It’s a word thrown around in fly fishing circles a lot — turnover. But the concept is commonly misunderstood. No matter what type of fly we’re casting, and no matter the type of leader, we need our rig to turn over. It’s the best way to accurately place the fly in the...
Around here, we entered the winter with our rivers under sustained drought conditions that began in mid July. Somewhere before Christmas, we were granted a deep pile of snow that melted slowly and pushed the rivers to normal flows for a week or better, and the result...
Line sag equals drag. And drag is death to a dead drift. These are baseline facts for the tight line nymphing angler, and success comes by managing line sag during the drift — there’s always some. Taking the standard fly line out of the equation is the first order of...
**NOTE** This is Part Four in a Troutbitten Short Series about weights and measures. You can find the full series at the link below. READ: Troutbitten | Category | Know Your Weights and Measures You can fish your whole life without thinking specifically about the...
The pickup is one of the most overlooked aspects of the casts. And by learning to shoot line on the pickup, the options for delivering our flies with precision and with subtle variation are wide open . . .
Accuracy. It’s an elementary casting principle, but it’s the hardest thing to deliver. Wild trout are unforgiving. So the errant cast that lands ten inches to the right of a shade line passes without interest. As river anglers, our task is a complicated one, because we must be accurate not only with the fly to the target, but also with the tippet. Wherever the leader lands, the fly follows. Accuracy holds a complexity that is not for the faint of heart. But here’s one tip that guarantees immediate improvement right away.
Never underestimate how far away a trout can see upstream. And never underestimate how far away a trout will refuse a fly. It might drift perfectly, right past the trout. But the decision — the refusal, may have already been made with the fly twenty feet upstream.
Here’s more . . .
Fly fishers talk a lot about a dead drift. And why shouldn’t we? So much of our time is spent trying to replicate this elusive presentation that the concept of drifting flies without influence from the leader dictates a large part of what we do. It’s what we think about. We plan for it, rig for it and wade into position for it.
. . . If you just twitched or stripped your fly, it cannot dead drift next. Anything under tension drifts with some influence from the leader. And that’s not a dead drift.
. . . But Smith had also drawn out of me one thing that I’d never fully put into words before explaining it to him. Namely, that contact is felt as much as it’s seen. While tight line nymphing, I’d told Smith, an advanced angler can feel contact with the nymph on the rod tip. Essentially, you could very well fish with your eyes closed. And because Smith was skeptical, I’d suggested some after-dark tight line nymphing as a way to prove to my friend that he could feel that contact just as well as anyone . . .
Smith was still puzzled, and I suspected I was about to join him. He held up his rod, with the long Mono Rig leader, two nymphs and a sighter, and pointed to it. “But if strike detection is mostly visual, what part of this is feel?” Smith had asked a question that I’d never fully considered. Then I answered. “At the rod tip you can feel when you’re in contact with the flies . . .”