Rod Weight, Leader Length and Big Fish!

I was blessed yesterday with landing two big fish.  The experience embodied the reason for fly fishing and made me consider a few things.  Gear selection and leader setup are two things you should think about when hitting a river known to produce large fish.

First, I thought it would be cute to take my 7′-6″ 4wt on a stream that I know holds large fish.  I thought it would be a challenge to land decent fish in the 16-18 inch range, and make the experience with smaller fish more interesting.  This proved to be an accurate assumption, and almost a mistake.  Thankfully, the flow in the stream was low, as are most PA trout streams this time of year.

I managed several fish in the first hour, and the first big fish came in the first hour and a half.  It was a brown in a beautiful section of fast deep water who slammed the nymphs so hard I thought I snagged a mack truck!  He shot upstream spooling line out at a breakneck rate.  Thankfully, again, the low water level and the slack water on my casting side of the stream allowed me to “direct” him into areas where line tension from the current would be minimal, allowing me to deal with the weight of the fish alone.  I was actually concerned about the rod for a while, and the thought of trying to break him off even crossed my mind.  I held on, though, and finally managed him to the net.  He was then carefully revived, and released, but not before I dropped my $500 video camera in the drink trying to capture him on film.

I continued fishing, with a “miss”, “fish on then lost”, or a “fish to the net” about every 4-5 casts for the next few hours.  After lunch, I encountered the next true test of my light weight rig’s ability to land big fish.  I was pitching a heavily weighted pair of nymphs into the head of a deep pool when I saw the flash of a big fish.  The flash was followed by jerk of the indicator and a jerk of my arm as I set the hook.  She was acrobatic, and her entire huge body left the water around 3 times after the hook set.  This rainbow really made me question my desire to fish light tackle.  She made 4 big runs on me, upstream and down until I finally got her to me.  It was then that I realized my second mistake.  My leader was too long.

I typically try to keep a good handle on the length of the leader, but when you’re heavy into fish, and breaking off consistently,  it’s easy to add a little too much tippet and end up with a rig that wont let you swing a fish to your net.  Thankfully, I have long arms, and I somehow managed by bending my back backwards, and extending my body as long as I could to get her into the net.  Thank God I had a net too.  She was so tall that I couldn’t get my hand around her.  My later measurement of my arm from the tip of my fingers to about 2 inches past my elbow tells me she was about 24″ and about 7-1/2″ tall.  One of the most beautiful things about this catch (not my stumbling around trying to net her) was that the #16 barbless hook was centered exactly in the middle of her upper jaw.  A perfect hookset.

I’ve landed some big fish in my time, and some on fairly light tackle, but this was the biggest fish on the lightest rig that I’ve ever managed.  Some things that I did that I think helped me land these two:

(a) When I saw that I had a big fish, I made a conscious effort not to become overly excited.  Keeping my adrenaline down kept me from horsing her.  Try telling yourself: “oh well, I have a big fish on, I’ll probably loose it, and it doesn’t matter” or things like that.  (b) My arms were already tired from fishing heavily from 7:30 to 2:00 with very few breaks, and quite a few fish, so even if my adrenaline was rushing, my muscles probably wouldn’t have been much of a factor anyway.  (c) being that my leader was longer than it should’ve been, there might have been more elasticity in the line, for a little more forgiveness.  (d) I tried really hard to direct her out of fast water, and as mentioned, the water was lower than normal (more on directing below).  (e) I had my drag set correctly, and I let her run when she wanted to run.  Including at the apparent end of the fight when I got her near my net.  Always assume that a fish has one last “bolt”/run left in them when you get them near the net the first time.

More on directing fish.  You can direct a fish by laying your rod on one side or the other.  I actually had my rod horizontal to the water several times, and only a few inches off the water.  You’ll be amazed how easy it is to direct a fish when you lay your rod down horizontally.  A few things to keep in mind when doing this.  One, make sure your sessions of directing are kept at a minimum.  Two, immediately after “directing” return your rod to a vertical position to get the fish’s head up.  Remember, that unless you’ve foul hooked a fish, you’ve got control over where they swim.  If you can get their head pointed in the direction you want them to go, their body will follow like a torpedo.

