Hopper Dropper Fly - Your Fav's

[mic]

What are your favorite top dry flies when you are focusing on fishing the dropper?

[fishinwrench]

If I'm focusing on the fly below then I don't want anything else on the leader except maybe a split shot.  Unless the water I'm fishing is dead slow, in which case I might use a bobber/indicator to suspend a midge or something......if they won't eat a stripped bugger, streamer, or leech.   

I've never been a fan of the whole dry/dropper technique.   I prefer to fish ONE FLY well, rather than to fish TWO FLYS half-assed.

 

 

 

 

[tjm]

I agree with wrench, one fly seems to always be better than two. But, if I am going to fish more than one fly, either fast or half fast, I go to a three wet fly rig. Basically the same as the Brits have used for centuries. First dropper/bob fly, second dropper and point fly.

Problem I always have with the term "hopper dropper" is that the dropper fly is always nearest the rod and if the hopper is not the dropper it must be on the point (at the bottom), so the term should "hopper as the dropper" as they are normally used.

[mic]

With some learnin' from books and people, I found you have to pick one or there other.  Either your focus is on dry, and you only use the lightest of light droppers like a midge.  Or... your focus is solely on the nymph and the dry is a boober with a hook.  If you "fish" them both, neither works well.  

I have had a lot of luck on tough days with a midge, or lately a simple peacock nymph under a elk hair.  I started it because my indicators kept getting popped when started fishing at Blue Springs Creek.  

Sometimes I will hang a size 20 or 22 dry off a larger dry also.  

[trythisonemv]

Sometimes I will drop a small fly below a caddis or a hopper if I am fishing with a noob. But mostly if I fish two flies its a double scud rig with a drop shot or just two heavy bead head nymphs. If fishing a bugger usually only one fly. On crane sometimes a hopper dropper rig will work well on the fast drop offs and ledges as it will suspend the nymph long enough to hold it on the ledge for a second. Mostly just euro or drop shot style nymphing works best for me

[Gavin]

I'm a fan of one at a time as well. 

[Al Agnew]

Well, unlike some of the others, I usually use two flies, unless I'm stripping streamers.  Hopper-dropper?  I don't much care what the "correct" terminology is, to me that means a hopper or other big, high-floating dry fly with a nymph dropped off it.  To be honest, I don't use it much.  I prefer using the hopper as my easy to see fly when I'm wanting to use a really small dry fly.  When it's hopper season out here in Montana (and this year it's been exceptionally warm all autumn so far, and there are STILL hoppers around and a trout willing to take one now and then), I usually use a hopper with a small Adams dry off it, because there are also usually some kind of mayflies appearing now and then.  A couple weeks ago, there was a pretty decent hatch of big brown drakes, so I tried the hopper with a good imitation brown drake.  But only tiny trout were taking the drakes and nothing was taking the hopper.

Foam hoppers are big out here, but the trout are quick to get used to seeing them and start avoiding them.  I prefer a Parachute Hopper or even an old school Joe's Hopper.  And for the dropper nymph if that's the way I want to go, I really like a small (size 16) beadhead soft hackle.

Earlier this summer, I started using a larger soft hackle as a dropper fly off a streamer.  I mostly use my own rabbit hair streamers, and I had the idea with murky water to use the streamer slightly like a big nymph, dead drifting it and the soft hackle beneath a Thingamabobber for a bit, and then stripping it in.  It worked the first time I tried it to the tune of a 22 inch and a 19 inch brown, so I used it a couple other days with excellent results as well.  Most of the bigger fish took the streamer when I'd begin to strip it, but I caught plenty of smaller fish on the soft hackle dead drifting.

[fishinwrench]

@Al Agnew  Why don't ya fish a fluke or wacky worm dropper off your Smallie baits ?   😅

[Skeeter ZX190]

I don't claim to know much about fly fishing but this hopper pattern worked well with a dropper on my recent trip to the Black Hills.  It's called a Top Shelf Hopper.  

 

 

[tjm]

At first glance at that picture, I thought "Hippy Stomper", which I guess if I was going to do the suspension thing might be my first choice, but they aren't quite the same

http://www.andrewgrillosflyfishing.com/tying-the-hippie-stomper/