Spanish Dry Fly Fishing

Think of dry fly fishing and we mostly envisage an accurate cast laying out perfectly straight between the angler and the fish. We will then follow up with mends during the drift to prevent drag before our fly reaches its target. The tension will be palpable as your fly sweeps over the fish. If the planets align a sip, splash or swirl will reward the angler. From that point one either misses, looses, lands the fish! However having a straightened leader on the water is actually undesirable as the fly will be more vulnerable to drag. Performing a mend can result in the fly skating across the surface which risks submerging the fly or spooking fish. So. having slack somewhere along the leader is highly beneficial. We can achieve this a number of ways: by employing underpowered curve casts, pile casts, arial mends or using very long leaders. This is where Spanish Dry Fly Fishing comes in.

Emerging from the competitive fly fishing scene is a style of dry fly fishing that specifically achieves slack line presentation through an amalgam of casting style and leader set up. It is known as Spanish Dry Fly and pioneered by Spanish competition anglers. This article provides a basic introduction to the style which in itself is not easy to describe in writing. Please refer to the links provided at the end to see this style in action by Spanish fly fishing World Champion David Arcay. 

What is the Spanish style of dry fly?

The Spanish style of fishing a dry fly revolves around using a long, underpowered leader and side casts which combine to produce slack in the leader. They also create a curved profile. This curve serves another purpose in that the fly tracks over the fish before the tippet. This reduces the likelihood of fish spooking off the leader. Under normal dry fly presentations the leader track over or to the side of the fish before the fly.

Set up

Rod

A great all round option is a 9.6ft 3wt rod which is long enough to generate high line speeds but with a marginally longer recovery time than shorter rods. This makes casting long leaders easier at shorter ranges. Faster action rods are good for generating the high lines speeds which this technique demands. But the 3wt needs to be soft enough to protect light tippets and absorb lunges during fights. Under international fly fishing competition rules (FIPS Mouche) the leader and tippet for any set up (nymphing, dry fly etc.) can be no more than 2x the length of the rod. That’s one additional reason why competition anglers generally use longer rods.

While this method can be executed with shorter rods, longer rods are better at manipulating and mending lines during drifts. And they pick up line quicker when striking which is important with this method as you’re dealing with long leaders and piles of intentional slack.

Fly line

Many competitive anglers underline their rods, either a 3wt line on a 4wt rod or a 2wt line on a 3wt rod. Lighter fly lines have many advantages.

• They land more subtly.
• They drift with a surface current more naturally.
• Lifting into a fish with lighter fly lines is quicker as they ‘unstick’ from the water’s surface quicker and with less mass.
• Resistance during fish playing is reduced, which means more direct contact and thus fish are less likely to be lost.
• You can also generate higher line speeds by underlining a rod, although your casting needs to be fairly proficient. 

Leader

Spanish dry fly leaders are much thinner than shop bought tapered leaders and consist of perhaps 60% leader and 40% tippet. They are deliberately long and ‘underpowered’ so they cannot turn a fly over. This is so they will create plenty of slack in the tippet. This combined with the line lay you achieve through the casting style helps to create slack where you need it. This results in longer drag free drifts than with a regular dry fly leader set up.

A great total length of leader to start with is 2x the length of your rod. You could use something like a Fulling Mill 9ft 4x tapered leader with a micro perfection loop/micro ring tied in the end and then another 9ft of 6x tippet. I mainly use 6x but will fine down to 7x or scale up to 4.5x for big fish or during mayfly time. The link to a tutorial video provides recipes to construct your own Spanish dry fly leaders.

Flies

The least important component of this style is your flies. A handful of tried and tested patterns tied in various sizes is all you need. More often than not refusals are caused by presentation rather than pattern. 

Casting

The most accurate casting style is to cast with the rod centred directly in front of your body almost as if throwing a dart. This works well at short to medium range. Once you start to cant the rod to the side, as we do when having to casting with side winds or longer range casts, it become less accurate as the loop unfurls more sideways than vertically.

Nevertheless, casting sideways is the fundamental movement to achieve curve casts and the Spanish Style uses this as the core to achieve this particular line lay. So unlike in most fly casting where we achieve accuracy by holding the rod tip as vertically as possible, here we cant the rod to the side of our body depending on which way the current is flowing. 

The cast is executed like a regular cast. However, the final forward delivery sees follow up with a reach mend which also aims downwards. You will notice that your fly will be the last thing to land on the water. 

For a right handed caster if the river is flowing from left to right we cast across our body with our forward cast going to our left and our backcast going to our right.

If the river is going right to left we cast in a similar fashion to which we would do if heavy wind was going from our right side to our left. We cast across our body with the backcast going to our left and our from cast to our right.  

Cons 

This style is not without drawbacks, wind being a significant factor. You may need to recalibrate your set up, whether stepping up to a four weight or tying a slightly stiffer leader. I’ve also found that pinpoint accuracy is harder to achieve although I must admit to being early in my journey with this style. In my experience it is only where a fish is immediately downstream of a snag or overhand where accuracy is not as reliably repeatable as with a tighter line lay down. It is also key to ensure there is slack in your tippet as the absence of any will often result in drag setting it which will see your fly follow the semi circle pattern of your line lay if you have no slack in the system. 

Summary 

Although like any style, the Spanish style of dry fly fishing has one or two minor drawbacks. Overall, though, it has made my dry fly fishing immeasurably more productive. Drifts can be sustained over much longer distances and my presentations are far far better than with a regular dry fly set up. Even if you don’t use a Spanish style set up appreciating how you can create curves/slack in your tippet can elevate your presentation skills. 

See this link for further info.

This tutorial (£16) is a comprehensive presentation of the Spanish style by master angler David Arcay. You will also find recipes to tie your own leaders. 

Here is a short video of David fishing for trout using the Spanish Dry Fly method. 

If you’d like to read more articles from Tim, you can check his author page on the blog.

Tim James

Tim is a London based fly angler of thirteen years who fishes for a wide variety of species from carp in London docks, mullet on the coast to casting dry flies to trout on the Derbyshire Wye. I enjoy the process of trying to catch different species on a fly rod, a by-product of which is that my missions often take me to some amazing places. Because I like to fish at last twice a week I also search out local venues to fish, most of which are off the beaten track as far as fly fishing goes.

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