Philip Light

The results of nymphing

     So let me begin with saying that if you are waiting for a hatch, your missing out.  My favorite type of fishing is nymphing.  The reason I enjoy nymphing so much is that at least 80% of the trouts feeding is subsurface.  Don’t get me wrong, everyone enjoys seeing that strike on the surface to a neatly placed dry that rewards you with a few fish, but when the hatch isn’t present a good bet is nymphing.

     Their are many ways of nymphing, whether it is with one fly or a tandem setup.  Highsticking is a great way to get you into trout in all types of water, especially pocket water.  When deciding on a nymph to fish, some may try an attractor pattern with a second fly dropper, this is a very effective way to cover water.  My favorite setup for any nymphing situation is probably a pheasant tail, hare’s ear, or caddis larva.  My reason for these specific nymphs are because the abundant range of water they inhabit, they are practically everywhere. 

     First off you want to make sure that you have enough weight on to get you fly to the bottom where the majority if fish feed.  Now, experiment with different flies or presentations until you get a strike or pick up a fish.  You can pretty much depend on further activity after that because you now know what they are interested in.  Well it’s not that easy.  Most fish will feed on a well presented nymph, but understanding why that fish took the nymph on that specific drift is the real question.  Was it at the right depth?  Was it the right size?  Or could it be that maybe a hatch could be starting?  We don’t have the luxury of knowing that for sure, but trying to understand why the fish took is a big plus when fishing nymphs.

     Basically what I’m saying is that when your dry fly fishing it can be a blast, but it’s pretty self explanatory, match the hatch and make a good drift.  While nymphing is similar, you can’t see you fly so you have to rely on your ability to nymph effectively, and the only way to get good at it is to tie on a nymph.  I think that if you give nymphing a honest chance, then several fish will visit you net.

     My good friend Philip is a good nymph fisherman.  He can pick up several trout when other around us are getting shut out.  Philip and I have been fishing together for about fifteen years now and I think we both fish very similar.  We usually have about the same luck when we fish together for some weird reason.  Probably because we fish the same setup most of the time, but whatever it is, the one thing that’s always a given, is that it’s fun.  We enjoy our time on the stream, especially if we’re nymphing. 

     And as for now and always “tight lines”

Rusty 

Observations

Watching the water is something I truly enjoy. Perched high on a rock mid stream focused on a seam filled with all manor of debris can be a very educational way to take a break from the casting and high sticking. Taking time out to watch the water can pay dividends too.

Such was the case yesterday on a Western Pa tailwater. Rusty and I started early at day break to find the river smoking and fog filling the valley. We found a nice spot with great flow and perfect depth for nymphing. I started with my huge golden stone by itself and Rusty started pitching some smaller nymphs that I can’t recall.

We fished hard for a good 2 hours with no fish between the two of us. I had gone from my stonefly to a #16 then #18 pheasant tail, then an egg pattern, and finally pitching streamers. Nothing was working. As the day progressed, we moved through different water, and not so much as a bump.

This is that time when you wonder what you’ve done wrong and all sorts of things start running through your head. Mind you, this river for some reason has been running extremely warm! In the 60’s to be exact (locals should know what river this was by now) and has been running at around 60-64 for the last few weeks. This is tolerable water for bows and browns though, and they should’ve been used to it by now. We even discussed moving to another stream nearby, but we knew it was too low to safely fish.

We pressed on, and just after lunch, were rewarded with the first fish of the day. A tiger trout I managed on a white streamer. We fished that section hard for a good hour until we decided to explore further down river. As we were walking down to a section that I wanted to fish, we stumbled on a beautiful hole. We decided to start pitching streamers there. As we did, my mind seemed to be playing tricks on me. I swore I saw several fish rise in the head of this pool, but aside from some midges and the occasional brown/tan caddis, nothing seemed to be hatching.

We fished for a while more until it became apparent that they were starting to take pretty heavily on top. Then we saw them. What looked to be black caddis, but upon closer inspection revealed that they weren’t. I’m no entomologist, so I have to research after the fact. I’ve seen plenty of black caddis in my day, and this most certainly wasn’t a black caddis. It’s wings were laid flat on it’s back, vs the “tent” wing configuration of a caddis. The other glaring difference was the absence of the signature caddis antennae.

