Klink and dink
BY LOUIS FEROX I HOPE you’ve all had a good week’s fishing in what can only be described as changeable conditions.
Getting to head out from home on a daily walk or a cycle has certainly expanded my knowledge of the waters in the vicinity, so now’s the time to take advantage and grab a few hours on the bank before and after work.
I’ve picked new tickets directly from the club through the post, as well as my permit that sat mothballed over the start of the season.
For a lot of these new stretches, I’ve been favouring a bit of klink and dink – you might call it the duo, trio or dry dropper – which allows you to suspend nymphs below a dry fly.
Fishing the dry-dropper technique is a great way of presenting a nymph and a dry fly delicately at any range, and is especially effective in slower water where a nymphing rig can be too heavy, so you’re constantly catching the bottom.
I’ll tend to fish New Zealand-style, attaching the Klinkhammer to my leader, then attaching another piece of tippet off the hook bend of the dry fly with a nymph at the end.
Using a dry fly rather than a strike indicator appeals to many who would rather not fish “the Bung”, but it also picks up more than a few fish off the top.
If you’re fishing barbless, the dropper can sometimes slide off the hook. So when you’re attaching directly to the hook shank, where rules allow I’ll fish a barbed or crushed barb on the indicator pattern, always using a tucked blood for extra security.
While I was filling my river box, I picked up some small tippet rings to try the Simon
Robinson-style Klink that has a ring incorporated into the pattern at the hook bend.
As a searching set-up it’s ideal. Normally you’ll trundle your nymphs along faster runs, watching for stops and dips on the indicator pattern, while on stretches where the river is low or slow, I’ll switch out the normal heavy bugs for lightly weighted nymphs that will “fall” through the water for longer, giving you more chance of it intercepting a fish.
A heavy fly will plummet to the bottom quicker, hooking weed or rocks, or simply pull the dry fly down.
I’ve not been lucky enough to see massive hatches like I’ve heard reports of on the Clyde and the Annan.
I might need to get a bit further afield to rivers with richer feeding.
It’s a perfect time to fish a dry dropper set-up during a hatch, when insects are actively emerging. The rig matches various stages of the hatch at once with a dry fly or emerger on the surface, followed by a nymph imitation below that.
Wherever you’ve got your fishing at the minute, I hope you’re all casting, if not catching, and enjoying the outdoors again.