Most water you'd fish without an indicator is smaller water like Putah. You will rarely have more than 10 feet of fly line out, usually less. You can regulate depth by how high or low you hold your rod, lower will get the flies deeper, higher will get it shallower. Most of the time when I fish my fly line isn't even touching the water or only the first foot or two will be on the water. Once you get used to fishing without one you just figure it out and it becomes natural. There have been times when I've caught fish without ever feeling them strike. You get very in tuned to watching the drift and when you get good at it you just know when to set the hook...hard to explain until you try it but i'st kind of like using "The Force" 

Yes, Packrat--direct contact was mentioned in an older thread, Strike Indicators.  Glad you brought this up again!  Definitely, indicators too often become a crutch. 

I refer to Gierach's "Zen and the Art of Nymph-Fishing" from Trout Bum.  Great read--excellent insight!  To steal a line..."There's an instant of tightness in the normal dance of the leader in current that indicates a trout has mouthed the fly--however briefly or gently--and you can tell, the way you can tell from the sound whether a guitar string has been struck by a musician or say, bumped by the tail of a passing dog." 

His imagery of melting butter on a perfectly browned pancake (brown trout bellies), flashing like a mirror under the surface, and viewing the general vicinity of the drift instead of just the indicator have helped me see nymph fishing in a different light.

Looking forward to more tips.

I still have your book Shawn. Haven't finished it yet, but I'll get it back to you the next time I see you.

That's a good way to put it, a sixth sense. After practicing it for a while I just know when a fish is there, it's weird but true.

I would have to agree with you Yukon Mike. Swinging soft hackles is the most fun if you can't get the fish to hit the dries or if you are tired of fishing with an indicator. The takes are amazing and the soft hackles have actually produced some very large fish on many rivers. Can't wait for the March Browns on the Yuba!! Just bought a spey rod to swing some march brown soft hackles.

I would like to hear the logic behind the idea that indicators always cause drag. Also for those who think indicators are the devil how do you fish cross stream lies 40 feet away? What about times when light conditions prohibit being able to see your leader? If you can see 4x or 5x tippet clearly enough in all light conditions 40-50 feet away do it! I guess if you just want to make things harder for yourself to feel some kind of masochistic pleasure more power to ya. It's just that when I go fishing I want to catch fish. If I wanted a challenge I would try to get them with my bare hands. If you want to be a "purist" then go back to cane rods with silk lines and catgut leaders-it's the same rationale for shunning indicators eh? Next time out I am going out naked and grab trout-now THAT is REAL fishing.

Tie the fly. Drift the fly. Catch the trout. Repeat.

Your science is right the way I understand it Nohackle, except that instead of a single layer that flows slower, there are multiple layers like the skin of an onion. The water furthest from the sources of friction (the sides, and the bottom mostly) flows the fastest. The boundry layer is actually pretty small, and it is difficult to float a nymph in this layer without hooking the bottom, but really skilled nymphers can probably pull it off. Regardless anything below the surface is going to move at a different speed than something floating at the surface, or even at a different depth or different stream position. The way I understand it the flyline is going to have the same effect as the indicator. Your nymph is going to sink down to a certain depth and then it is going to suspend at a certain depth depending on its weight. If your indicator is the only thing stopping your fly from sinking further it will create tension. If your fly line is the only thing stopping your fly from sinking further, it will create tension. If either fly line or indicator is drifting at a different speed than the fly it will create tension. What you ideally want is for your fly line or indicator to drift at roughly the same speed as the nymph so that it dosen't create tension at all. This is accomplished by mending, but without an indicator you get less clues as to when there is drag. Instead it has to be done by feel. More power to the people who can pull this off, but it is possible to get a drag free drift with an indicator, in fact I find it easier. What I can't do is get as long of a drag free drift, but since I still have problems both detecting strikes and detecting drag without an indicator, I have better success with them. I don't think the ditch the indicator advice is necessarily correct. It can be a very useful tool for people who are still learning to read drift, and haven't developed that sixth sense to detect strikes. Sometimes I set the hook before my indicator goes down because I see the strike, but otherwise the indicator twitches long before the line pauses.

