Mark Tinsky wrote:

After a few miscues I discovered that if I kept the rod tip up a
little bit, allowing some slack in the line, and let the fish take
the fly a bit before striking made for a better hookup
percentage.

This is also a good trick for increasing the hook-up percentage when
swinging a brace of soft hackles or other wet flies.

West coast steelheaders will keep a loop of 18-24" of line lightly held
between thumb and forefinger of the hand gripping the rod when swinging
standard PNW patterns for summer fish. The take of a steelhead will pull
the loop from their fingers, allowing the fish enough slack to turn back
to its holding position and hook itself when it comes taut against the
drag of the reel. This method is less successful for trout, I think.
Except for very big fish, the strike tends to be less sudden, less
explosive, and the angler, rather than releasing the loop, tends to grip
it instead and strike too quickly. Introducing slack into the system by
holding the rod up at a 45 or even 60 degree angle tends to work better.

I've found with swinging both wooly buggers and soft hackles for trout,
that casting across or even slightly upstream, then throwing a big
up-stream mend into the line--to slow down the swing--together with
holding the rod up as you describe, significantly decreases the number of
short or missed strikes. I have an impression, from comparing the times I
simply realize I've got a fish hooked to the times I actually strike, that
rainbows are more likely to hook themselves than are browns. (But this may
just be one of those fishing "facts" governed mostly by the
imagination.....)

Nice TR.

JR