What Fly to Use When Nothing Is Hatching

How to choose a trout fly when you see no hatch and no rising fish: what to check first, which nymph to start with, and what to change next.

From the book Fly Fishing for Nerds — $9.74 →

A quiet surface is an observation. It means you cannot match a hatch you have not seen. You can still test one idea: if the fish are eating, they are eating under the surface, and one general nymph at one depth is a fair first try.

1. Confirm the quiet before you open the box

Watch the next piece of water for a couple of minutes. A single soft rise changes the problem. So does a trickle of insects on the film, bugs in the air, or empty shucks on the rocks. Sweep a hat through the grass at the edge, or look in the film against the light. If you catch something, match its size before you worry about its name. Size, then shape, then color.

If none of that is there, say so: no rises, no insects in sight. You are searching. The fly is a stand-in for something small that lives in this river, held at a depth you can revise. Keep the claim small enough to test. Fewer signals, same loop: observe, hypothesize, test.

2. Start with one nymph

A Pheasant Tail around size 16 is a sound first fly on ordinary trout water. It is slim, dull, and close to a mayfly nymph, so the question you are asking is whether anything wants a small subsurface fly in this lane. If your box is the starter set — Pheasant Tail, Parachute Adams, Elk Hair Caddis, Woolly Bugger — tie on the Pheasant Tail. Those four are on the gear page. The first-rod guide is why the set is that short.

Fish it on an indicator rig, at one depth, through one lane you already chose while reading the water. The Adams and the Elk Hair Caddis stay in the box until you see a reason to fish on top: a rise, a bug on the water, or a bank where grasshoppers or ants are visible and the holding water is tight to that edge. A hopper you can see in the grass is an observation. A hopper tied on because the month sounds right is a guess you have not checked.

3. Change depth before you change the fly

A handful of clean drifts tells you about that fly at that depth. If they were honest and empty, go deeper when the fly never ticked bottom in water that should hold a fish. Come up when you snag on every pass. Depth is the adjustment people skip while they rotate patterns.

Change the pattern only after the depth looks right.

• Size first. Smaller when the water is low and clear. Larger when it is high, stained, or the slot is big enough that a tiny fly disappears in it. A new hook size needs a new tippet match. Hook size divided by 3 is the rule on the tippet size guide.
• Shape second. A slim Pheasant Tail and a bushier nymph, such as a Hare's Ear, are different profiles. Swap one and repeat the same drifts.
• A streamer on its own pass. A Woolly Bugger along a bank, or through a deep slot, asks whether anything will move. In high, colored water, that pass along the bank is often the better opening test. Swing it or strip it short, and keep those casts separate from the dead drifts.

Color is a late adjustment. Until you have a natural insect in hand, brown versus olive is a small change. Make it by itself, or skip it. In cold water, when fish are not chasing, stay with the small nymph, fished deeper and slower, and let the drift finish.

4. Treat a bright fly as a second hypothesis

A nymph with a little flash, such as a Copper John, is the guess that a fish will notice a brighter fly sooner than a closer copy. It belongs after the plain nymph has had a clean trial, especially when the water is stained. If it works, write down the water color. If it does not, you have finished two tests on that lane. The fish may be somewhere else. That is still a result.

5. Move while you still know what you tested

Three trials on one lane are enough: the first depth, a depth change, then one pattern change or a move. Emptying the box on a single rock leaves you unable to say which change mattered. Often the better change is a new lane: the next seam, the next pocket, or the next tailout.

If fish start to rise while you are nymphing, stop the search. Catch an insect if you can, match the size, and switch to a dry fly or a short nymph under a dry. The dry-dropper guide is that short nymph under a dry: what to tie, and how long the dropper can be before the dry skates. The dry-or-nymph guide is the choice that comes first: a bubble, a splash, or a flash. The observation changed. The note should say so.

6. Write the fly down

One line: pattern, size, depth guess, lane, result. After a few trips the note is more useful than another row in the box. You will see whether you fish the same fly in every kind of water, or whether fish show up only after the fly is actually down.

The longer version of this decision — food, depth, and the same test loop — is in Fly Fishing for Nerds: A Data-Driven Guide to Finding, Hooking, and Landing Trout. Readers can take 25% off ($9.74) with code NERDS25 at https://leanpub.com/flyfishingfornerdsadata-drivenguidetofindingfishfly-fishing-for-nerds/c/NERDS25.

The Riverbank Checklist is the one-page routine to run before you tie anything on.