New Zealand Strike Indicators

I’ll start by saying that I’m not into fishing with weighted nymphs and strike indicators very often. It’s just not my jam. I like casting dry flies, watching fish rise and eat or throwing streamers. I also believe in what iconic angler and conservationist, Lee Wulff, once said: “Trout deserve the sanctuary of deep water.”

That said, I’m also not here to throw stones at glass houses. When conditions warrant, and I want to at least catch a trout by hook or crook, which pretty much describes how I feel most times I go fishing, I am not at all opposed to using an indicator rig to at least get on the board–maybe a few times or more.

And in those situations, when I do choose to use an indicator rig, I’ve found that the New Zealand Strike Indicator System is the best option, for a number of reasons. It’s been my go-to indicator system for a decade or more now, and I’m not going to change any time soon.

Here’s why:

1. I did a lot of scuba diving in rivers amongst trout, working on “Going Deep in the Name of Trout Research” stories for Field & Stream magazine, and I noted that trout react unfavorably to loud “plops” when bobbers land on the water surface overhead. Wool, or synthetic, yarn lands on the water without making the plop, and trout do notice the difference.

2. Looking up at the bubble lines from the bottom of the river, bobbers, foam pellets and other indicators are easy to spot, while yarn indicators seem to more naturally replicate the natural bubbles and foam, and are thus, presumably, better disguised, regardless of color. Do I think that trout are really sophisticated enough to discern that difference? Perhaps not (I’ve learned that size and profile matter 100 times more than color with fly patterns also), but I think it doesn’t hurt the cause.

3. This system is totally knotless, so I don’t have to wreck a leader by putting permanent kinks in it to attach an indicator.

4. It’s relatively easy to move the placement of the indicator, depending on the depth of the run in the river I’m fishing.

5. It’s also easy to adjust the amount of yarn and overall size of the indicator, depending on the type of water I’m fishing. Faster moving, more lumpy  riffles might warrant a larger indicator, and flatter, “spring-creeky” runs might only let you get away with a mere whisper of yarn, if any indicator at all.

6. The way the yarn rides on the water allows the keen and attentive angler to react and set the hook when the yarn merely tilts. By the time you see a bobber sink, often the trout has eaten the bug and spit it out. The late, great Dave Whitlock once sent me a bunch of his hand-tied “Telstrike” indicators with a little post in the middle, and when that post barely wobbled, it was worth a hookset. I try to make a pseudo-post in the middle of the fibers of these indicators as I build them.

7. I like the ability to vary and switch the colors depending on conditions–e.g. N.Z. indicators offer dark yarn, which is key when there’s glare on the water. 

The bottom line is that there’s a lot of versatility with this system, and, dare I say, it even lends itself to a level of sophisticated strategy when most brands of bobber fishing, in my opinion, are intentionally designed to take “sophisticated strategy” out of the game entirely. The NZ Strike Indicator allows you to still play a little chess when most others are playing checkers.

So, to steal from “The Most Interesting Man in the World” who said he didn’t drink beer often, but when he did, it was Dos Equis… 

I’ll say that I don’t fly-fish for trout with strike indicators very often, but when I do, it’s with New Zealand Strike indicators.

Stay thirsty, and fishy, my friends.