Most anglers learn to mend standing in the river. Your feet are planted, the current moves past you, and the line does more or less what you tell it. Then you climb into a drift boat and everything changes: you're moving, the current is moving, and the oarsman is changing your speed relative to both. Pennsylvania guide Bill Nolan, who runs trips on the Lehigh River near Jim Thorpe, sat down with us to talk about why mending from the bow is its own skill, and how he plans an entire float around three different rigs instead of committing to one.
Don't Be a One-Rig Angler
Bill's first point is one he makes to every client, including the veterans he's taken fishing through the programs he has run for years: some people only want to throw streamers, some only want to fish dries, and that's fine, but you're limiting yourself. A river isn't one kind of water. A float on the Lehigh moves through long runs, riffles, deep slots in the upper river and flat glides, and each section fishes best with a different approach.
So he plans the float before the boat leaves the ramp. Deep, structured water at the top of a run gets streamers. As the water shallows and the run tails out, he switches to nymphs. When the water flattens and fish are looking up, he anchors and fishes dries. If nothing is happening on top, he doesn't wait around for a hatch that isn't coming. He puts nymphs on and goes looking for fish below the surface. The practical takeaway: rig two or three rods before you launch so a switch takes seconds, not ten minutes of retying while the best water slides by.
The Rigs Bill Actually Fishes
Streamers: Bill carries eight-weight rods with full sinking lines for streamer water. For the leader he leans on Kelly Galloup's well-known short-and-stout approach: a couple of feet of heavy 20-pound and a couple of feet of 12-pound, then the fly. A short leader on a sinking line keeps a big fly down at the same level as the line instead of riding up, and the heavy material turns over a bulky streamer and survives a hard strike. Short and stout beats long and fine when you're stripping meat.
Nymphs: His nymph setup starts with a nine-foot 4X leader to a tippet ring. Off the ring he runs four or five feet of 5X to the first fly, then roughly eight inches to the dropper. That first knot doubles as a stop for split shot so the weight can't slide down onto the fly. He starts the indicator at about one and a half times the water depth and adjusts from there: if the flies are hanging up constantly, move the indicator down; if you never tick bottom, move it up. He deliberately has newer clients make those adjustments themselves so they learn to feel the depth instead of just being handed a rig.
Dries: Here the key isn't the rig so much as line control, which brings us to the main lesson.
Mending From a Moving Boat
Bill makes a distinction that's easy to miss: mending from a wading position and mending from the bow are different skills. Wading, the only thing moving is the water. In the boat, you're moving too, and the oarsman can speed you up or slow you down relative to the current. That's actually a tool. When nymphing, the oarsman can control where the indicator sits by forward-rowing or back-rowing to keep the boat matched to the drift. Good mending and good rowing work together.
Two specific mends Bill uses all the time:
- The big back mend at the drop-off. When the indicator hits the point where the shelf falls into deep water, throw a big upstream mend. It pulls the bobber back above the flies so they can sink straight down into the deeper slot instead of being dragged across the top of it.
- The big forward mend to clear trouble. When a shallow obstruction is coming and you don't want to hang up, throw a big downstream mend and let the current drag the rig through. The flies stay in the water and keep fishing, and you skip the snag and the reset.
A common mistake he sees is simply mending too much. One client's flies were coming through fine, but the constant re-mending kept yanking them out of the zone. Mend to set the drift, then let it fish.
Feeding Line on a Dry Without Moving the Fly
On dries, Bill says the hardest thing for most anglers is letting line out and mending without moving the fly. The technique: make a short, accurate cast, then mend only the first section of line closest to you. As the fly drifts, mend that section up and shake more line out through the guides, again and again, so the fly keeps floating drag-free well past where a single cast could reach. It takes practice, and it's worth practicing in slow water before you need it over a rising fish. Watching the fly the whole time tells you instantly whether your mend moved it.
Gear
The things that will help most here, a full-sink streamer line, a tippet ring and some split shot, are best picked up at your local fly shop, where they can match line weights to your rods. If you want the fundamentals of rigging, mending and leader setup in one place, our Tips and Tricks for Fly Fishing eBook is a good companion to this episode. And for long days in the bow staring at an indicator in the glare, a Five Panel Cap earns its keep.
