Rising trout, tie on a dry or keep to the subsurface

[Troutman Clay]

Hey everyone, when your out on the lake this time of year and you see fish rising continuously, do you tie on your favorite dry and give er' a whirl, or do you stick with your wooly bugger and sprats?

[count]

I'm sure someone else will chime in here but I would have to say it depends on alot of things. The type of rise can tell you alot. Sometimes they are feedind just under the surface and will ignore a dry fly almost completely.

[11th Warrior]

Griffiths gnat.

[Maverick]

if your catching fish no point changing. if not giver a whirl. whatever is successful is the best route.

[SalaR]

Griffiths gnat.

You have to be in a climate that doens't have hard water so likely here on teh Island on lower Mainland...Yes,Chironomids are hatching here all year...have seen many rising fish in January and Feb and typically need to go to a fly like 11th mentioned...even a fairly large ice cream cone on a floating line
C

[Tangler]

I have noticed that in the early season most of the fish are not technically "rising" but are in fact "bulging", that is, they are feeding just under the surface and consequently their backs are breaking the surface. I have found that they rarely take a floating fly until it sinks... What works well for me is a chironomid with a very small indicator 2-3 ft above it. Cast to the rises and wait for the indicator to do it's thing. If it doesn't happen quickly it usually doesn't happen for a long time, so I only wait a minute or so then cast to the next rise.
T.

[delvachio]

I don't fish lakes that often these days but when I did in the past I always switched over to dry fly. Even if the fly was less effective I seem to have more fun trying with the dry rather than a streamer.

[Waterwalkin']

Chironomid emerger (REALsparse half hackle) with periodic ever so slight twitches.

[Ruger]

well, being the dry fly fanatic that i am, as soon as fish start rising steadily, i'm casting a dry fly. usually a small Adams. i may not catch as many fish, but i have more fun. and the fish i do catch are usually smaller since i've noticed that the big boys don't come out to play until late evening and just after dark. meh. i have a 3wt. s'all good. i love dry flies.

[johnk]

There are so many variables that come into play here but if the fish are "bulging" like Tangler describes then they are obviously taking emergers in the surface film and when it comes to chironomids I can still remember a beautiful two hours I had back in the mid 90's. I found an isolated hatch on a favourite lake which happened to be in one corner of a small bay I liked to fish. There was a small 50'x50' piece of water that was "simply" boiling with fish. I had several sealfur chironomids in my possession developed just for this scenario. These patterns are tied traditional style with thread and not wire ribbing to cut down on weight and the technique was to gunk the tippet to within 6" of the fly and let the pattern sit in the surface film. It was exciting to watch that tippet straighten out prior to feeling the rod go tight.