You use dropper rigs for trout all the time, so why not try multi-fly setups in salt water, as well? You may be surprised by what you catch.
Over the past decade or so, dropper rigs have become ubiquitous on trout streams all over the country. For that reason, it has always surprised me that saltwater fly rodders rarely cast more than one fly at a time. The number of anglers who fish droppers for stripers, bluefish, and squeateague is so small that the group is often referred to as a cult. Fellow fly fishermen beware. The cadre of saltwater dropper fisherman is growing, and these anglers have discovered what trout bums have known all along: You can catch more fish with multiple-fly rigs.
What’s the Point(s)?
Compared with a trout stream, the ocean is a dynamic environment. Its complexities include migratory fish species and their unique behaviors, changing tides, lunar phases, and fish movement. Add a dozen types of bait in the water at all times, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the problem of fly selection. Using a dropper rig will help you find which bait the fish want and then get on with the catching.
When you scan or seine the water for baitfish clues, you discover what is going on in the water for several feet around you. But it’s tough to tell what’s happening between you and where your fly lands, some 40 to 80 feet away. Sand eels, for instance, can be mixed with silversides, clam worms, shrimps, squids, menhaden, and herrings, among others. You can’t really trust your eyes, either. While you may think a pod of striped bass is feeding on the silversides you see spraying out of the water, the bass may be gorging on drifting shrimps, and the silversides may simply be moving out of harm’s way. If you throw a silverside pattern, an occasional aggressive bass or two may whack the fly, but your total catch numbers will be much lower than if you’d been casting a shrimp pattern.
The only way for you to find out what the fish really want is to get consistent strikes or hookups. Droppers improve your odds of putting the right pattern in front of a fish, and such a system allows you to run through a variety of patterns before the school splits. You gain an edge, as well as a deliberate style of fishing that quickly converts hunches into facts.
Even when you already know what kind of bait the fish are eating, droppers also answer the question of what patterns or styles of fly work best in a given situation. Every angler has experience with a “hot” fly, the specific pattern that outperforms any others—even those that imitate the same forage—on a given day. If you keep changing the flies on your dropper rig, you can run through size, silhouette, and color options faster, which helps you pinpoint what the fish want. Test out Flatwings and Deceiver-style flies, streamers and bucktails, or flies constructed of natural or synthetic materials. Vary topwater with subsurface patterns, attractors and imitators, or large flies with small. Let the fish decide.
Follows and short strikes are clues that you’ve just about got the right pattern. You’ve captured the fish’s attention enough to make it follow or nip, but something minor keeps the fish from committing to your fly. Your fly is a bit too something: too bright, too dark, too much flash, not enough flash, a bit too big or a tad too small. Stay within that fly group, but change slightly until you get the fish to eat.
If the fish ignore all the patterns, first change your approach. If they still refuse, change one or two flies, and resume fishing. Keep changing patterns until you find one the fish like. Sometimes, one fly consistently gets all the attention. In this instance, add more of that pattern to your rig.
Knot-to-Fly Rigging
There are two easy ways to rig droppers: knot-to-fly and fly-to-fly. In the knot-to-fly rig, each fly swings independent of the others, for each one is connected directly to the leader via the tag end of a blood knot. In the fly-to-fly rig, you’re attaching the flies directly to each other in a series. The method you use should be determined by the effect you want to achieve.
The knot-to-fly method allows you to simultaneously drift several flies, each of which imitates a different kind of bait. The largest and longest fly should be tied on as the last fly—also known as the point fly—on your leader rig. The smaller, less wind-resistant flies are spread throughout your leader and are known as droppers.
A large point fly adds balance and movement to your leader. It’ll imitate larger bait, such as herrings, alewives, or menhaden. The direct connection between your leader and the point fly is important; if the large fly attracts a big fish, you’ll have plenty of strength to put him on the beach. The droppers are attached to the tag ends of each knot in your leader and should mimic smaller bait, such as silversides, sand eels, clamworms, and shrimps.
There are two way to tie a knot-to-fly rig: using blood knots or five-turn surgeon’s knots. The blood knot forms a 90-degree angle between the leader and the fly, which keeps the fly from twisting around your leader during the cast. As you tie each leader knot, be sure to leave a 12-inch section of monofilament as a tag, and tie your fly to the tag with an improved clinch knot or a surgeon’s loop. Some anglers like to attach two flies to the same blood knot (one to each tag end), but this arrangement can cause tangles, so use a heavier and stiffer mono and a six-inch tag.
