Fly fishing the Mono Rig Q & A — Lines, Rigging and the Skeptics

This winter I’ll begin writing a book about the Mono Rig, compiling much of the material written here on Troutbitten, organizing it into a cohesive presentation and filling in the gaps. As I look ahead to that writing, I’ve been reading back through all the questions I’ve received about the Mono Rig. Many of the same queries pop up time and again.

This short series of articles separates those common questions into groups. All of these questions and answers will eventually make their way to a full FAQ section on the Mono Rig page.

This first article is about lines, rigging and skeptics: What lines? How long? How to change? And what should all this really be called anyway? . . .

Tight Lining — Not All That Tight

There are times for constant contact. There are windy days and fast water pockets that call for a little extra weight and a drift speed that keeps your rod tip tight to the flies.

But on most days, the best tight line presentations are not about feeling the action of the fly or the weight on the bottom. It’s not about a perfect tight line with the rig. Rather, it’s about slipping in and out of contact with the fly on a small scale — staying somewhere between tightline and slackline — that’s where the magic lies.

Nymphing: Tight Line vs Indicator

I’ve watched a lot of anglers fish nymphs. Most of them pick up at least a few trout, and some guys are like a vacuum cleaner. But I like to watch how differently everyone approaches the game. It’s curious to see so much variation, because essentially we’re all striving for the same thing — we want a drift that looks a lot like what the natural bugs are doing down there. (And yeah, usually that’s a dead drift.) But while the refinements and nuances between anglers are plenty, I think we can fairly group all approaches for dead drifting nymphs into two camps: tight line or indicator nymphing styles. The next question: Which one is better?

Of course, the merits of each method have been and will be argued for decades. But it really comes down to this: Which one puts more trout in the net?

The Trouble With Tenkara — And Why You Don’t Need It

The advantages of a Tenkara presentation are not exclusive or unique to Tenkara itself, and in fact, the same benefits are achieved just as well — and often better — with a long fly rod and (gasp) a reel.

I bought a Tenkara rod for my young boys a few years ago, because the longer a rod is, the more control the boys have over a drift. And the lighter a rod is, the easier it is for their small arms to cast. Long and light Tenkara rods flex easily, allowing them to load with minimal effort. That's great for both kids and adults.

I’ve used the boys’ Tenkara rod extensively — long enough to understand exactly what I don’t like about Tenkara and to understand that a fisherman can achieve the same things with a standard, long leader (long Mono Rig) setup.

Modern Nymphing Elevated — More of What’s Possible with a Mono Rig

Devin Olsen and Lance Egan have released Modern Nymphing Elevated. It’s a follow up to their excellent video from a couple years back, Modern Nymphing.

The subtitle for the latest video is “Beyond the Basics”, and that’s a good way to look at it. Elevated jumps right into the deep end from the beginning, so without taking a look at the first Modern Nymphing video (rom 2016) or without a very firm grasp of long leader techniques to begin with, the viewer may be a little lost. Elevated is more of an addendum — like added chapters to a book — than a standalone work. There’s no recap of the basics and no rehashing of leader formulas . Instead, Elevated is two hours of video dedicated to the nuances of long leader fly fishing. And that’s a good thing.

Elevated covers better casting, common drift mistakes, arm and rod positioning, managing the line and leader, sighter angles, strike detection, drift principles, stream positioning, approach, and many other in-depth elements that simply catch more fish.

Modern Nymphing Elevated begins to cover a lot of the variations to a Mono Rig that are possible.