Dry Fly Flotant Selection
Don't let your flies become the demise of your time on the water. Don't leave home without the proper assortment of Floatant!
Late spring has arrived and with it comes a change in the river. Water levels have risen, and fish are settling into feeding lanes with bugs now crawling around and hatches becoming more prevalent. With Salmonflies and Golden Stones just around the corner, the excitement only builds as bigger bugs begin showing up along the banks and fish start looking up with even more confidence. Dry fly eats have become more of the norm, and ensuring your bugs are floating properly is key for confident presentations and explosive takes. A well treated dry riding high through fast seams and broken water often makes the difference between refusals and committed eats.
Everyone's got their own, but what's our process for big foam dry flies??
Our go-to process for how we treat our flies before getting them into the water...
#1 First Pick: Shimazaki Liquid Dry Shake is our go to before the fly ever touches the water. Dunk it, don't shake it. This will keep your fly floating longer than any product on the market.
Fly enters water (Or hopefully fish's mouth)
#2 Second Pick: Shimazaki Dry Shake Powder (Desiccant Powder). This will pull the moisture out of the fly that we want to avoid saturating into in. Getting you back to square one.
#3 Repeat Step #1: Shimazaki Liquid Dry Shake. Once moisture/water has been removed from the fly, we go back to the liquid to ensure that the fly is retreated, and ready for the next run or fish.
#1 Shimazaki Liquid Dry Shake — Your one-stop solution for keeping dry flies riding high. Fast, simple, and incredibly effective: shake well, dip your fly briefly, screw the lid back on, make a few false casts, and you’re ready to fish. This is the floatant we trust and rely on every single day on the water. Truly unmatched in performance, one try with Shimazaki Liquid Dry Shake and you’ll never go back to your old floatant.
#2 Shimazaki Dry Shake – Works best to dry your fly out after it gets wet. Once you’ve fished a fly for some time, or a fish pulls it under, the fly will get saturated and begin to sink. Now is the time to use Dry Shake, as it will pull the moisture out of the fly and get it floating on top again. Pop your fly into the container and shake, shake, shake. You can stop here and get back to working the water, or you can take one more step to make your fly unsinkable.
#3 Shimazaki Dry Shake refill – Dry Shake is made up of 2 parts: large silicone balls and a fine desiccant powder. After using the shake a number of times, the fine powder begins to deplete. The refill contains just the fine powder. Once your fine powder is used up, simply add some refill and you’re good to go.
What happens when the big bugs disappear? Stay tuned for the next floatant series blog
Everyone has their own process when it comes to dry fly floatant selection. When the big foam bugs die down, that changes the process up. Stay tuned for an updated floatant selection process when we start to see our Green Drakes, Yellow Sallies, and PMD's show up. This is where details are
imperative, and the selection of floatants really matters...
