TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
Rigging and using a BlueSky Furled Leader for the deadly right-angle “hinged” nymphing technique.
Knowledgeable fly fishers know how effective a technique that a right-angle, sometimes called a “hinged” nymph rig can be. Using this technique can produce fish when many other standard methods cannot. To the best of my understanding, the technique was developed years ago by a couple of fly fishers in California. Author and guide John Judy does a very good job describing it in his excellent book “Slack Line Strategies for Fly Fishing”.
Essentially, the rig is put together using a stiff short and powerful butt section attached to a special yarn indicator. The tippet is then attached behind the indicator resulting in a 90 degree (right-angle) connection to the butt. It is deadly. When cast upstream and across, the angler throws an immediate upstream mend. This places the indicator upstream where it and the butt section is under tension or drag. On the other hand, the tippet section sees minimal effect from drag so the nymph sinks almost instantly into the strike zone. BlueSky makes and sells the BriteSpot Leader especially for this type of rig and fishing. The rig is simple to fish.
The tippet section of this kind of leader should be about 6 inches longer than the depth being fished. After casting, one watches the sensitive yarn indicator to see that it has the right “look”. If the nymph is at the correct depth (near bottom in the strike zone) the yarn indicator will “flicker” and maybe sometimes pause a little before continuing its drift. The flickering and pausing of the indicator telegraphs to the angler that the nymph is fishing effectively, bumping the bottom, perhaps bouncing off bottom rocks or other structure. If the indicator is not doing this, the tippet probably needs to be lengthened a little. Conversely, if the indicator is sluggish or drags, the tippet needs to be cut back a little.
The drawback to this method is in getting the correct adjustment of the depth for the nymph. For every different depth needed, the angler must cut back or add tippet. Normally, to do this one cuts the leader end of the tippet and either shortens the tippet or knots on additional tippet material. In either case, making these adjustments is slow and can result in a lot more knot tying.
The good news is that a standard BlueSky Furled Leader can be rigged as a hinged nymph rig with almost the same degree of effectiveness but is much more easily and quickly adjustable.
Right-angle Hinged Nymph Rig Using the BlueSky Standard Furled Leaders
Advantages:
Provides a 90-degree hinged nymph system.
Quickly adjustable
Quickly changes to different fishing technique, i.e., streamers, dry fly, long-line nymphing
Disadvantage:
Hard type indicator cannot ‘flicker’ and is somewhat less sensitive than the special yarn type indicator.
This is how its done:
Materials:
Standard UltraLight, Light, Medium or Heavy BlueSky Furled Leader
Hard ball type strike indicator such as Lightning Strike brand “White River Indicator System” 3/8”, 1/2” or larger if needed and rubber pieces.
Appropriate tippet material
Assume we want to rig for trout fishing on a medium-sized stream using a 5wt. Rod and line and will be fishing nymphs size 14 – 18.
- Select a BlueSky Lighweight 3 – 5wt Furled Leader. Attach a short 2X diameter extender per our instructions.
- To the extender attach a long level tippet, say 5 feet of 5X or 6X. Base the length of the tippet to the maximum depth you want to fish. In this case, we expect to fish 3 – 5 feet in depth.
- Select the appropriate hard body ball indicator. Note: the 3/8” indicator will support one nymph, the 1/2” size will support a two nymph rig.
- Attach the indicator per instructions. Be careful to NOT pull the rubber connector all the way through the opposite end of the indicator. You will notice that your tippet will be nearly 90 degrees in relationship to the leader above the indicator.
- Tie on your nymph(s).
- You can adjust the indicator by carefully sliding it up or down the length of the tippet.
- You have assembled your rig and can now fish effectively in depth ranging from 3 to almost 5 feet.
- After adjusting the depth you want, cast upstream and across. Immediately do an upstream mend. This will place the indicator and leader butt above the tippet and nymph. Notice that the nymph sinks to full depth right away with no drag.
One can scale this rig up to much larger sizes to fish very large nymphs and bugs using heavier leaders and tippets and corresponding larger-sized ball indicators.
