By Ronnie Chism
DAPPING NATURALS AND ARTIFICIALS There is a lot more to dapping than meets the eye Dapping to most anglers is only practiced at Mayfly time or in August, when the Daddy long legs and the grasshoppers hatch, but there is a lot more to dapping than meets the eye. Lets start with the set up we need to have a comfortable day’s dapping. It has to be light and easy to handle, so 14 1/2 ft is all you need. Any longer and it would not be balanced correctly. You don’t need floss, as in a squally wind the fly will blow all over the place. You’re better to use 5/6 lb nylon attached to 10/12 lb nylon on your fly reel. The best hook I found to be a Kamasan B983 size 10/12 tied to sit upside down so that the two Mayflies sit on the shank of the hook and not slide down to the bend. If you are new to dapping, putting the flies on can be tricky, but you will soon get used to it. The best place to insert the hook is the brown spot at the natural’s thorax. Hold the fly’s wings between finger and thumb and push the hook through the brown part and gently push the fly up the shank, repeat the process with the other fly and make sure both of them are sitting upright and across the shank with feet sitting on the water not lying to the side or flat on the surface. If you use too big a hook it takes a lot more
work to keep the flies up on the surface. While dapping with the Daddy long legs is much the same as using a Mayfly, you have to handle the Daddys more gently because the wings and legs come off easily. The best time to collect Daddies is first thing in the morning, especially if there is a heavy dew. You can collect them in the rushes and long grass - they won’t move very much until the sun warms them up and then you will need a small children’s beach net to catch them. I use a plastic sweet jar to hold them, with a top wide enough to put your hand in. Take the lid off and get an old piece of rubber wide enough to cover the top - an old car tube will do - cut it open and place the lid onto the rubber and mark roughly two inches wider than the top. Fasten it with a cable tie or just tape it up, then take a sharp knife and make a cross shape on the rubber that covers the top opening, so it will fold around your wrist and stay in shape when you reach in to take a fly out. You don’t have a lid to open and the flies can’t get out, just
A pretty Lough Mask trout caught on the dap. 124
Spring 2015 Countrysports and Country Life
The newly emerged greenfly can be collected from the underside of loughside bushes and trees
put a couple of air holes in the jar and Bob’s your uncle. Put them on the hook in the same way as for the Mayfly. Dapping the cricket is much the same. They are more easily found than grasshoppers in some parts of the country and work equally well. They are very effective even when the Mayfly is on and better still when