Written by: Cliff Weisse, Three Rivers Ranch
The common method of attaching the dropper tippet to the bend of the hook in front, poses some problems.
Illustrations by Cliff Weisse
Dropper tippets are typically tied off the bend of the hook. This is true whether you’re fishing multiple nymphs or dry flies, or a combination of a dry fly with a nymph dropper. So the first fly in line, the one tied to the end of the leader, has a tippet tied onto its bend that leads to the second fly. I’ve even seen three or more flies rigged this way in sequence, with each fly attached to a tippet which is tied onto the bend of the hook on the preceding fly.
Here’s the problem. When a fish is hooked on the first fly, or any fly except the last one, it’s not unusual for the dropper fly to become snagged on something, especially with larger fish that you can’t steer away from obstacles. This results in the hook being pulled out of the mouth of the fish. You hook the fish, fight it for a while, then end up snagged on the bottom with no fish on the line. If you fish droppers much, you’ve had this happen. It’s because the dropper tippet is attached to the bend of the hook so, when the dropper fly gets hung on something like a rock, it pulls the hook out as efficiently as grabbing the bend of the hook with your forceps. This is especially true with barbless hooks. (And you should be fishing barbless because there’s no good reason for fishing with barbed hooks.) Fortunately solving this problem is easy: Simply attach the dropper tippet to the eye of the hook.
