09-19-2006, 09:27 PM
For what it's worth, here's the terminology that I learned. It comes from England and Ireland where the use of multiple fly rigs is very common.
The fly that is furthest "down the line" is the "point" fly. You can think of it as being at the "pointiest end" of the leader/tippet structure, or in the military sense of the "point" in a patrol who is the furthest out from the patrol's command.
There is only one "point" fly.
All of the other flies are the droppers.
In a classic structure, these droppers hang off of short bits of leader/tippet material which is fastened to the main body of the leader in any of the 100,000 or so ways discussed in a related thread. Sort of like this bit of ASCII Art tries to depict ("o" = fly):
--------------------------------------------------------o
[#ffffff]......................[/#ffffff]\[#bfdfff].[#ffffff]............................[/#ffffff][/#bfdfff]\
[#ffffff].......................[/#ffffff]o[#ffffff].............................[/#ffffff]o
Sometimes, we quickly rig up a multiple fly rig by simply tying a bit of tippet to the bend of the fly that we already have on our line, then add a fly to the other end of this bit of material. Well then, this added on fly, based on the above descriptions, is now the "point" fly, so the existing fly could be called a "dropper", even though it doesn't "drop". As in:
-----------------------------------------o-----------------o
Personally, I try to not get too hung up on what name to use for which fly. If I'm in doubt that "we" are all using the same definitions, then I just make a note somewhere that says "here are the definitions that I'm using". It works, or at least it seems to work. It works in fly tying, and it even seemed to (mostly) work at the day job (as I recall <G> ). I even try the technique at home, but it doesn't work as well here. Except with the dogs. <GG>
[signature]
The fly that is furthest "down the line" is the "point" fly. You can think of it as being at the "pointiest end" of the leader/tippet structure, or in the military sense of the "point" in a patrol who is the furthest out from the patrol's command.
There is only one "point" fly.
All of the other flies are the droppers.
In a classic structure, these droppers hang off of short bits of leader/tippet material which is fastened to the main body of the leader in any of the 100,000 or so ways discussed in a related thread. Sort of like this bit of ASCII Art tries to depict ("o" = fly):
--------------------------------------------------------o
[#ffffff]......................[/#ffffff]\[#bfdfff].[#ffffff]............................[/#ffffff][/#bfdfff]\
[#ffffff].......................[/#ffffff]o[#ffffff].............................[/#ffffff]o
Sometimes, we quickly rig up a multiple fly rig by simply tying a bit of tippet to the bend of the fly that we already have on our line, then add a fly to the other end of this bit of material. Well then, this added on fly, based on the above descriptions, is now the "point" fly, so the existing fly could be called a "dropper", even though it doesn't "drop". As in:
-----------------------------------------o-----------------o
Personally, I try to not get too hung up on what name to use for which fly. If I'm in doubt that "we" are all using the same definitions, then I just make a note somewhere that says "here are the definitions that I'm using". It works, or at least it seems to work. It works in fly tying, and it even seemed to (mostly) work at the day job (as I recall <G> ). I even try the technique at home, but it doesn't work as well here. Except with the dogs. <GG>
[signature]