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3. CF KNOT dry Fly Knot keeps tippet off the water

I'm not sure if the forum wants you copy and pasting videos so rather than do so I will simply state if you you tube the CF KNOT......the video should come up. This is essentially a knot in which if tied correctly....your knot attaches to bottom shank by the hook eye making your terminal tippet come straight out and up....creating a small "hump or bump" which essentially keeps the first 1 to 2 inches of tippet off water. I have not had a chance to field test it but I will say it intrigues me. I guess the premise is a wary technical trout will not see the fly connection ???? but would they not still see the tippet going up into the air rather than lying on the water?
I generally use a davy Knot for my dry fly connection .......it serves me very well. In challenging slow pools I will sometimes use Loon's snake river mud to degrease my tippet. This concept is interesting.

Try the double davy. One of our knotmasters tested it against the davy and found that it's a lot stronger. You can find the thread by searching davy knot, I believe.

Thanks. and yes..I sometimes add one more turn and also use the Double Davy - the simplest and easiest knot I know. I will field test this CF knot just to see if it makes a difference.

Neat. Always love seeing new knots. A bit like a Palomar knot.

I'm not so sure that fish "see the leader" as much as respond to drag. Will be curious how it pans out. Let us know.

Do fish see the hook sticking out from our artificials? I'm guessing its drag rather than visibility of leader that puts them off.

I have never given a single thought to whether or not the tippet is visible to the trout. If they see the tippet they probably can also see the hook hanging under the fly. As others have mentioned I am a firm believer in presentation of the fly to the quarry in a drag free manner. This is especially true when casting dry flies to rising trout or trying to present a nymph to unseen trout.

I concur with the sentiments of drag free drift being the primary if not possibly the only real variable.....aside from fly choice And of course a down and across presentation which is also primarily how I fish - means the fly itself enters the trout''s zone of vision first. But you will hear many experts tout the fact that this is effective exactly because the fish sees the fly first before any tippet or leader material......which shouldn't really matter if a tippet's visibility means nothing to the fish. I plan on remaining with my Davy Knot but figured the next time I find myself scratching my head due to a finicky repeated refusal I'll give this a shot.

Fly first works, but not bc the fish see the tippet, much less know what it is. Instead, I believe it's tippet movement that does it.

Talking about tough fish here, and those in flat water, if you have a nice long laminar flow ahead of your fish you may be able to fish from downstream (or across) effectively, bc you may be able to cast up past the fish further from the side, and touch down further upstream. Fish doesn't see line in the air or detect the line/leader disturbance on the water. Downstream still works, if the circumstances allow, and you are a darn good caster.

But, if you can't, or aren't, upstream is often the best way in. First it's easier to get a good drift from upstream by adding slack, rather than having to do as much precision casting and mending. And it's easier to keep the line and leader -where most of our troubles lie- the furthest from the fish.

But, if the fish doesn't take on the first drift, you then you have to retrieve your fly. To do that we have to let the whole shebang drift past the fish, which works, unless the shebang moves. Then, just like downstream, the game is often up.

This is my take anyway.

recall the experiment of the gentleman who pushed sections of 20 lb mon through grasshoppers so the mono was visible sticking out both sides then threw them on the water. No refusals; inhaled mono and all.

Things are getting a bit weird up here. Nighttime refusals during the hex hatch are being met with changing from mono tippet to fluoro with the hopes that this reduces tippet visibility.At night. Under cover of darkness. I'll let you guess at the results...

Tim, Another thought, something I must do in turbulent water surfaces, is have a leader that floats ON the surface film, not in it. It makes a huge difference in achieving drag-free drifts bc the surface film is "sticky". "Sticky" in multiple places along a length of leader is a recipe for drag. I eventually realized that, after a few hours of fishing, I'd start getting refusals. "Am I just getting tired? Lazy?" I wondered. But I came to realize that the mono leader is absorbing water. Adding more floatant to it, after a few hours of fishing, didn't help. I started switching to a fresh dry leader and, miraculously, was back in business. You are probably on less than turbulent water, but, it's just a thought.

As to the original topic, if one could keep the whole leader, or even the tippet, off the water, our problems would be solved. I've always said, the greatest breakthrough in angling would come if we could get rid of the line entirely. :) Line is where it's at in fishing.