Of course, after seeing this, I re-rigged my rod to fish dries, and my first obvious choice was a black caddis dry to match the black caddis cousins littering the water. My first few passes over fish produced nothing. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that if a fish that’s feeding regularly ignores a seemingly perfect imitation on a perfect drift on water that receives little pressure, that they’re taking something else.

That’s when I stopped to observe. It only took a few moments to realize that the takes were subtle and the dorsal was more evident than the head, so they were obviously taking emergers. Keeping with the black flies, I used a black soft hackle with a green abdomen (though the black flies had black abdomens) and sunk it just below the surface film. The first cast produced a strike by a bruiser who broke my 6x tippet cleanly. I would’ve liked to have seen that fish!

For the next hour or so, it was just fun. It embodied why we fly fish. That moment in time made the whole trip worth while. We didn’t “slay” fish by any means, but to figure it out was just as much fun. A later long cast into the head of a pool resulted in a beautiful rainbow breaking the surface gently with his back and a perfect hook up. The fish put on some acrobatics for us and I got him to the net.

I don’t know how many fish I missed, or how many I actually netted, but that window of opportunity made the whole trip worth while. I would’ve liked to have been into fish in the early morning, and what caused the fish to shut off is still a mystery. Maybe they wanted black nymphs earlier, a practice both Rusty and I avoid. Maybe it was the sauna like conditions of the river. Maybe the old “you can’t catch fish when there’s fog on the water” thing was true.

Regardless of reason, the fact is that they weren’t feeding early morning, then something happened that turned them on. More than likely it was the hatch, and they wouldn’t have fed all day if it didn’t happen. I’ll never know, and I’m fine with that. The few fish that I managed, and the breath taking scenery made it all worth while.

Philip

Presentation is #1

     Did you ever find yourself on the stream getting skunked, and wishing you had a specific fly?  Well I’m sure you all have at some point.  Most people know that the way to catch more fish is to match the hatch, but my belief is that presentation is #1. 

     The reason I find this to be true is that so many times my good friend Philip and I would catch fish from daylight til dark on the same fly, while most people switch with the fish activity throughout the day.  We will usually start the day with what is a confident fly of ours, or what we know has worked in the past(keep a journal).  Even as the temperature heats up and the BWO hatch starts, or whatever is coming off that day, you can still catch you share of fish as long as you present the fly to the fish in a natural and enticing way.

     The way that I began to believe this theory we had was when I first realized how to read the water during every drift I would make.  After a while of tossing cast after cast to feeding trout with no luck, you will start to learn.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but I know when you figure it out it is one of the greatest rewards in fly fishing.  It’s almost like your force feeding them but without the force.

     The best way to learn this is to figure out what was different with the cast that caught the fish, and the casts that didn’t.  Fish a nice run or riffle that you know produces trout, with a fly that you wouldn’t think of using any other time, but this time trust it and fish it with confidence and close attention and I’m sure eventually you’ll figure out how to read the water.  Because remember, matching the hatch isn’t everything, presentation is #1.

     And as for now and always “tight lines”

     Rusty Foreman

The magic of the partridge

     Well it is now cooling off and the trout are starting to feed on some very interesting flies.  Some people will do well on the tradition egg pattern, some will stick to the old stand by, the San Juan worm (Philip), and others will hopefully find the magic of the soft hackle.

     The soft hackle to some people looks like a sparsely tied nothing, and I agree, but how the fish look at it is another story.  This time of year a lot of the trout are taking some odd presentations, and I’m about to tell you another one that works great for all eastern trout.  The traditional way to fish a soft hackle is on or just beneath the surface film, well pinch on some split shot and start to dredge.  Yes, I know it doesn’t sound right, but a soft hackle drifted deep and slow can pick up some large trout this time of year.

     Now all you need to do is pick a natural and productive color from the past and give it a shot.  The best way to tie a soft hackle is with partridge, but various other birds will work as well, like starling and chukar. The abdomen of the fly should be thin and not to bushy because the soft hackle on the fly will give off plenty of movement  in the water.  Just remember when tying a soft hackle that it doesn’t have to look appealing to you, but to the trout.  It’s pretty simple, fish them like you would fish any of your favorite nymphs and I believe you’ll be surprised by the results. 

     And as for now and always “tight lines”

     Rusty Foreman