Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
The Crazy Ivan is a trolling move made from a kick boat. Troll a straight line, then push the rod tip straight down into the water and pivot ninety degrees around it as if the rod were an axle. The fly stalls and drops, and the grab almost always comes as the turn ends and the line tightens again.
John Schultz is a Park City, Utah stillwater specialist and fly tier who has served as a Trout Unlimited chapter president, sits on state fisheries and angling boards, and was inducted into Utah's fly fishing hall of fame in 2018.
Also on Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube
What is the Crazy Ivan technique in stillwater fly fishing?
The Crazy Ivan starts as ordinary trolling: kicking backwards in a straight line for a long stretch to search water where fish are not concentrated. Then the rod tip goes straight down into the water and the boat pivots a full ninety degrees around it, using the submerged rod as the axle. That pivot slows the fly line almost to a stop and lets the fly drop. Occasional grabs come in the turn itself, but there is too much slack to set the hook on them.
Why does the grab come as you come out of the turn?
Coming out of the ninety-degree pivot, the line starts to tighten and the fly lifts and accelerates after having stalled and sunk. That change of speed and direction is what draws the eat. The Crazy Ivan works over and over on Utah stillwaters precisely because it forces a pause and a restart into a retrieve that would otherwise be a constant troll.
How does a second rod double the Crazy Ivan?
Utah allows two rods at once, so an intermediate line goes out on a fixed rod pointed straight out from the boat while the second rod is fished by hand. During the ninety-degree sweep the fixed rod on the outside of the arc speeds its fly up while the hand-held fly slows down, so the two flies do opposite things in the same turn. Some days the fixed rod takes every fish, and doubles happen - one day produced roughly eight sets of doubles.
How do you count a sinking line down to the depth trout are holding?
Make a full cast, then kick away and strip line off the reel so the fly sinks straight down instead of swinging toward the boat. Start with a fifteen count, then try twenty, then thirty, changing the count until something eats. The whole method depends on remembering two things at the moment of the grab: which line was on the rod and what number you were on.
What rods and lines cover a lake from surface to bottom?
Three rods ride in the kick boat: two nine-and-a-half-foot 5-weights and one nine-and-a-half-foot 6-weight. The lines are an intermediate that sinks one to one and a half inches per second, a type 4 uniform sink, and a type 7 that drops about seven inches per second and gets used least but is irreplaceable when it is needed. For an angler buying a single stillwater line, a type 3 covers the widest range of depths.
What leader setup works for stripping streamers on stillwater?
The leader is a nine-foot 1X tapered nylon leader ending in a size 14 micro swivel, then three to four feet of 8 or 10 pound fluorocarbon tippet. The swivel does two jobs: it stops a stripped fly from twisting the leader, and it means every fly change shortens a cheap piece of tippet instead of eating into the tapered leader. Keeping fluorocarbon to the tippet alone also limits how much of it is left in the water.
Why does a tarpon strip help you hook stillwater cutthroat?
Rainbows and browns attack a fly, but cutthroat often just lip it, and setting the hook the moment you feel that is how the fish is lost. Tucking the rod under your arm and stripping hand over hand keeps constant tension, moves the fly quickly, and makes a trout set nearly impossible. Switching to chemically sharpened size 8 and 10 dry fly hooks for damselfly nymphs raised the hookup rate sharply on the same fish.
Key takeaways
- Pivot ninety degrees around a rod tip pushed straight into the water; fish the tightening line as you exit the turn, not the turn itself.
- Run a fixed rod pointed out from the boat alongside the hand-held rod so one fly speeds up while the other stalls in the same pivot.
- Start countdowns at fifteen, then twenty, then thirty, and record both the count and the line when a fish eats.
- A nine-foot 1X tapered leader to a size 14 micro swivel and three to four feet of fluorocarbon tippet saves the leader at every fly change.
- Sitting in the water rather than in a boat lets the recovery time of the line after a strip tell you how fast you are actually moving.
- Damselfly nymphs on Strawberry Reservoir produced a 39-fish day where all but one fish measured 17 inches or better.
