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Please read this article in conjunction with the companion article:

• Fly fishing tips

A very good technique for water of almost any depth that has a little width to it and an obvious flow that will work your flies. It is often only used where holding fish can't be accessed from below because of access, structure, the path of the flow of the water or whatever reason but of course it is also a very useful (and underrated by many) technique in its own right. Because you approach the holding water from above, or from the side, you have to be particularly careful with your wading techniques. If you keep in the shade, wear colours that camouflage into the background, use available cover and approach with stealth and cunning you can often avoid spooking fish that are relatively close by.

Across and down involves casting across and then fishing the fly or flies as they travel down the current until the line is taught which then pulls the fly across the current under the tension of the fly line. At the end of that swing the tension of the line lifts the flies up to the surface. Keep in mind however that you may need to cast up higher in faster water to give your flies a chance to get down.I like to either do an upstream reach cast and or throw an upstream mend in straight after the cast and to hold the flies back a little (sometimes called an "escalator") to ensure contact before following the drag free drift down and then across. Hold you rod tip high to minimise line on the water and to allow the line below the rod tip to act as a buffer and watch that line or indicator for pauses and other movements at the business end. When you follow the drift of the fly or flies with the line, you may also require additional mends to keep in contact with your fly or flies, as it or they drift first down in the current and then as the drift gets to the end of the available leader, and the fly or flies swing across and up in the current hopefully in the face of a fish. Hits can of course be any time throughout the drift or the swing but as the flies swing across the current and are pulled toward the surface is prime time for action. If you can then move down the river just one pace , whilst retaining your cover as bet you can, you can repeat the process effectively covering a lot of the river.

Fishing across and down suits a range of flies. A dry fly line can be used for either floating or sinking flies and in particular presentation of a dry fly on a floating line creates an opportunity of skating flies like caddis across the surface of the water in a very life like way. Then of course by using various sink tips and sinking line types a range of depths can be fished with up to three flies very effectively. Swinging soft hackle flies in front of fish with this technique can be particularly successful.

The same fly rods and lines as used in "fishing up" suit this style of fishing and consequently you will often find fly fishers swapping between "fishing up" and fishing "across and down" as they move up rivers encountering different water. I like to use a bigger gap between flies commonly increasing the distance between flies to as much as 1.2 meters. Whilst the distance from the fly line to the first dropper is the same as for fishing up stream when fishing than I do for the set up for fishing across and down and generally use around the shorter of around 10-13 feet and 1/2 the width of the river.

Other river fly techniques:

Up stream nymphing - traditional

Upstream fly fishing - contemporary approach to wet under dry (duo and trio)

Short line nymphing (including Polish nymphing, Spanish nymphing, and of course Czech nymphing).

French leader / longer leader

Whilst almost any light to mid range rod can be used for this type of wet fly set up my preference are rods that are 9 to 11 foot long and in the #3 and #4 weight range. The choice of rod doesn't end there and the best types of rods for a one rod set up have delicate tips and powerful butts. The delicate tip allows you to present a range of flies both accurately and delicately but also adds sensitivity that may be the difference between you knowing if your fly has been taken by a fish. On top of that it adds an extra spring into your set up that may be the difference between a fish staying on or throwing the hook if a little loose line creeps into your rig as you strike or fight a fish. The powerful butt is equally important and allows you to put pressure on larger fish so that you can bring them to the net quicker than many would expect is possible with light rods.

The rod that I have chosen to fill this profile is a #4 weight Loomis GLX Czech Nymph rod. It's a bit harder than my two #3 weight river rods but I like that because it means I can punch out good casts of bigger flies like woolly buggers.

I have three lines that I fish over this rod depending on conditions. A #4 weight Scientific angle trout series dry fly line, a #4 weight Cortland clear intermediate line and a new #4 weight Rio InTouch Deep 5. This last line is brand new to me but it ticks all the boxes. It's dark gray in colour, has a braided core and is density compensated ... at this stage it's looking great for the job. The line I put over the rod of course depends on the depth of the river or section of the river and how deep I want to fish.

On each of those fly lines I have replaced the manufactured loop with a 15 mm monofiliment loop made out of 20lb Maxima Ultragreen. I do that because by in large I find that manufactured loops are not very robust if you change your leader a lot of times.

I then set up and carry a couple of specialised leaders that I store, already loaded with appropriate teams of flies, in my fly vest, wrapped around a piece of foam.

The options for the teams are obviously unlimited but its always worth having a couple of casts of flies ready to swap over to as the river terrain changes or if you get irrevocably tangled or broke off say at the top fly.

As you mover up the river it's a very simple task to remove one leader and replace it with one of the alternative leaders. The leaders are connected to the monofiliment loop, at the end of the fly line, using an open loop locked with a blood knot.
 

Individual leader set ups are pretty simple and I like to carry at least one set up to swing spiders and a second set up to pull or bounce woolly buggers or streamers across the bottom:

1. 15 mm monofiliment loop made out of 20lb Maxima Ultragreen.
2. The butt of the leader is two sections of Grand max fluorocarbon connected to the monofiliment loop using a open loop locked with a blood knot.The first butt section is 60 cm of 0.33 mm (18lb) Grand Max fluorocarbon. This is connected to the fly line loop with either an open loop or an open loop closed with a locked blood knot.
3. Second butt section is 60 cm of 0.26 mm (14.50 lb) Grand max fluorocarbon connected to the first butt section with a surgeons knot.
4. I like the overall length of the leader and tippet to be less than my 10 foot rod and I find that a straight length of 0.14 to 0.18 fluorocarbon is a good option. For a single fly a tippet of around 1.4 meters is about right depending on clarity of water but for two or three flies it's best to go as long as you can without exceeding 10 foot for the leader and tippet overall.
5. For a 3 fly rig a tippet of 1.8 meters works well with the top dropper is 1.5 meters from the point and the middle dropper half way between that dropper and the point. I don't generally fish the 3 fly option but if I do it is generally only with small wet flies such as spiders or English wets.
6. For a 2 fly rig a tippet of 1.6 meters is about perfect with the dropper 1.0 to 1.2 meters from the point. This is my preferred wet / spider set up with either a spider nymph combination or a small bead head river bugger on the point and an attractor wet such as a spectra nymph or zulu on the dropper

Three lines and two leaders gives you a lot of options on a river and with practice I have found that I can comfortably change between these 3 lines and or my 2 leader set ups in an average time of around just a couple of minutes.

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