West Branch fishing: does tippet size matter, or just the drift?

By V. Paul Reynolds

Life has taught me that profanity rarely gets you anywhere. Some of us are more profanity prone than others, especially when things don’t go just right.

Since my Navy days, I have tried to be mindful of my mouth, even when slamming my thumb with a hammer or bumping my head on the garage door. 

I fell from grace earlier this month while fishing for salmon with my son Scott on the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Totally. “Sonofa %#&. Did you see that Scotty? That was a nice fish. Geez, I can’t believe this. That %$# snapped my tippet right off. That had to be a 20-inch fish. Ohhh, I am sick.”

Before you judge me, you need context.

To be honest, I have never done well fishing for those inscrutable, snotty, stuck up landlocked salmon that hover beneath the surface of that fabled tail water on the West Branch known as the Big Eddy. Over the years, these sneaky salmonids have outwitted me time after time, showing no interest in whatever in my choice of flies. 

Fishing is supposed to be fun and relaxing. If you are anything like me, though, it is hard not to become frustrated when big salmon are tailing all about the boat but refusing to hit your fly.

The good news is that with a little coaching advice from my son, I had a bit of an epiphany, which I will share with you in just a minute.

I hoped to seduce one of the tailing fish that were feeding under the surface. I tied on a big White Wulff and beneath that, a“dropper fly” tied on with a 7x tippet about 15 inches beneath the Wulff. 

My reasoning, which proved to be problematic, was that these fish must be tippet shy having seen so many fishing lines time after time. Perhaps a small 7x tippet would be the ticket.

At Scotty’s urging, I also concentrated on getting the right drift after the cast. The White Wulff, which had to have been about a size 12, was very visible even in the foam, which is where you want your fly to be.

Suddenly the excitement level, as well as my under-the-breath expletives, picked up in earnest. Within ten minutes, two very respectable salmon nailed my dropper fly and both promptly snapped my 7x tippet.

This was a bittersweet exercise. I found a combination that was finally fooling the fish, but to what end? I never got a chance to play either of the two cooperating fish. What was new in my approach? Was it the good drift, the delicate tippet, or a combination of both?

When I put this question to a seasoned and highly successful Big Eddy veteran, he said, “never use anything smaller than a 3x tippet. Tippet size doesn’t matter to the fish.You gotta get the good drift to catch these fish. The fly doesn’t even matter that much. The drift is the thing,” he insisted.

If you plan to fish the Big Eddy, try my lash-up: drop a caddis imitation such as a Nancy’s Prayer from a big, highly visible, good-floating surface fly. Then, focus, focus, focus on the drift.

And, dagnabit, don’t mess around with light tippets, unless you don’t mind a fish that hits and runs.