You know how fly fishing is all about using a fake bug to trick an animal that  looks at real bugs all day every day?

Why not up the difficulty and use a dry fly? I mean, trout primarily eat things that  literally drift right into their mouths. There are times when they exert extra effort to look up, swim up, and eat a dry fly. But they come few and far between, relatively speaking.

It is pretty romantic, so let’s go for it.

Yeah… big, bushy dry flies are nice.  Smaller increases the degree of difficulty. Eighteens are good, but twenties are better.  They give you less margin for error on the drift. A fluffy dry can drag for a moment, and the surface tension allows a lifelike twitch. Little ones need a  lot more attention. Otherwise the fish will know something is up.

A smaller fly means a smaller hook. A smaller hook means a smaller hook eye. A smaller hook eye means smaller tippet. Smaller tippet means a delicate leader-to-tippet knot, a carefully tied and tightened leader-to-fly knot, and a light touch while fishing. Well first, you have to thread it through the eye of the hook.

Now just put it in front of the fish.

Not too close, because the trout will spook.

Not too far away, because the fly will drag… and the trout will spook.

Not too hard, because the line will smack the water and the trout will spook.

There is basically a pizza pan-sized spot a few yards in front of the fish that you’re looking to put the fly in. Well, wait until the timing is right. Trout rise to a rhythm, you know?

Stop.

You’ve got to do this at  dusk. Night, really, seeing as that is when the bugs are hatching.

So everything we’ve gone over before is still applicable… things are just darker, and harder to see. That only takes the primary sense used while fly fishing off the board. No problem.

Now you just have to kind of feel where you should be casting, assuming the sound of the rise is the same fish that made the ripples that you can see in the glare from the moon. Then just set the hook. Maybe you feel something. Maybe you hear something. Maybe you see something. (Smell and taste are probably just as effective, if I’m being honest.)  Basically, if anything happens, set the hook. There’s going to be a lot of hook-setting, and not a lot of trout-hooking.

Until you hook a trout.

Surprisingly, everything is pretty easy then. Grab the line, pull it in, and get it in the net. That is all there is to it. Day, night, light, dark – it doesn’t matter.

Just catch the fish.

Maybe your dropper fly will get hung up in your net. Chances are you’ll have to untangle something. Perhaps your sleeve will get wet. That is just the cost of fly fishing at night.

After all, you just used a fake bug to trick an animal that  looks at real bugs all day every day. In the dark.

Good job.