Good fishing comes in patches. We wade into a prime spot, catch a few trout and miss another, until the action tapers off and we move on. Maybe an unexpected handful of fish comes in a piece of side water, but we find no takers in the next dark pocket. It’s...
All good trout rivers are full of rocks. Bankside and midstream, big ones and small ones -- rocks are everywhere. Unless the bottom is gravel or sand for long stretches, the composition of the riverbed is a series of boulders and stones scattered in various sizes....
I feel fortunate that I grew up fishing small streams. I learned to read trout water on wooded creeks that roughly paralleled dirt roads or meandered away from them. Access was more often at a dusty pull-off rather than a paved lot. But these weren’t tiny brooks...
I reeled up and waded slowly to the river's edge for a good bank sit. On my way, I stared downstream through water that I’d fished for the last few hours with meager results. I watched tight, v-shaped waves start at my legs and expand, before fading into the currents...
There’s a world unseen below the surface. The riverbed weaves a course and directs the currents, giving shape to its valley. Water swirls behind rocks. It moves north and south against submerged logs. The stream blends and separates, merges and divides again as vertical columns rise and fall — and all of this in three dimensions. . . . Eventually, knowing and admiring what lies beneath is as easy as seeing what flows above.
John crossed the bridge with his head down. He watched each wading boot meet a railroad tie before picking up his other foot for the next step. Cautiously, he walked the odd and narrow gait required when walking the tracks. And with nothing but air between each massive railroad tie, he could see the river below.
I’ve never known anyone to fall on a railroad bridge. I suppose you couldn’t fall through. But you’d surely break a leg or twist an ankle with one wrong step on that slick wood.
So I stood by the “No Trespassing” sign, next to the edge of the bridge, and watched my friend slowly make his way toward me. He looked disappointed. And when gravel filled in the gaps between ties, when John was back on solid ground, his head stayed down.
“Did you catch a Namer?” I asked with feigned enthusiasm.
“Ha! Nope, I surely didn’t do that,” John said, waving his hand and brushing off my next question.”
A lot goes into a good fishing trip. It’s a flexible framework of pieces and parts mixed in with a little fortuitous intuition. That first trout to the net is rarely luck. And when you start to lose count of how many fish have come to hand, you can be sure that luck has had very little to do with it.
We like to dig into the details of fly fishing. How fast should we lead a pair of nymphs on a tight line? What streamer-head-angle produces best for a medium retrieve in flat water? But the overarching principles of how to catch a trout — the headers of the outline — are these . . .
Flies unattached to anything make for a great lesson. Drop a dry fly into the current and watch the endless dead drift. With no leader to change its course, the dry might go on, drag free, for miles downstream. But weighted flies are a little different. Drop a tungsten beaded Walt’s in the river, and it’ll find the bottom in a few feet or less, even in heavy currents — same thing with split shot. For underwater presentations, then, the leader keeps a fly on its path.
The line and leader is in charge of the flies. And regardless of the fly type, tippet or presentation, good drifts are all about what an angler does with the leader. Wherever that last section of tippet goes, so does the fly.
Therefore, placing the leader in the right water is the key to getting good drifts.
Let’s do it . . .
Seeing into the river is a learned skill. It takes a lot of time on the water to judge the three dimensional flow of a river. Reading the surface is easy. Even without bubbles on the top, most anglers quickly learn to gauge the speed of the top current in relation to their fly or indicator. But what lies beneath can be unpredictable and deceiving. Eventually, with the help of polarized lenses and some serious thought, experienced anglers become proficient (enough) in reading the currents below.
But where does it begin?
Understanding a little about the water column and the correlating habits of trout goes a long way toward better fishing. So let’s do it . . .
Cover more water and catch more trout. It’s a common theme running through these Troutbitten pages and one that surely puts more fish in the net — if you’re committed to it. And while there’s certainly a danger of taking this concept of constant motion to counterproductive extremes, the core philosophy of showing your flies to more trout is hard to argue against.
There are a host of variables to consider, though. And walking upstream spraying casts in every direction is not the way to get things done.
Let’s talk about it . . .