How to tie A 3 Fly Leader
How To Tie Droppers and Knots - RIO Products
Sharing buttons:
[Music]
hello and welcome to another episode of
Rios how-to thanks for tuning in my
name's Simon cosworth and today we're
going to look at how to tie a dropper
well first what is a dropper and then
why do you fish a dropper towards the
end of the video I'll show you the kind
of the ways of tying droppers but let's
have a look at what droppers are first
of all a dropper is a way of fishing
more than one fly all right normally you
tie on a single fly and you fish that if
you want to fish more than one fly you
need some kind of dropper check your
rules first your local fishing laws
because some fisheries only allow one
fly somewhere out to some allow three
back in England when I was what's called
loft-style drifting I used to fish
fireflies sounds crazy but yeah you
catch a lot more fish with the fireflies
and you get all more tangles but they
don't I would rather have the higher
percent of catching fish then tangles so
really that's what droppers are just
ways of fishing more than one fly on
yours on your rake and here's a couple
of things I've set up that gives you an
idea this is my steelhead or Atlantic
salmon rig so for example I've got here
on my left hand side a big orange fly
and on my right hand side a small black
fly I like to fish this rig for
steelhead and salmon anywhere I go I
prefer the heavier fly on the point the
point is the term for the fly furthest
away and then the dropper as the arm is
hanging down in this case I like the
biggest fly on the point for a couple of
reasons one when I cast the heavy fly
pitches and lands everything straight to
the heavier fly sinks a bit deeper so I
have a nice transition from my heavier
fly to my floating line with the small
fly slightly less depth and free if I
get a fish to steelhead that swirls in
it and pulls it gently or salmon it
doesn't take it then all I do is I just
take one step downriver and the next
cast the smaller fly goes are the over
the fish and they'll often come back to
that smaller fly so that's a great rig
for steelhead and salmon fishing
requires a dropper another reason that I
would fish a dropper is if you want to
fish a really really small nymph okay
hard to see here but let's take a look
at look at this there's a tiny nymph on
the end here on the point and this fly
let's say the fish are feeding on midges
and you got a fish
sighs 24 nymph like this well you're
never gonna get that to sink on its own
you could put sledge shot on or you can
just put on a heavily weighted fly like
this and that heavy fly sinks pause a
little fly down and your little fly gets
down to the depth of the fish and you
also have two flights so you get two
chances catching a fish so that's
another reason to fish a dropper heavy
fly to take the little fly down another
one is indecision you're out fishing and
you don't weigh the fish of brown fly or
a white fly or big flower little fly
well hey guess what fish both this is a
great for a good streamer rig in the
fall for brown trout particularly on the
dropper I have a slightly bigger fly
that's brighter and in this case I got a
slightly smaller fly that's darker I can
have a bigger darker fly in a smaller
light fly it doesn't matter it just
gives you a variety get a lot of fish
fishing - flies like that and then
finally on these little examples here
that's called the hopper dropper rig and
this is where you have a dry fly in this
case I have a foam hopper and the foam
hopper sits off on the water like this
and the nymph hangs underneath it and it
floats down the river and so the dry fly
acts as a float and also as a strike
indicator fish can grab the fly bobs
under and you see you take from that
because that disappears a couple of
reasons that I like to fish dropper now
let's take a look at how you make the
dropper and there's a number of
different ways to make drop and
depending on what you want as your end
result probably the communist in the
easiest way is quite simply the triple
serger not when you join two bits of
nylon together and I've chosen different
colors here because I want you to really
be aware of a couple of things that are
pretty important I've got a blue stuff
here on my left I've got this yellow
stuff on my right so the situation is my
rod is up here I've got the leader
attached to the fly line the leaders
coming down to where normally my single
fly would be right here on the point and
now I want to add a second fly so I'm
going to take an extra bit of mana fill
in this case it's colored but you know 4
X 3 X 5 X what are you gonna be fishing
and the reason I've got two colors is I
want you to be very aware that this is
attached to my fly line and this isn't
so when I finish this knot this is not
going to be the one I want
my spare flyer I want to turn my spare
flyer onto that very important you know
that and because you know that at this
stage I like to overlap about six to
seven inches here I slide my hand up and
I just tied the triple surgeon as far up
the leader as I possibly can
as I said I'm not going to run over the
triple surgeon we're just gonna do this
one two and three make it pull tight and
there you can see is our arm hanging
down that I tie a fly on to chop this
arm off tie your fly to this or you chop
that back to the length you want to fish
it and that is the triple surgeon way of
adding a dropper that's one way in
addition to that there is the New
Zealand dropper very common very popular
and this one is where you've got
something like this you've got your fly
already tied on this is great with these
