When one is fishing dry flies in the small 18 to 24 sizes it is often very difficult to discern why the trout refuse to take our flies…even when we are reasonably sure we are accurately matching the hatch. The leader may be the reason the trout are refusing the flies. Even though one is using the correct 7X or 8X tippet there is one more very important factor that must be considered to assure that ones fly is drifting naturally when it is seen by the trout. A leader tippet that is drifting even as little as one forth on an inch below the surface of the stream can produce an undesirable natural drag on our fly. In order to prevent this problem I always dress my whole leader with a dry fly floatant cream every half hour when I’m fishing these small drys.
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