3 Reasons You’re Not Catching Fish When Euro Nymphing
With Tips to Fix Them
Don’t listen when people tell you euro nymphing is easier than other techniques of fly fishing. As with any technique, there is a beginner version that just requires the minimal amount of applied skill to work, but as you progress and learn, there are many more advanced skills within each technique. Euro nymphing is no different and if you’ve tried it before and found some frustration with it, here’s 3 reasons you may not be catching fish when euro nymphing.
1- You’re not fishing the right depth
You’re Not Using Your Euro Nymph Super Powers Right
One of the many benefits of euro nymphing is your ability to set your own depth. While traditional nymphing uses an indicator (that often kinks your line), euro nymphing doesn’t have one.
For an indicator nymphing angler, you’ll need to bring your line in, adjust the depth, hopefully not kink your leader, and then recast. You’ll have to do that every time you want to adjust your depth even an inch.
For the euro nymphing angler, you just raise or lower your rod tip. You don’t even have to stop your drift AND you can adjust your depth multiple times DURING a drift (you’re mind should be blown at this point).
The problem is as most of us learned traditional nymphing with an indicator first, we don’t take proper advantage of this new ability in euro nymphing. We think we’re getting deep enough cause of how much tippet we added to our rig, but we aren’t catching fish.
A good standard for the indicator-free euro style is to keep lowering your rod tip slowly during the first drift in a new spot until you can feel the tick-tick-tick of your flies tickling the riverbed, then stop, and raise your rod tip about 3 inches, or until you stop feeling the bottom. Mark that height using your sighter line so you know next time how deep to let the drift fall. This will help you get in the best depth for most occasions. If after 5-10 drifts at that depth don’t produce any fish, come up another 6 inches and repeat. This helps you work from the most likely depth trout will feed at (bottom of the river where its best conditions for trout) and work your way up in case fish are feeding mid or upper column.
Use that new ability to adjust your depth according to the drift and where you are in the river and you’ll remove the habit we all had from our previous indicator days on the water.
2 – You’re not using the right flies
There’s More to Fly Selection Than Entomology
This isn’t a knock on your entomology related fly selection (though if you need help with it, we have a great course on that entire subject here), this is a knock that you aren’t optimizing your fly selection now that you’re a euro angler. While these tips I’m about to provide you apply to all nymphing, they are really dialed in with euro nymphing. This is a big reason as to why we not only cover this as a full lesson in our online euro nymphing course, but is a primary benefit of the euro nymphing technique.
If you are only choosing a fly because of what it imitates, you’re missing out on the other factors for fly selection when it comes to euro nymphs. Euro nymphs also have weight and profile to consider. The typical euro nymph is not only often tied with different colors and sizes, but also different weights and different variations to adapt its profile.
When you start to look at a fly for its weight (beadhead size, wire wraps, underwraps etc) you can see that it may not be that the fly you have on isn’t imitating insects that trout are eating, it’s the weight of the fly that is preventing you from getting where the fish are (beadhead isn’t heavy enough) or preventing you from getting a soft presentation (you were fishing too much weight when you should be fishing less)
The same is true for the profile of the fly (the shape and material of the fly). If you aren’t considering how thick or slim a fly is tied and how that will affect its sink rate, you aren’t analyzing your fly selection correctly.
This is a big topic to cover here, so for now simply knowing that these should be factors in your fly selection will help you understand the possibilities. If you want to complete your knowledge gap here, you should check out either our modern nymph flies course or full euro nymphing course. Our modern nymphs flies course is a deep dive on all things fly selection related to euro nymphing and is an incredible course. The full euro nymphing course covers fly selection essentials and then covers the complete technique of euro nymphing so you’ll be ready for anything.
3 – You have too much slack in your line
Avoid slack at all costs
This one is an all-too-common occurrence with beginner to intermediate anglers. When slack is introduced into your drift, you are unable to detect a strike. That is why euro nymphing is referred to as a tightline technique. It requires you to have a direct connection to your flies, because without it, you can not detect a strike and your only hope is for the trout to hook itself.
Signs you have slack in your line are really only visible from your leader above the water. If it is bowed in any direction or has piled up on the surface, you have slack in your line. In addition, if you have sag in your leader from in between your reel and your first eyelit in your rod, then you have slack in your line. While sag and slack are never 100% preventable, getting 95% of it out is almost always possible. If any of this is present in your presentation you may actually be getting a lot of strikes but you’re just missing them! Skip the FOMO and eliminate slack. The fastest way to lose slack, is to raise your rod tip a little higher and use the correct leader length. Standard fly line is made for casting and isn’t really necessary in euro nymphing. A proper leader length means you have a lighter line coming out of your reel then you would normal fly line. The weight is what makes the sag, so fix the weight and you’ve fixed the sag. Keeping your rod tip a little higher will improve your tightline connection as well. Its just a muscle memory thing you’ll need to learn and master on the river.
