Dead drifts and mending | Hatch Magazine

Trout are accustomed to holding in place and letting the river currents deliver food to them, and the vast majority of the aquatic insects trout eat are simply drifting–not swimming or skittering across the surface. As a result, trout are wary of anything that moves unnaturally, even if it looks like food. This is why when you are casting a dry fly or a nymph, your goal is to achieve a “dead drift,” in which you fly acts as though it isn’t connected to anything. 

The main challenge for the angler is that the fly is, in fact, attached to the tippet, leader, and fly line—all of which are subject to the forces of current. The surface of a river is made up of many different currents. There’s fast water in the main channel; slower water flats, seams, or buffers; and even dead water behind midstream boulders. If you cast a fly line across a river and do nothing, the various currents push on your line at different rates. You can tell this is happening because the line “bellies” or gets all squiggly. When the current pushes on the fly line or monofilament on the water, this causes the fly to drag across the surface, leaving a little wake. This problem is called, aptly enough, “drag.”

To catch fish consistently with a fly rod, you’ve got to be able to control how your fly and your fly line are affected by a river’s various currents. The way to combat drag is by “mending” your line–that is, counteracting the effects of drag-causing currents by moving the line after it’s on the water. Mending is one of the least-understood aspects of fly fishing: many anglers are aware that mending is important, but they don’t really understand why. Mastering the mend requires good technique, as well as an understanding of river hydraulics and how they affect your line.

The next time you look at the surface of a river, notice that the current is not uniform from bank to bank; different parts of the river move faster or slower than others. Problems arise for fly fishermen when they have to cast across currents of different speeds. For instance, the current near the bank is usually slower than that in the middle of the river, so if you want to cast to the opposite bank from where you’re standing, your line will lie across the faster current, while your fly sits in the slower current. Because the fast current will take your fly line downstream ahead of the fly, the line will drag the fly behind it, creating a wake and ruining the dead drift. However, if you can arrange it so the line starts upstream of the fly, the fly will float naturally for as long as it takes the fly line to catch up to and then pass the fly. This is where the basic upstream mend comes in handy.

To make an upstream mend: 1. Start with your rod tip low. 2. Make an upstream arc with your rod tip to get the bellied part of the line into the air. 3. Move just the line, leaving the leader on the water. 4. The line should end up upstream from your fly (photo: Charles Hildick-Smith).

Mending Mechanics

When you cast across a fast current, the force of the water pushes the middle of your fly line downstream ahead of the fly. In this case, you need to make an upstream mend. To accomplish this, you’ve got to reposition that portion of your line upstream of your fly. But getting your line to move up and down the river is a little trickier than it sounds; most beginners end up dragging their flies underwater during the mend. Instead of dragging your line across the water, you must lift the part of the fly line that you want to mend off the water, leaving the unmended portion of the line on the water. There are five keys to a good mend:

1. Mend as soon as the fly touches down, before the line has time to bond to the water’s surface. This will help you avoid dragging your fly under.
2. Begin the mend with your rod tip close to the surface of the water. If you have a bunch of slack hanging from your rod tip, you’ll end up moving the slack, rather than the line on the water. You may have to make a couple of quick strips to pick up this slack before you mend.
3. The hinging point, where the mended line meets the unmended line, should occur at the seam between the different speed currents. If you don’t mend enough line, the current will cause the line to drag the fly; if you mend too much line, you can accidentally pull your fly out of the trout’s feeding lane.
4. Lift your rod tip high, even over your head, during the mend. This will allow you to pick up more line and to avoid dragging the line across the water.
5. Mend with authority. A half-hearted mend rarely moves enough line. You’ll probably over-mend the first few times — accidentally throwing your fly upstream with the line — but with some practice, you’ll learn just how much power is needed to move the line you want to move without disturbing the fly.

You can also make an aerial mend, using the reach cast to reposition your line before it lands on the water. This comes in handy when you’re casting across a uniform current, and it’s actually easier to accomplish than the standard mend. Once you’ve got the hang of the reach cast, it will become second nature to you, and you’ll hardly have to think about it.

To make a reach cast: 1. Cast toward your target as you normally would. 2. Allow the line to straighten out in front of you. 3. Before the line starts to fall, reach your rod tip upstream. 4. Allow the line to fall diagonally across the faster current (photo: Charles Hildick-Smith).

With a reach cast, you reposition your rod tip upstream or downstream at the end of the presentation cast. This causes the line to lie diagonally across the current. Here’s how you do it: First, wait until the forward cast is complete before you move the rod upstream or downstream. Otherwise, your accuracy will suffer. Second, allow some of the slack in your line hand to slide upward through the guides as you move the rod, which will keep you from accidentally jerking the fly backward and out of the fish’s strike zone. If you’ve laid the line on the water properly, you’ll get a long dead drift, which means that you have a better chance of catching fish.

Of course, the easiest mend is no mend at all. In many situations, you can avoid mending by holding the line off the water, using the length of your fly rod to reach over the difficult current. You can then achieve a good dead drift by following the fly with the tip of the rod. This technique is especially useful on smaller streams and in situations where you can get close to the fish without spooking it. Another option is to change your casting position to make the mend easier or unnecessary

Sometimes, your fly travels faster than your line, such in this case where there’s slow water in front of the angler. In this case, you’ll need to make a downstream mend to avoid dragging your fly (photo: Charles Hildick-Smith).

Which Mend?

The upstream mend is only one kind of mend. Different current conditions call for different kinds of mends. For instance, if the fly is moving faster than the line, you must mend downstream. In more complex situations, you may have to mend a couple times or mend different parts of the line in different directions. The important thing to remember is that you want your mend to do the opposite of what the current does to your fly line.

The easiest way to determine which mends you’ll have to make is to first not mend at all. Cast your line onto the water and watch to see how the current affects the line. If the line races ahead of the fly, creating a downstream belly, you know that you need to throw an upstream mend. A downstream mend is for the opposite situation, in which you cast across slow current into faster water. In this case, the slow water is holding the line back, so your fly can’t move as fast as the current lane it’s in. This causes the fly to drag like it’s at the end of a leash. If the line makes an “S” shape—with part of the line nearest you racing ahead and the part closer to the fly lagging behind—you know that you need to mend first downstream, then mend just half the line upstream. (This is a more advanced skill.)

Once you get used to this idea, you’ll be able to read the water and figure out which mends are necessary before you cast. There are no set rules as to how many mends, and in which direction, you can make during a single drift — as long as you don’t drag the fly across the water. An understanding of why you need to mend and how mending helps you achieve a dead drift makes the practice of mending a lot easier.

“Dead drifts and mending” is an excerpt from the new book, the Orvis Quick-Start Guide to Fly Fishing, by Phil Monahan and Tom Rosenbauer. The book is billed as “the only book a first-time angler needs to go from zero to catching fish in no time at all,” offering a “just-the-basics approach will teach you what makes fly-fishing so special, exactly what tackle and gear you need for any given fishing situation, how to cast a fly rod, and fundamental fly-fishing techniques that catch fish.” The book is available now from Amazon and wherever books are sold.