-- Edited by Psyfisher at 02:03, 2009-02-23

I'd like to say that I have really enjoyed reading all of your opinions on fishing with and without an indicator. There are very few people that truly have a solid grasp on the concept of the drag free drift when it comes to nymph fishing but you guys have some really interesting and vivid ways of explaining it! One thing I'd like to add that I don't think anyone touched on is that sometimes, especially when tight line nymphing, a dead drift is not necessarily what we are trying to achieve. When I first started to learn nymphing without an indicator I did a lot of research into the Polish nymphing style. After reading information from multiple different sources on the technique I realized that they all had one thing in common and it had to do with the way the flies are presented to the fish. The flies are "lead" downstream by the fisherman using the rod tip, which is held as close to the water as possible in order to create a tight, direct connection between the rod tip and the flies. When doing this technique correctly the fisherman is actually moving his flies faster than the speed of the current in order to keep the line tight and create a direct connection. The technique is all about feel, and it is nearly impossible to feel your flies bouncing along the bottom if you are using a normal slack line/dead drift type of presentation. One source described the technique as picking a leaf or piece of debris floating in the current and attempting to move your rig just a hair faster. This way the line stays tight and you can feel when the flies hit rocks or end up in the mouth of a fish! I experimented alot with this method last season while fishing the Pit which is an ideal river for short line nymphing. I was amazed at how well I could feel the underwater structure and detect subtle strikes. I think this is a different technique than what you guys are discussing above but alot of the same concepts such as feeling the bottom and the strike transfer over very well. I think it is important not to confuse tight line nymphing with dead drift nymphing because the because the basic theories of the two techniques are contradicting. With dead drift nymphing you want your nymph to be floating along naturally at the speed of the current layer the fish is feeding in.
We accomplish this by mending extra slack so that the current on the surface does not drag our flies unnaturally. With a tight line presentation the only way to maintain contact with your flies is to keep tension in the line and leader, you certainly do not want any slack in your line whatsoever or you will not feel any strikes! Polish nymphing is only one of the many ways that you can nymph with no indicator, and all the methods you guys described above are completely effective. I simply want to add that there is a huge difference between tight line and dead drift nymphing whether or not you choose to add an indicator to your leader. With the many situations we are presented with during a given day on the river there is opportunity to use all of the methods discussed above and I think they all have their place in the arsenal of the dynamic nymph fisherman!

Obviously it is impossible to effectively "no bobber" nymph cross stream 40 feet away. If this presentation is required then you will need some type of indicator to fish effectively with a dead drifted nymph. This is a given and I apologize for asking for examples.
The one variable in the rigging which has not been mentioned with indicators is shot. The question to ask yourself is does (lets use yarn indicators as an example) an indicator with a split shot somewhere below it move the same speed as the surface of the water with that little "anchor" dragging behind?
Try this: get an indicator and put a large shot about where you think the depth of the run is. Mend line when you drift downstream so that your line is not pulling at the yarn. Compare the speed of the yarn to say...bubbles on the surface passing by.
Now ask yourself if indicators always float at the speed of the water on the surface of the stream.

Tie the fly. Drift the fly. Catch the trout. Repeat.

No hackle is correct. The thing to remember on the style of fishing I'm talking about is done with a short amount of fly line out of he rod tip. It would be difficult to fish 40 feet away and without an indicator and have any control. It's not impossible but more difficult. I did say the technique works best on smaller water. As Chuck said, you won't always see any line movement with subtle strikes but when you're in the zone you "feel" the take, setting the hook becomes a natural reaction.

I use an indicator for most of my fishing.  I'm not afraid to tight line nymph, though.  Sometimes I'll leave the indicator out of the water and high stick a run.  When fishing with an indicator don't be afraid to add some action to your flies, especially if you're fishing with rubberlegged nymphs.  Just give your indicator a slight tug (which will move your flies), then let it continue on its drift.  I discovered this on accident, because no matter how good I think I am at mending sometimes I move the indicator.  And I couldn't tell you how many times I've had fish hit mid-mend.