There are many other options and techniques as well to reduce drag and improve your euro drift that we cover over 2 lesson in our course. If you find yourself excited and ready to take your euro nymphing to an advanced level, you are going to want to not only take our course, but also get the top books and videos online and find a friend who knows the technique and practice it with them on the river. A combination of all of these is the best way to master this technique that catches more fish than you ever thought possible.
Conclusion
Focus on avoiding these 3 common mistakes and you’ll be catching more fish than ever before. It will help you get a real feel for this new and epic technique. I’ve said it before and I wil again: euro nymphing should be an essential technique for every angler looking to catch fish in any conditions and get the most out of their fishing days. Keep investing into your education and above all, get out and practice! Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed our article.
Want to Learn More?
We’ve teamed up with James Carlin to produce an amazing euro nymphing course to teach you everything you need to know about these incredible technique.
Euro Nymphing Course
Catch More Fish Than You Thought Possible
Lifetime Access: $199
Fully Online | Self Paced | Lifetime Access
7 Lessons | 90+ Pages | 20 Videos | Pics | Diagrams & More
What You’ll Get In This Course
- 7 Lessons that teach the entire euro nymph technique
- Perfect for beginner to intermediate skill levels
- Catch more fish than ever thought possible
- Get unlimited access, take as many times as you want
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Lifetime Access: $199
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I had a chance last week to apply the information provided in the excellent “Euro Nymph“ course taught by James Carlin and yourself. The results were spectacular!!!
I fished a small river (large stream) that I had previously fished about a dozen times. I started the day at a run which I suspected contained trout but in a dozen outings, I had never caught a fish in that run. Within 3 minutes, I had landed (and released) 4 fish, one of which was a nice size rainbow, a species I had never caught in that river! This sort of success continued up the river: run, pool, bucket, or riffle. I caught 5 good sized fish in the last large “bucket” which has never happened to me before!!!
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Lesson 1
Length: 13 Pages + Videos
The Benefits of Euro Nymphing
The first step in understanding a new technique is to learn why it is so effective, and why using a strike indicator is really hurting your ability to catch more fish.
We cover the 7 disadvantages of indicator nymphing and then describe why euro nymphing solves these so elegantly. We lastly address common problems encountered while fishing and how euro nymphing turns them into advantages.
All Thing Euro Gear
In this lesson, we discuss the wide array of euro nymphing gear to help you understand what new gear you need, and the benefits that this gear brings.
We also provide a priority checklist that helps you with the essential gear, and utilizing your existing gear.
Lesson 2
Length: 20 Pages + Videos
Lesson 3
Length: 10 Pages + Videos
Learn the Top Euro Casting Techniques
Casting is remarkably different with euro nymphing. We will be covering all the top 4 euro cast techniques as well as discuss the concepts behind the casts to help you make successful and accurate casts. We include instructional videos on these top 4 casts to really help you learn these techniques.
The Drift
You cast for show, but you drift for dough…errr trout.
In this lesson, we provide written and video instruction as well as a ton of images to teach you the 3 essential drift techniques when euro nymphing. With these techniques you will have complete control over your nymphs in the river allowing you to catch even more fish than you ever thought possible.
Lesson 4
Length: 17 Pages + Videos
Lesson 5
Length: 10 Pages + Videos
Hacking the Learning Curve
Lessons 1 – 4 teach you waht you need to know, but lesson 5 simplifies and streamlines the process allowing you to learn faster. We discuss the most common struggles with euro nymphing and show you how to resolve them
FLY SELECTION
While we could do an entire course along on this topic (oh wait we did), we go over all the top patterns and their composition to understand why flies are so effective.
We’ll also cover what to do when you’re not catching fish and strategic adjustments throughout the day based on euro nymph knowledge.
Lesson 6
Length: 18 Pages + Videos
Lesson 7
Length: Ongoing Pages + Videos
Ongoing Tips and Tricks Section
This technique is always progressing, so we dedicated an entire lesson on tips and tricks to improve. This will get updated all the time with additional questions answered and tips provided. Check back often on here and ask questions to get them answered and added to this lesson
What’s Holding You Back?
This course will teach you the most effective way to catch trout that has ever been invented. We are genuinely excited to teach you this amazing new skill and look forward to having you in our community!
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