A buddy of mine taught me years ago the best trick to fooling weary trout on a clear water river. He proved it to me by catching many trout and dropping his strike indicator 2 feet up river before the fish and still hooking up. Since then I have used these and caught more Salmon and Steelhead than other fisherman on the rivers I fish. The neat thing about using the color white as a strike indicator is that it blends in with the clouds above. Total camo! Now we hit up every store and pick out every white thingamabobber out of the jar we can find. If I ever get to a store and don't see any white ones in the jar then I always ask if a guy named Stewie came in and bought them all lol! You put them on your leader by folding your leader and looping it over the ball. They also have ones with stop plugs for light leaders. They are really easy to adjust for water depth too. I know these are not new to a lot of you fly fisherman out there but wanted to pass on the trick of using white ones. Hope this helps you catch that hold over you have been eyeing that always gets spooked and runs away. Back home we have a lot of native brookies that are smart as hell and really hard to catch.

Tight lines,

Ricky V.

http://westwaterproducts.com/thingamabobber.html



With the stopper plug.

ps

Lmao. You need a strike indicator most places I fish. I fished for a very long time without them but when you need to keep a very long drift especially when spey casting for steelhead then you need a strike indicator. High sticking for a drift just doesn't cut it.

Tight lines,

Ricky V.

I agree. Its one of the best indicators out there! Just place it about 1.5x the depth you are nymphing. Thanks for sharing the info for those that haven't tried it yet.

Yah they work good. We have rivers that are really wide where you need to use them and rivers with all kinds of trees and debris on the bottom of them. We also use them for Salmon and Steelhead on large rivers when spey casting. Get drifts out 100 feet and can still see them.

Tight lines,

Ricky V.

Thingamabobbers work great in certain situations...but, if it's clear, low water, which seems to be the case more often than not lately, I prefer those foam stick on indicators in white. Looks almost more like a bubble in the water. I usually double them up to make it easier to see. They cast much easier than the Thingamabobbers and are super stealthy.

Pinch ons.

For spooky fish I nix the indicator and will fish a big dry fly typically.

And if the spooky fish isn't eating on top?

I have found that pink or yellow marshmallows with an embedded hook works quite well as a strike indicator. They sell the little rigs in most bait shops.

Minnows work better than marshmallows. IMO.

We use the big dry fly as the indicator, not the go to fly. Midges/Nymphs dropped below the dry are the go to flies

But marshmallows are hard to cast with a fly rods. They keep coming off during the backcast...

Gee, folks, what are we supposed to do when it's the sheriff that is causing problems around here?????

This. I typically will fish a big CDC dry that I tie. I can easily drop two tungsten nymphs under it and still have it floating high. You'd be surprised by the number of fish that will eat the dry even without any surface feeding activity.

Heh, probably about as many that decide to strike my bright orange football indicator. /frustation