Hopper and dropper and...line twist...

[w7xman]

I have been trying to use a hopper and dropper set up this year, but every time I do, the line is completely twisted after a few minutes.

I've been tying the hopper on an extention from an unclipped blood knot on the leader...which works for me with small flies. But definately not this rig.

How do you sucessfully tie a hopper and a dropper to the line???

[petegas]

i take a legnth of tippet and attach it to the hopper by an improved clinch knot on the bend of the hook, then just tie on the dropper like you would at the end of any normal tippet.

anytime you are fishing with two flies you're always gonna get some tangles. :roll:

[Steve H.]

Like you, I've tried adding the lead fly to the unclipped tag of a blood knot (about 4 or 5 inches or so) and 12 - 18" above the drop fly. I've only had marginal success with this setup, in terms of twisting and tangling, depending on the properties of the leader I'm using. With very limp, small-diameter tippets, the lead fly doesn't extend far enough away from the leader and tends to tangle. With heavier, stiffer (flouro) tippets (5X or heavier), the problem isn't as bad since the stiffness of the leader holds the fly out a bit more. I ususally use this method when I want my heavier fly to be the drop, such as a big weighted stonefly, and the lead to be a smaller unweighted nymph or wet drifting naturally a foot or so above the bottom.

I think the better solution for your situation, since you're using a big dry as the lead, is to tie the drop fly to the bend of the lead fly's hook with an appropriate length of tippet material. Make sure you use floatant on the lead fly (hopper or other big dry) and Xink or other "sinkant" on the drop fly and it's leader. I bet you don't have nearly as many tangles with this setup.

[Flyfish99]

Try tying a length of tippett to the bend of the hopper hook, and tying your point fly to the end of the tippet. I would normally have the hopper tied to a 3X or 4X tippet, with the tippet tied to the bend of the hopper hook being 5X or 6X, depending on the size of the point fly. I dislike using multiple fly rigs, but this one works fairly well.

You can set up a variation of this rig for fishing deep. Tie on a really heavy fly to your tippet, add a length of finer tippet to the bend of the hook, and tie a smaller fly to that. You might want to add a bit of weight between the two flies to keep the point fly from riding up. I employed this rig using a size 8 Conehead Olive Wooly Bugger and a size 16 Copper John on the trophy water on the Upper CT River this June when the water was running 400+ CFS, and did quite well.

[w7xman]

Thanks...sounds good...glad to hear I'm not the only one with tangling problems.

I'll try all this next time I take the rod for a walk...