Have You Ever Fished Deep With A Floating Fly

[esox niger]

I remember reading about this years ago. Ive been trying to think of rigs for fishing deep in snagg infested waters, and i think a floating fly on a sinking line with perhaps a split shot or dropper arm with a splitshot just up from the fly, or short short leader might do the trick. consider that the shot should always be below the fly in the water column unless your stripping really fast. therefore as you drag the sinker along bottom and reach a submerged tree limb/snag the sinker will hit the limb but the fly should ride up and stay above the sinker and not touch anything. what better way to contol depth and stay 1-2 ft off botom.

detecting a strike and setting the hook may be an issue...

anyone do this or heard of it being done? id be interested in any information regarding the topic.

[Brian Sloss]

Very similar idea to what salmon and steelhead guys do up in Michigan that is often referred to as "chuck and duck". www.fishbaldwin.com is a web site in Michigan where lots of guys use this system. You could probably get lots of good advice there. Also, when I fished with Phil Lilley, he was using this set up and could probably help you in this regard.

[RSBreth]

I've fished Dahlberg-type divers on a sink tip around submerged timber, sort of a fly rod crankbait type thing, strip until you get the fly near the snag, them do a strip and pause thing where the floating fly dives toward the cover on the strip, then floats up on the pause. It's a neat trick, but like was said, a huge pain in the butt to cast.

[Gavin]

It works...I have a reel set up with a 30ft fast sink shooting head and a Rio Slick Shooter Running line for those times when I want to fish a streamer deep at long distance.....Usually use a muddler stlye fly or a Todd's wiggle minnow. Its a a tough rig to cast though...not something your going to want to do all day.

Get the head inside the rod tip. Roll cast to get the line & fly to the surface, one back cast to load the rod and let it fly. A good double haul is a must....Mending is impossible, so its important to straighten your line and leader on the cast, then strip (like heck most of the time) to maintain contact with the fly and to keep from hanging bottom. Lots of line management issues, especially if your wading. A sink tip is a bit easier to manage but the cast is pretty much the same.

[drew03cmc]

This is commonly done with Boobie Flies for walleye and other deep water species. Google Boobie Fly and you will see some tactics to use them.

[Yakfly]

This is very effective for me - standard floating line setup - this time of year when caddis are coming off

Tie on an a green elk-hair caddis, and put a bb split shot about a foot up. Cast into riffle water, fish on the swing.

I also have been doing a similar thing on the White, now that multi-fly rigs are legal, trailing a dry behind a weighted woolly.

[esox niger]

This is commonly done with Boobie Flies for walleye and other deep water species. Google Boobie Fly and you will see some tactics to use them.

im hoping it works on some catfish....hopefuly blue or flathead. its just so hard to fish DEEP in current, feels like i need a 10weight with some t-17 or whatever the fastest of the fast sinking is. I cant cast that stuff with my 8. .

Thanks everyone for the input, very helpful.