Drop-Shot Nymph Rigging

When I was a kid with an open-bail spin rod, I chased walleye and white bass in Wisconsin with a Wolf River Rig.  A simple setup: triple swivel, weight on the bottom, and a minnow swimming with steel through its lip above.  It made sense to suspend the bait.

Since  becoming a fly fisherman, I've been putting everything in my nymph rigs on a single line and expecting my (sometimes) weighted flies below weight to bounce along the bottom, but not to get caught that often on all of the lovely structure our freestones afford our quarry.  Why this order?

I bumped into an interesting show by Kelly Galloup on askaboutflyfishing.com.  In describing his favorite nymphing techniques, he suggested a few ear-catching points:

1. Trout don't usually feed below their own eyes.  Suspending flies makes sense (oh yeah!, I thought. Back to the Fox River back home.)
2. You'll lose a lot fewer flies if they aren't constantly dragging their hook points on the bottom.
3. Depth is the key factor, so it needs to be the easiest adjustment
4. You need a bit more open loop (not a problem) for this rig, but the darn thing works.  See the image from his blog:

 I love it that he doesn't waste time with expensive, tapered leaders. Apparently, he fishes river left.  I always dug the far bank, since I'm a southpaw and I like to cast across my body.  I checked the Colorado regulations, and (like Galloup's Montana rules) they don't say anything about this kind of filthy tactic.  I'll let you know how it works for me.