Technical Tubing

Let’s be honest. When you’re nymph fishing with a bobber all you’re really doing is hanging onto the water tube handles.

I grew up on lakes in Wisconsin, Michigan and the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. And I loved waterskiing almost above anything else.

People who live in Jackson, or Telluride, or Big Sky might dream about snowy powder days for skiing, but I was a boy of summer, and for a kid like me, it was all about long, hot days on the water, especially those early evening hours when the lake would go flat, and all of us who lived around the lake would head out to carve hard turns and throw rooster tails behind a ski boat.

Becoming proficient at waterskiing was a difficult learning curve. First, you learned to get up on two skis, then you learned to drop a ski and, finally, after you figured out how to get up on one, it was all about dipping elbow-low to the waterline and carving turns. That took years of hard-earned calluses and massive wipeouts to arrive there.

Somewhere along the way, the tube was introduced, and pulling a tube behind a ski boat opened a whole new realm of excitement. And that was cool, because it got a lot of people–mostly young kids–into getting pulled behind a boat. After all, all you had to do was hang onto the handles and let the boat drag you around. I did that myself many times, and thought it was fun.

The thing is, it started to suck when boats would start ripping around the lake, making wakes and such when it was the “golden hour” for slalom skiing. I am sure the tubing phenomenon helped sell a lot of boats, the gas to fuel them and much more. But it was a huge letdown when you were getting ready to dock-start and make some epic turns on a glassy lake, only to have some goobers start ripping around, pulling a tube and making waves that effectively ruined the slalom session you were hoping for.

In fly fishing the waterskiing analogy might go like this:

Dry fly fishing is slalom skiing. Streamer fishing might be wakeboarding. And nymph fishing with a giant, chartreuse bobber is basically like tubing. They’re all fine, all wonderful, in certain places and times.

But let’s be honest. When you’re nymph fishing with a bobber all you’re really doing is hanging onto the handles. There are absolutely many times and places for that, and they’re all wonderful. But if you want to talk to me about the fine art of nymphing, and all the technical wrinkles therein, I’ll call bullshit. “Technical nymphing” is nothing more than “technical tubing.” Your middle school kids could chew gum and do it.

Czech nymphing (high-stick nymphing), Euro nymphing (tight-Line nymphing), deep nymphing, Leisenring lifts (getting eaten by accident)…whatever. You’re still just hanging onto the handles.

Better to learn how to cast, match hatches, stalk heads and actually fish.

Maybe this fall it’s time to get up on one ski and start carving some turns...

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To read more fly-fishing tips from Kirk Deeter, check out The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing.