On a recent exploration of the information super highway in search of road kill suitable for the purpose of tying up North Country Spiders I decided to frequent the welcoming webspace of Fishing with Style that is hosted and run by my friend Stephen Cheetham and his wife Christine.
I must say to start with that I didn’t have Steve down for the type but It seems that together the two of them have recently being getting busy with the home videos on an evening! Having watched the action and some shaky camerawork 2 minutes and 17 seconds into the footage it’s safe to say that this star has being taking lessons from the darker corners of the North East as he sets too with the monofilament and knots…
Innuendos aside Steve is a big advocate of fishing North Country Spiders in the traditional manner so I was a little surprised to see him discussing a technique for fishing a team of three spiders on camera without the need for droppers! The technique which involves substituting the usual 7 foot tapered leader with droppers for a 10 to 12 foot piece of monofilament originates from those anglers fishing the Tees catchment area and is intended to negate the tangles that can sometimes occur with droppers whilst fishing in fast flowing water.
They say that it is important to try anything once so I went one better on this and took a leaf out of Mae West’s book with the view that I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it and three times to make sure, so without further ado here are my main thoughts on this different take of leader makeup for spider fishing.
First and foremost, if you are going to employ this method then it is best to rig the flies and monofilament before you set off, I would suggest that you tie up several of these leaders incorporating spiders you frequently have the most success with for the time of year and potential river conditions you will face. I admit that this method of preparation involves making some broad brush assumptions beforehand, but having attempted to tie this rig myself in a light breeze bank side I would suggest otherwise!
Having endeavoured to fish this setup in fast flowing water and slow moving pools alike to see how it fairs in a wide variety of situations in lieu of a shorter leader and droppers, the results I can say were mixed. The flies in all situations behave correctly in the water imitating the nymphal shuck much as they would if tied to a dropper, with the one exception that they track in a more linear fashion due to the direct attachment as opposed to the slightly less restricted movement that a dropper would permit.
Takes in fast flowing water are no different, nor is the method of fishing, but I have found that in slower moving water it helps to have the angle of the rod raised somewhat higher than usual with the length of line outside of the rod tip shorter due mainly to the increased length of the leader being fished and the possibility of missing a take.
Notwithstanding these observations, the setup in the grander scheme of things can work beautifully, I just aren’t keen on directly attaching the flies to the monofilament one after another. I feel that droppers offer me greater flexibility and if it means having to untangle the dropper from the main leader body every once in a while then I’m ok with that.
Each to their own eh?!?
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