For this kind of fishing, I like a longish 6-weight with a stiffish butt section—good strong hook-sets and casting the rigs. The 6-weight is more about casting the indicator and usually two nymphs with tungsten beads on them. The longer length makes mending easier. Personally, I'd steer away from a 5-weight, but with smaller flies or less weight, that could work just fine.

In the past, I've used an Epic 686, and I'm currently using a McFarland GTX for this kind of fishing. Both are 8.5' long.

I’ve used my Steffen 8’ 5/6 with an indicator in the past with some success. I think an indicator and split shot is too much to ask of the Steffen 3/4. Like BrookieBoy said, a wool NZ indicator makes nymphing more tolerable on glass rods. A Belgian cast is also helpful to throw nymphs on a glass rod.

Glacier makes a good point - a faster glass taper like the Epic 686 or McFarland GTX makes nymphing easier than the Steffen taper. Unfortunately, I don’t know if any glass rod will out-nymph a 10’ 4wt graphite rod though.

I think you may also get away with a 3/8” indicator or larger NZ tubing size and wool. I have a FF856-2 and think that is good for nymphing larger water with reasonable beadheaded nymphs 12-18 hook size. I nymph smaller water with 4wt with a 14/16 fly and a 18/20 bead head a lot.

Thanks for the input guys. I suppose what I should do is just try my 4wt and see what I can cast with it. It will only be 1 fly with a tiny tungsten bead and probably a half inch indicator. The casts will be 25 ft max; maybe the 4 will work. thx again.

If you can get away with using the smallest indicators (like the size sm Airlocks), the 4wt will turn over that stuff. That said, I like my Steffen 5/6 with a 6wt line to give myself more versatility. That is, if I'm using glass. If I'm going for overall efficiency, I'm using my 3wt euro rod (10'6" with a pretty stiff butt).

Again though, if you're only casting 25' with small flies and a small indi, your 4wt will probably work really well.

I don't use bobbers a lot, but have fun with them when the mood strikes. I usually use 6 weight glass, so I don't have a lot of experience with light rods. I use small cork floats. Something I have been playing with for small water is using foam ear plugs. They are dirt cheap. They are super light weight. You can easily trim them to any size or shape you want with any kind of fly tying scissors. I have tried heating a needle and pushing a hole through, and cutting a slit down one side, with pretty much equal success.

I use inexpensive round and pill shaped Pompano floats when I fish flies on a spinning rod. They would work just fine as fly rod indicators with a toothpick as a peg or they can used as a slip float with a knot-less leader.

They come in lots of sizes and colors with a hole already drilled through.

I regularly fish smaller bead head nymphs below the smallest size thing-a-ma-bobber or a Dorsey indicator on a 4 weight. Usually in the slower larger pools or ponds. For a lot of my nymph fishing I like the style like the old Scientific Anglers indicators that thread onto the leader and look like a piece of fly line. They sink with the leader but are usually visible in fairly clear water. Harry Murray has given me quite a few of these over the years. He sells them in his shop but they seem expensive for what you get.

Here is how I fish nymphs, I have spent some time trying to figure this out and I am convinced that high-sticking without a floating indicator is the answer. A floating indicator will normally move faster than the water at the bottom of the river where the trout are holding causing the fly to drag too fast to look natural. The same thing will happen if your line is on the water adding downstream drag, so I use a long enough leader that only monofilament in the long leader or long tippet is in the water (because the small cross section of the leader will not cause the fly to drag) with a properly placed sighter and sinking indicator that I might be able to see under the surface. The point fly needs to be right at the bottom and moving at the slower pace of water at that depth.

Watching this video, don't be fooled that I am a great high stick nympher, I am not, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time after they had released a pod of stocker rainbows into the river when I filmed this. They stayed podded up there for three days and I was able to catch and release a bunch of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAQ8WNB ... Z2&index=2

BTW, the rod I use for this is a graphite 12 ft, 3 wt from MaxCatch. The tip needs to be much faster than my normal Lamiglas favorites because the moment is so brief to hook a fish that the flex in a slower glass rod does not happen in time for me.

What Paveglass says about floating indicators dragging the fly makes sense and is something I've read about, but I don't remember where. The advice from that article was to keep adjusting the indicator upstream above the fly during the drift. Hard to do without affecting the fly, at least for me. I think it works best with longer rods and short lines in the cases where you can get closer to the fish. That Maxcatch 12' 3wt of Paveglass' would work great, but a pain to maneuver on most of the streams I fish. I do like the indicators that slide over the leader like Paveglass was using that are like a short piece of flyline - I use them even in the smallest streams with good success. All of my indicators like that are the orange ones that Murray sells and I string 2 or 3 along the leader and one of them always at the line/leader junction. Have to watch these too, the leader will get ahead of the fly and drag the fly downstream as well, but they help with the visual aspect of when to mend. I always seem to pull the fly when I mend, likely just user error.