Long ago, the Troutbitten crew had a private forum where we exchanged ideas and stories every day. At the heart of those stories were the fishing reports. We fished hard, and we fished often. Those reports contained the details. Most times, it was nothing but the conditions, the tactics, the flies and an account of our success or failure. But what did we learn? That was always the question. Fishing Reports is now a series at Troutbitten . . .

The Setup

I’ve fished dry flies only, all summer long. I’ve been a dry-or-die guy, without any pretense or any “I’m doing something better than you” attitude. I just wanted to fish dries and nothing else, so I did. I think my decision, if you can call it that, was a holdover, or it was some stubborn longing for the way things were a year before, when the seventeen-year cicadas made the decision for me. A year ago, I was fishing one fly pattern only. It looked like a floating cicada, and it was all I needed.

I fish dries as a first option every summer. But this summer I took all the underwater patterns out of my pack. I simplified, and it was fun. Until, all of the sudden . . . it wasn’t.

VIDEO: Troutbitten | Fish and Film – Dry or Die
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Fish and Film – Post Cicada Blues

The Fishing

(August 24, 2026)

Thoughts of nymphs and streamers have been creeping in for the last week or two, and this morning I added a slim fly box of select nymphs and a dozen streamers in a foam holder — ya know, just in case. I’d already tripped the mental switch.

A couple hours into the morning, I hadn’t seen a single rise, and I’d had no response to the four different dry flies I’d offered the trout.

I’ll mention that the tan caddis on my favorite water — a summer morning staple for so many years — seems to be absent year. I’m not sure why, and I don’t want to be concerned about it yet. Could the exponential abundance of the Grannoms be taking over the summer caddis real estate on river rocks? I’m not an entomologist. I can just tell you that the tan caddis of summer mornings had trout looking up, in the past. And if I had to pin the meager results of my dry or die summer on one thing, that’s my choice.

So at a favorite bankside slot that has given up a lot of trout for me in the past, I didn’t even think much about it, when I clipped off the Harvey dry leader and peeled off a Standard Mono Rig from its spool for the first time since early June. I gave it a good stretch to release any coiled memory and started casting with a light, #16 stonefly.

It was wonderful.

I’ve fished a lot this summer, and I’ve done it in many different ways for multiple species, for largemouth in ponds, and for fluke in the surf, for river smallmouth in a kayak. And I fished for musky with lures the size of the brook trout I caught yesterday. It’s all tied together, and I learn from every deviation against the fly rod or from my beloved wild trout. That knowledge renews what was old or commonplace, so the whole morning of fishing with a single, light nymph on a Standard Mono Rig was fresh — because I’d gained novel experiences that carried over to these familiar waters.

Trout ate nymphs on the drop. They responded well when the fly was above them. And if I let the nymph gain the bottom and tick the rocks, I rarely gained a response. The trout’s focus was up, and meeting them on their own terms meant slowing the my drop rate of my nymph.

Most often, I prefer to a little more weight than a little less. Trout around here respond to nymphs drifted well in the strike zone. So drop time is often wasted time. Get the flies down and drift them through — that’s my baseline. But another guiding principle for me is what I call a top-down approach. So I don’t force the strike zone concept, just because it’s what I expect. For the first drift or two in a new run, I deliberately keep the nymph above the trout. Today, the trout agreed quickly — as the nymph dropped.

Having the chance to really figure something out might be my favorite thing about fishing. And for that, I need response from the fish. I need repeated moments of predicting the outcome and it actually happening. The resulting satisfaction comes not from fish in the net. It’s more about learning. When the act of fishing becomes something I can really put my finger on to say “Here’s how they’re eating,” I can take that experience into the future, pulling it out to solve a mystery a decade later.

The trout hit where they should and how they should, until it became nearly predictable. The casting felt effortless . . . and it felt like home. Anyone who thinks nymphing is inelegant or clunky has not fished this way.

This was what I call tracking, at its finest. Once I realized how and where trout wanted to eat, my goal was to let a light nymph flutter to the bottom slowly, as it drifted along with the current. And I tried to have as little influence over the fly as possible. I cast well beyond the Golden Ratio, because I wanted longer rides, so on many drifts, I floated the sighter for the first five to fifteen feet, before peeling the sighter from the water to finish the drift on a pure tight line.

Because trout were eating on the drop, the takes were quickly detected, and the fishing was almost easy. Cast, recover slack, drift, look for a reason to set the hook. Repeat.

READ: Troutbitten | Three Ways to Dead Drift Nymphs – Bottom Bounce, Strike Zone, Tracking

Stats

(For these reports, I usually have hard numbers. But today was simply more relaxed.)

Time: About four hours.

Caught: About twenty-five.

Lost/Missed: About ten more.

Flies Eaten: #16 BH Stonefly, #18 BH Pheasant Tail, #12 Green Weenie

Leader: Troutbitten Standard Mono Rig (20 lb butt section)

Terminal Tippet: 4X

Weather: Solidly cloudy. 68 degrees. Pressure 28.57 Hg and rising. Light rain for about fifteen minutes.

Water: Good flows for summer, but a little low for our area right now.

Bugs: Almost nothing. A few BWO’s through the morning, with spinners in the air before I left.

Thoughts

I missed the underwater game in the last few weeks. It’s good to put aside something you love for a while. It’s good to follow tangents and learn skills that carry over. It’s good to go fishing, and it’s good to be restricted to a set of flies or tactics. But for me, versatility is a satisfaction like none other.

Fish hard, friends.

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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com