weighted nips that we talked about in
one of the earlier ones about how the
small nymph gets down by the heavy nib
so let's say you've got your heavy nymph
tied on here onto the end of your leader
quite simply you then take your 5x again
or your 4x material and around the bend
of the hook fold it around the band I
just tie this clinch knot or improve
clinch whatever you like to do I'm just
doing it quick here for the video yet on
pull tight
lick it snip off the tag again if you
don't know how to tie the improve clinch
check on the Rio website under the knot
videos you'll find out and here is your
extra arm and you can tie your second
fly onto this or whatever length you
want just be careful with this technique
because if you're fishing a barbless fly
I've done this many times with a
barber's fly in the action of casting
you'll find the knot will slide off and
suddenly a fishing only one fly so there
is a word of warning with a New Zealand
dropper as this one is called another
option is the tip it ring now the tip it
ring these are the we make these at Rio
in a couple of different sizes there's
the large size here which is a steelhead
tippet ring it's about three millimeters
and there's the trout size here there's
two millimeters and these are just wire
rings that are very small and circular
and this is a really simple way a very
quick way of adding a dropper and one of
the greatest things about this is that
should you drop a get short it's very
very fast to lengthen it again and
you'll see why in a second
so what I've got here is I've got my
imaginary bit of leader again going to
the rod and on the front end of it I've
got a tip it ring and again quite simply
our time I improve clinch on my clinch
not here just do this nice and quick
just a few turns on that chop off a tag
so the tippet ring is in between the
leader kind of hanging down like so this
goes to my point fly on the right am i
right and then my drop are simply is a
third piece of my 5 X 2 X whatever tip
ADIZ that I thread through that tip it
ring and again with a clinch knot or an
improved clinch tie it on kind of the
tag and then as you can see here's my
main leader here's my main going to the
point fly and then there's a piece
hanging down you just trim it to length
I like to fish drop is about 8 inches
long that's about a good length of drop
oh it sticks out nicely and it doesn't
spin around the leader too much so
that's a perfect dropper and what you'll
find is if you change your flies
frequently as people do when they're
fishing for whatever reason or you lose
your fly this gets shorter and shorter
and because it gets to a point where you
can't tie another fly on you just simply
snip this one off and add a new armor so
a very clean very efficient way and that
is using a tippet ring and then the
final way I learned this in Poland many
many years ago is fishing some
competition fishing and in Poland they
were showing me these swiveling droppers
which are pretty damn cool and the
swiveling dropper stops your dropper
tangling around the main stem so what
I've kind of done are pre rigged it here
this is a regular imaginary leader and
in the end I've tied that triple surgeon
knot we just talked about and this is a
stop not hasn't got any arms coming up
it's just a stop not a triple surgeon
not you take the drop of material you
want and you just tie yourself a double
overhand surgeon loop once again if you
don't know it check out the real website
look at the videos look at the knot
videos
and you'll see the double surgeon loop
you tie that on their top of the tag and
then when you're not look at the four
section of the NOC that goes up to your
fly line and your rod not the one goes
down here and very simply you just take
your loop and you do a kind of a loop to
loop join and you pull this right
through and you pull your loop tight
okay what you get is this knot slides
it's got a sliding drop the stock knot
stops it going anywhere that locks it
into place like that one of the good
things about it kind of hard to simulate
here if that's tight is this will swivel
around you don't get a lot of tangling
with a lot of drop as the line hangs
around like this entangle is because it
just spins in the current and when
you're fishing it but this swivel
dropper stops doing that so that's quite
simply just a regular double serger loop
onto a triple surgeon and again you chop
this to the six inches or seven inches
or whatever length of drop you want and
away you go so really again I've done it
in these yellow stuff just because it's
visible in it yeah and you can see it
really those are your best ways and why
you fish droppers I think drop is a
hugely increase your chance of catching
fish absolutely no doubt about it as it
says right at the beginning it does
increase your chance of getting tangled
except that do check your local laws
again that make sure you're allowed to
fish more than one fly two or three
flies and just one final word of warning
just be careful if you're netting a fish
on the point fly and you're sliding your
hand down to grab that that fly and
unhook the fish because you could stab
yourself so there's a few things to
worry about when you're fishing droppers
but overall you're greatly increase your
chances of catching a fish
I think it'll catch a lot more fish
you'll have a lot more fun so do it so
hopefully you've learned a few things
there again thanks for watching this
version of a how-to video today's how to
tie a dropper on tuna and again for some
more episodes coming up on real website
thanks for watching
[Music]