The five-turn surgeon’s knot has tag ends that are on a 45- degree angle to the leader. The surgeon’s is far easier to tie than the blood knot, particularly with heavier mono. While the standard surgeon’s knot calls for two turns, go to five for additional breaking strength. Attach your fly to the tag end that points toward the end of the leader, and you’ll get fewer break-offs. I like to use very stiff leader material—such as Maxima, Trilene XT, Stren Original, or Bass Pro’s Excel Trophy—because the stiffness maintains distance between the fly and the leader.
Fly-to-Fly Systems
A fly-to-fly rig can serve two purposes: You can easily create a school of baitfish, and you can employ a topwater-and-subsurface approach, in which you simultaneously fish a popper with a streamer (or several). Here, the topwater fly is the point fly, with the dropper tied directly to the eye of the point fly. This approach covers two different parts of the water column and creates a disturbance at the surface to attract fish, which often then eat the second food option. A fish that is attracted to the popper’s commotion may hit the droppers that look more natural.
To make a standard fly-to-fly rig, start with your favorite knot from your tippet to your fly. Since loop knots add more movement, a Surgeon’s loop or aDuncanloop (also known as a Uni- Knot) are good choices. For a fixed knot, nothing beats an improved clinch. Once your first fly is attached, cut about a 20- inch section of tippet material and tie an improved clinch knot to the bend of the hook. Tie on the next fly with either a loop or a fixed knot, and repeat. If you’re certain which fly is working, create a rig with all the same patterns. In a fly-to-fly rig, the point fly is typically the one that gets hit first. As other fish watch the thrashing of the hooked fish, they’ll hit the top fly, and then start to take the middle flies.
For the popper-and-streamer setup, attach the popper to the end of the leader with an improved clinch. Then, take a 12-inch section of 20-pound monofilament, and tie another improved clinch knot to the eye of the popper and attach a dropper. If you want to get really elaborate, you can add droppers to the tag ends of your leader knots, as well.
Casting and Fishing
Casting a multi-fly rig is a lot different from throwing a single fly. The same high line speed that forms a beautiful loop with a single fly will create a mare’s nest if your flies aren’t rigged perfectly. An easy way to avoid frequent tangles, and the accompanying frustration, is to use a more open, traditional cast. Relax your casting stroke, decrease your speed, and open up your loop. A long, medium-action rod works better than the fast-action sticks most saltwater anglers use. A line with a heavier front taper, such asRio’s Outbound, reduces the number of false casts you’ll need for long-distance casts.
Your fishing techniques should match the relaxed style of your casting stroke. Notice the way the current moves, and work with it. Cast up-and-across, add a mend or two as necessary, and swing your fly down to your target. Then strip the flies back in. It’s a lot like swinging streamers or wet flies for steelhead.
Oftentimes, when you’re fighting a fish, you’ll witness several others circling around their hooked compatriot. It seems as if they are curious, trying to see if the hooked fish is feasting on a meal—and they want some. Pause for a moment, and there’s a good chance one of the following fish will drift up and aggressively smash a dropper, regardless of pattern.
You can learn a lot about fish behavior while fishing droppers, particularly when you’re fishing in clear water. Most of the time, the first fish will rise and take the fly gently and deliberately. The fish will look at all flies and pick the one that is most appealing. Juvenile fish aren’t so deliberate: if one is hooked, others jump into line and will oftentimes take the remaining flies indiscriminately. Of course, deliberate takes are far more educational, for you can build on that information when you select additional patterns.
But sometimes you’ll see things that are just downright bizarre. One time, I was fighting a small bass that had taken a sand-eel dropper, when a decent bluefish whacked the point fly, just behind the schoolie. Suddenly, I wasn’t fighting just two fish, but two species at once. Another time, I hooked an 18-pound bass on the point fly and then a schoolie drifted up to try to take a dropper…but wound up foul-hooked instead. Both fights resembled two cats in a bag until the one fish broke off.
Next time you hit the salt, twist up a dropper rig. Fish two, three, or even five flies at a time and see what the fish have to say. These rigs are a great way to learn about feeding fish. Let’s say you find the perfect fly and put a half dozen fish in the boat. Now that you know what is working, try out different patterns or techniques. See if swimming the fly differently will get strikes, or see what a bigger fish will take. You can always go back to what’s working, but you can learn an incredible amount about your fishery by experimenting with different flies or techniques.