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VIDEO: Wading Belt Carrying System
How can we keep our stuff with us, make it easily accessible and not be slowed down or fatigued by extra weight? Answer: Carry the heavy things on your hips.
Most anglers focus on whether to choose a chest pack, vest, sling pack, hip pack, lanyard or something else. We think of carrying fly boxes, tippet, leaders and other incidentals. But what about the net? What about water, a wading staff, a camera or anything else with extra weight? Carrying these items should not be a secondary consideration. As the heaviest things among your gear, how you carry them is of primary importance.
The heavy stuff is best carried on your hips, so the most critical part of your carrying system is probably the wading belt. And most wading belts are not up to the task.
PODCAST: Critical Nymphing Concepts #1 — The Three Questions — S10, Ep1
Is the fly low enough for long enough? Is everything in one lane? And do I have to be this far away? These are the key questions. This Season Ten skills series is about the critical concepts of nymphing. Importantly, these concepts apply to all nymphing styles, tight line, indicator or otherwise.
How to stay in the fly fishing game for a lifetime
I know what the game of chasing trout has given me. For over forty years, I’ve had a wonderful purpose, a focus, endless challenges, and a reason to set my feet on wooded, watery paths often enough to call these places home . . .
Fishing is as big as you want it to be. From the beginning, I’ve been in it for the long game. And in the end I plan to wade upstream, toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
STORIES
When fishing for stockies, it may not pay to be ambitious
Brandon barely cut the engine before I jumped out of the truck and into my waders, I strung up lines and laces in no time.
“I’m gonna head upstream past the second flat, into that woodsy section away from the road. When I pick off a few fish up there, I might circle back around to the lower end,” I said to Brandon.
“K. Those are big plans.” he replied flatly.
Brandon spoke again, while staring at the water. “Dom, when fishing for stockies, sometimes it does not pay to be ambitious . . .”
Right Here
I guess I’ve been searching for something.
For months now, I’ve spent my limited opportunities on the water fishing progressively more remote locations. Turning down offers to float and cast over abundant wild brown trout on our major rivers, I thought I was looking for solitude. What I’ve found is a companion so powerful it cannot be passed off as simple memory. It’s my own history, and I’ve felt it so presently that it seems at times my flat shadow may take form and rise from the leafy ground to start a conversation.
I’ve returned to the waters where I’ve been, to revisit not the fish, but the places in time. These memories are eminently tangible out there, without the clutter of accumulated things in my home, the garage or the grocery store to get in the way. A trout stream, miles removed from hard roads, and sunken into a valley beyond the distance of average effort, offers a peaceful reward and a natural, blank slate for anyone willing to seek it. And when thirty years have passed between visits, the reflections I’ve found in these old, familiar waters are astonishing.
Jeff’s Chicken
In his mid-twenties, my friend Jeff walked away from his job to be a trout bum for a few months. It was a bold move, but a strategic one. Jeff had enough funds saved up to float him from late spring all the way into the fall, and he simply wanted to hang out, drink beer and catch trout for a while.
Some people hike the Appalachian trail. Others take a year after school to travel across Canada or maybe backpack through Europe, if you have that kind of money. Jeff just wanted to fish the hell out of Central Pennsylvania and be a trout bum for once. So that’s what we did.
At the time, my own lifestyle was pretty flexible. I’d already spent five or six years exploring Central and North-Central Pennsylvania during the day and playing music in clubs and bars at night. Gas was cheap then, and it was nothing for me to wake at dawn and travel north for a hundred miles.
TACTICS
Podcast: Finding Contact — Tight Line Skills Series, #5
Contact is visual. It’s about reading the sighter to know that we are in touch with the flies from rod tip to the nymph or split shot. It’s not about touching or ticking the riverbed. Instead, the contact we’re looking for is seen on the sighter.
With contact, we know everything about the depth and speed of our flies. We know where they are, and we determine where they are going. That’s the advantage of a tight line (contact) nymphing system . . .
Podcast: Recovering Slack — Tight Line Skills Series, #4
To dead drift a nymph, we cast it upstream. And as the river flows downstream, it sends the fly back toward us, creating slack. Usually, we simply pick up that slack and maintain contact with the fly (sometimes directly, sometimes slightly).
Slack maintenance is a critical skill. And if the goal is to be in contact with the nymphs and know where they are — if this is a tight line rig — then allowing too much slack in the system destroys everything that we’re working toward. We recover the slack in three ways: by lifting the rod tip, by leading the rod tip, and with the line hand.
Podcast: Stick the Landing — Tight Line Skills Series, #3
Part three of this Troutbitten Skills Series focuses on sticking the landing. Because after putting ourselves in great position to present the fly, we shouldn’t waste the perfect tuck cast and delivery. As the fly hits the water, all the elements of our system are in position and ready to drift. That’s sticking the landing.
Like a gymnast who tumbles, somersaults and then lands on two feet with no body movement, the best completion of a cast happens with no extra movement. Instead of landing and then recovering or correcting, we stick the landing, ready to drift.
NYMPHING
Is a soft sighter best? Not always
My first experience with modern sighter material was an opaque line from a Czech company. I paid more in shipping than I paid for the line, and I waited a couple weeks, wondering if the package would ever arrive.
It did. And I immediately noticed how different it was. The material was extremely limp when compared to the same diameter of the Gold Stren and Amnesia that I favored. And at the tying desk, where I’d opened the package and inspected the line, I loved how visible the new bi-color was — it was opaque, not translucent. So I was eager to fish with the new line, assuming it would become my new favorite sighter material.
It didn’t. Instead, just a few casts in, I realized what I’d given up by using the new material — turnover.
For better or worse, modern sighter material is all quite similar in design to that first line I bought from the Czechs. It’s opaque (great). And it’s limp (great only sometimes.) . . .
Tight Line Nymphing — The Check Set
How do you know when to set the hook? Should you set on any twitch, pause or hesitation of the line and sighter? Yeah, sometimes. If the trout eats the nymph fast and hard, those twitches and pauses are unmistakable. Aggressive takes are obvious, but most eats on a nymph are subtle. And the angler has a choice: set on anything, or make guesses about every twitch, pause and hesitation. It’s a rough life. But there’s a third option too . . .
The check set is a very short and powerful hook set that moves the nymph just a few inches. Drift, drift, bump, check set. Nope, not a trout. Then let the nymph fall back into the drift and watch for the next take.
That sounds much easier than it really is. And in fact, the check set simply does not work under some conditions. But in the right situation, it’s a deadly tactic. Let’s get to that . . .
Seven Ways To Get Your Fly Deeper (with VIDEO)
In time, all things in a river sink to the bottom. How much time do you have? Getting our flies down is the ever-present objective. It’s what good fly anglers think about. But is it as simple as adding split shot or swapping out to a heavier tungsten beaded fly? No, it’s not.
There are seven ways to get the fly deeper. Understanding all of them, and seeing how each interacts with or affects the others, is a major key to gaining a complete picture of your underwater fishing system.
STREAMERS
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ANGLER TYPES IN PROFILE
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BIG TROUT
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NIGHT FISHING
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