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Please read this article in conjunction with the companion article:

• Fly fishing tips

There is a reason why up stream fishing is probably the most widely used technique used by fly fishers in Australia and New Zealand and the UK - it works.

Given the attention this method gets it's not surprising that thinking fly fishers are continuously tweaking this system. In particular fly rods suited to this style of fly fishing have come a long way. Any rod will do of course but rods designed for Czech nymphing and French leader fly fishing are an absolute delight to use for both duo and trio up stream systems.

I have two specialised river rods that I choose from depending on the overall nature of the river being fished. Both are 4 weight:

1. One being just 8 feet six inches long, and
2. The other being a full 10 feet long.

The choice of rod generally relates to the nature of the river. Whilst I may be forced to select the short rod for tight overgrown streams my preference is to use a longer rod wherever space permits. Both rods have sensitive tips. The longer rod in particular also has a powerful butt section which allows me to put pressure particularly on bigger fish and because of that and the fact that the longer rod allows for much better line control it is my preferred rod in all but those rivers where you can only effectively manoeuvre a short rod. In any case both rods are light enough for me to be able to fish with an extended arm for a full three hour session.

The flies I use have changed for me as I have become familiar with the newer upstream tactics of Czech nymphing and French leader nymphing. French leader nymphing in particular has shown me the value of fishing small flies. Until I became familiar with French long leader fly fishing the nymphs I used when I fished a nymph or wet under dry the flies I suspended under my dry dry flies were generally in the size range #10 to #14. Now I suspend much smaller nymphs with sizes #14 to #18 being the norm. My indicator flies havn't changed much but with the smaller offerings suspended below they certainly work better and float the bait flies for much longer.

The 'duo' set up involves suspending one wet fly below a buoyant dry fly from size #10 to #14. I tie all my indicator flies on droppers rather than the New Zealand method of hanging the wets from a dropper tied to the bend of the hook of the indicator fly. The 'trio' set up is just an extension of the duo set up with a second wet tied on a dropper below the indicator fly. In either case I like to have the point fly close to or bouncing along the bottom.

Using this set up you can generally fish with little or no fly line on the water and with the rod held high the dry fly floats a little better and with reduced drag and its easy to keep in touch with your flies. The fishing angle is different to traditional up stream fishing and an angle approaching 45 degrees is best. Fishing this way you can hug the bank taking advantage of any cover and cast (or lob your team of flies) up and across and then with your rod tip held high lead your team of flies down but without dragging the dry fly. In recent times this technique has been refereed to as "duo" and "trio" fishing in some magazines.

Both the duo and the trio techniques rely on the use of a dry fly line and my preferred fly line is a Scientific Anglers Mastery Series trout line with a 20 mm monofilament loop on the end. The loop is important as it helps facilitate quick changes of the leader between say duo and trio or even to a Czech nymph set up. The leader set up is then pretty simple.

1. The butt of the leader is connected to the monofilament loop using a open loop locked with a blood knot.
2. The butt section itself on my standard duo / trio leader is made up of 4 0 cm of 0 .30 mm in diameter followed by 40 cm of 0.24 mm tippet material.
3. The tippet itself is dependent on the depth of water and I target an overall leader length including the two piece but section above roughly equal to the greater of either 1.5 or 2.2 meters long depending on if its a 2 or 3 fly rig or 1.5 times the depth of the water.
4. For both the duo and trio rigs the top dropper carrying the dry fly dropper is around 1.0 meter from the  the end of the but section.
5. If its a trio rig the second wet is generally around 80 cm above the point fly.
6. Depending on water depth the minimum length of the overall leader for a duo set up is ... and for a trio set ... and of course the maximum is a function of water depth. There is of course a maximum length which is comfortable to fish and if that is not long enough to present the flies close to the bottom because of water depth or water speed I suggest you swap over to an alternative method such as Czech nymphing.

I have three different leaders complete with flies that I wrap round pieces of foam and carry in my fly vest. Its a very simple task to remove one leader and replace it with one of the three alternative leaders. The leaders are tied tie onto the braided loop using an open loop locked with a blood knot.

Spooky fish and swinging flies leader and tippet

Whilst my standard leader above covers a lot of river fishing situations to increase my hit rate when fish are spooky or when I am swinging flies I replace the 50 cm yellow indicator line with between 75 cm and 1 meter of 0.30 mm tippet material and increase the length of the next 0.24 section of butt material from 50 cm to between 75 cm and 1 meter in length.

• This is my preferred leader for swinging flies or when fishing to visible or spooky fish.

Dry fly leader and tippet

This is the same as the above leader set up except that the material used is floating co-polymer, there are no droppers and its loaded with a single dry fly.

• This is my preferred leader for fishing a dry fly.

With practice I have found that I can comfortably change between these three leader tippet set ups in an average time of around just a couple of minutes. That's a lot quicker and much less stressful than getting out of the water and jogging back to where my second rod is and of course with one set of terminal tackle on my rod when I start and two alternative set up in my fly vest I have traditional fishing up stream, Czech nymphing, longer leader nymphing, across and down, swinging flies, duo and trio, and dry fly fishing all covered.

I have divided river fly techniques into five main classifications:

Up stream nymphing - traditional

Across and down (often called down and across or swinging flies)

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

French leader / longer leader

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