would sink. Then he followed the line with a high rod tip, while the current carried the flies downstream. Nothing happened on the first few casts; then suddenly he exclaimed, “There’s a fish!” and the fight was on. 

I don’t know how many trout this fellow caught while I watched, which was until the end of the video, but it was several, including one beautifully colored brown in the five-pound range. In all the years I’ve been fly fishing, I never saw an angler catch as many trout as this guy, and as fast. It seemed he had trout on every cast. 

Finally, after releasing a nice rainbow, he held up the tippet, which showed the flies he was using. While I didn’t recognize the patterns specifically, it was clear that each fly had a brass bead next to the eye. Obviously, he was using these types of flies because the bead, which was made of tungsten and quite heavy, helped get the flies near the bottom, where the trout are feeding. Eventually, he mentioned that one of the patterns is a bead head Pheasant Tail Nymph. Later, he noted that another pattern he used was a bead head Hare’s Ear Nymph. 

What’s interesting is that this angler is not using a strike indicator. He’s fishing his flies dead drift and reacting whenever the line stops, which can be at the bottom or due to a trout. As a matter of record, I’ve fished nymphs this way for years, but not on a fairly long line and not with bead heads. Instead, I fished a short line, using traditional patterns with a split shot to get the flies down. That method worked in Montana; not so much in the Catskills. 

As a follow-up, I went online to find out how anglers tied Bead Head Nymphs. Frankly, they are pretty easy. First, a bead of proper size is attached to the hook and slid forward to the eye. Next, the tail is added, followed by a short section of lead wire, wrapped around the hook and ending at the bead. Then a section of very fine copper wire for ribbing, followed by pheasant tail fibers for the body. Finally, peacock herl is added for the thorax, then brown hackle ahead of the thorax for legs. Pretty easy to tie, which is a good thing, since these flies will bounce along the bottom and be subject to snags and loss. I have already tied a few, and soon I’ll be on the river, drifting these flies deep to see how well they perform. Only then will I know whether or not I’ll be able to catch trout as easily as the guy on YouTube!