The marriage of nymphs and strike indicators is a natural one.  

Purists might contend that strike indicators are cheating, perhaps referring to the use of such as bobber fishing.  

But there’s little dispute that strike indicators makes it possible not only for novices to catch fish, but also for experienced anglers to catch more than they would without them.

There are several aspects of strike indicator use that require attention for the best levels of success, ones such as type of indicator; location on the leader; recognizing strikes; and getting the best drift to maximize efficiency.

Recently, I spoke with Danny Zerick, a skilled and highly successful nymph angler, to get his take on the main points of fishing with indicators, lessons he’s learned in a large part on the wild brown trout of central Pennsylvania.

The Hardware

There’s a wide variety of indicator types on the market.  

Zerick prefers football and teardrop-shaped models, more specifically those from Lightning Strike’s line.

Why?

They are easy to move on the leader, he says, and don’t put a kink in it.  

Typically his preference is for the football-shaped version, in white.  

He uses the smallest indicator he can get away with (just big enough to keep it from sinking) given his rigging as well as the current situation.  

In heavier water, he’ll switch to the teardrop design, which tends to be a bit more buoyant, other factors being equal.

Indicator placement

The placement of the indicator is important, as it influences how deep the fly rides.

 During the drift the fly will lag, at an angle, behind the indicator (farther upstream).

For the nymph to stay close to the bottom — the targeted strike zone — you must place the indicator farther up the leader than the depth being fished.  

When setting up on a run, Zerick first takes a rough guess at the depth, adds about 20 inches, and pegs on his indicator.

It’s the starting point.  

If he makes three or four drifts and the indicator does nothing — movement-wise — he knows he needs to move the indicator up the leader so the fly runs deeper.  

He does so in six-inch increments until he sees the occasional twitch that denotes bottom contact.  

Understand that moving to deeper or shallower water means repositioning the indicator.  

The best nymph anglers are ones that are consistently adjust indicator placement as the conditions change.

Recognizing the difference

The art of determining what’s bottom and what is a bite comes with experience.  

That said, Zerick noted that bites tend to stop the indicator instantly; sometimes it even moves upstream.  

Bottom snags typically include some twitching prior to the indicator pulling under.  

When in doubt set the hook.  

In time your percentage of productive sets – ones where a trout made the indicator bounce -- will increase.

Indicating the drift

The strike indicator not only indicates bites and proximity to the bottom, it’s also a gauge of how natural the drift is.  

Zerick looks for consistency in the indicator’s drift — meaning that it’s not speeding up or slowing down unnaturally as it passes through the targeted zone, which is pretty much right in front of him.

 To achieve this he fishes a short line, and keeps the rod tip fairly high to hold the fly line off the water.

Fishing a nymph is one of the more challenging methods of fly fishing for trout.

So you need not see a strike indicator as a crutch, but rather a means of assisting with a tricky approach, of which these tips should help. 

Jeff Knapp is a fishing columnist for the Butler Eagle.