Summer Fly Fishing Fun - How To Tackle It

Small Fly Strategies

(and a box designed to hold them)

Now that the summer seems to be finally arriving, I wanted to try and get us ready for the more challenging part of the season.

This part of the season usually sees the fish quite languid. In this missive, I'm going to give you what is, hopefully, a good grounding on how to approach these conditions, and that is by using - smaller flies.

Also, we have a superb selection and fly box, ideal for smaller flies.

P.S. This email is going to be quite long, so you might want to grab a brew before you start reading!

I've no doubt that we've all seen swarms of midges above the surface of the water - especially when there are sunlit pools. Low water levels and spooky fish means utilising the smaller flies in our boxes.

Some rivers are not as full of nutrients as others, it’s these rivers which tend to fish better using smaller flies, due in part to the fact the river cannot sustain the production of the larger species.

In these rivers trout can still flourish, they just alter the way they feed. Instead of selectively taking insects as and when they please (as insects are in abundance on the more nutrient-rich rivers), the trout in less rich rivers are opportunistic feeders.

This is where the small, imitative fly is king.

In essence:

small flies = light tippet longer leaders = softer rods

The remainder of this email will take the above and hopefully shed a little light on each.

 Small Flies

When you encounter low water it's time to turn to the smaller flies in your box - when I say small, I am referring to flies which are size 18 and smaller.

It is the one piece of tackle that the fish sees and makes their decision on to eat or not. The most important part of a fly is without doubt the hook, even more so when we are using very small hooks. It is important when choosing small flies to look at the gape of the hook (i.e., the distance between the hook point and the body of the hook), make sure that the tied fly still has plenty of room between the body and the hook point, if there is hardly any room between the body of the fly and the point it will make it very difficult to hook a fish. Generally, the hooks which are sized at 18 and smaller all are ‘wide gape’.

Often, the reason small flies are dismissed by anglers is that they have trouble seeing them, there are a few remedies for this:

  • Pre-Tie Your Flies: Tie up some short leader lengths at home with the small flies already attached. This way it's easy to attach them when on the water, rather than fiddling around trying to tie them on in dwindling light.
  • Make An Educated Guess: For most dry fly angling it is not a necessity to actually see the fly, generally you will have a rough idea of where the fly is, if you see a rise, just lift into it – 9 times out of 10 it will be to your fly!
  • Use An Indicator: If you do want to know where your fly is, either use a small fly with a hi-vis sighter post, or use the ‘Double Dry’ technique, where you use a visible dry fly and then tie a smaller dry fly from the eye of the hook on a long dropper – just like the klink n dink method, but using 2 dry flies.

Having a selection of small flies (both nymphs and dries) is essential when fishing through August and into early September.

It just so happens that we have you covered with something new to us - a fly box which is ideal for storing small flies and a selection of small (but perfectly formed) flies for you to fill it with:

Our Pescador Small Fly Selection includes the stunning Tacky Pescador MagPad fly box - ideally suited for fishing small & micro flies as it contains a separate magnetic pad to store all those micro flies where they are easy to access.

As well as the Pescador Magpad box, we've also plundered our smallest flies and put them together in a set, specifically designed for fishing on those more challenging summer days.

Our Selection includes the Tacky Pescador Magnetic fly box and 20 small flies, perfect for summer fishing:

  • The "No See Um": Sizes 18 and 24 - 4 of each
  • Agapetus: Sizes 20 and 24 - 2 of each
  • Driffield Dun: Size 18 - 2 of each
  • CdC March Brown: Size 18 - 3 of each
  • March Brown Dry: Size 18 - 3 of each

In total we're supplying 20 small and micro flies with the Tacky Pescador Magpad (small) fly box for only £48.99 which includes FREE delivery - that's roughly a 25% discount on buying them all individually.

Alternatively, if you would just like just the set of flies on their own - we've got you covered, as we are making these available to you for only £24.00 for the selection of 20 small and micro patterns:

Or, if you just like the look of the box, we have them in stock, they are available for £29.99 - click here to view the Tacky Pescador Magpad (small) fly box.

The King of Small Flies

The "No See Um"

This pattern comes to you directly from the USA (originally devised by Phil Bair), where they are the 'go-to' fly when you need something 'small and black'. These stunning Micro Dry Flies are exquisite and so nicely tied they are amazing. Try drifting one under a swarm of midges!

To give you an idea of their size, here are five of the size 24's - on a 5p piece for reference:

We've included the "No See Um" patterns in the above Pescador Small Fly Selection, if you like the look of them you can also buy them individually (in either size 18 or 24) for only £1.75 each, as a pack of 6 for £8.75 or as a pack of 12 for only £15.00. 

Ok, so you've got the flies and the box, but what next ...

Longer Leaders

If you have already downloaded our copy of the Small Fly Manifesto, then you will have seen the leader recipes for various long & light setups to tie yourself. Here's the best one for fishing really small flies:

To the 6X at the end of the above, just add in a few feet of the 7X or 8X tippet and you're good to go.

However you decide to create your leader, the one thing above anything else which will increase your catch rate is the length! When fishing small flies, on low rivers you need to make your leader as long as you can possibly get away with.

This is what has given rise to the new style Front-Heavy Tapered leaders in the longer lengths – 11ft to 16ft. It is not uncommon for hardly any fly line to be outside of the rod tip and just the leader is cast.

TOP TIP: When trying to thread your tippet to a small fly, try cutting the tippet at a 45-degree angle, it makes it much easier to get the tippet through the eye of the hook.

Softer Actioned Rods

When fishing with light tippet, you need a rod which has a much softer action than your regular carbon rod, this is how you can land much bigger fish on really light tippet. You need to ensure that your whole system - fly, tippet, line & rod - work in harmony. Just try landing a small fish on a fast-actioned carbon rod with a thin tippet (anything smaller than 7X) and you will appreciate the finesse of a softer actioned rod.  

You need a rod which will cushion every movement of the fish and protect your light tippet. This is where glass rods come into their own, especially on the small to medium-sized rivers where you are not casting to the horizon.

Get out there and have some fun with small flies.

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