Presentation is #1

Posted by rusty on October 15, 2007

     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

Back to Basics

Posted by philip on October 13, 2007

It’s easy to do.  To get caught up in the technical aspect of fly-fishing.  There are so many products out there, so many aquatic insects, so many different types of streams and so much equipment.  It’s easy for a person to forget the the basic wonder of fly-fishing.

I think it’s the time we have on the water.  Most of us are caught up in our careers, or our life off the stream in general.  We look for any angle we can to improve our catch totals or to help ensure we catch fish in the limited precious time we have on the stream.  We get lured into buying that $700 rod because we think it will help us catch fish, thus ensuring our morning time on the stream will result in a fish slaying adventure.

Sure, it’s about catching fish, but don’t get so focused on catching fish that you forget to enjoy the scenery, or enjoy the fact that you’re standing waste deep in a roaring river, and not sitting in your chair at the office, or breaking your back at the factory.  Don’t forget that people have been catching fish since the dawn of time, and that Orvis was just founded recently relative to that amount of time.

I’ve been focusing on enjoying my time out, keeping my fishing gear simple and still catching fish, though catching fish is really just an extra for me.  This held true on a recent trip (the photo below actually) where my fishing partner Rusty Foreman and I fished a popular eastern tailwater.  We got there early on Saturday and fished through the am and into noon with one fish between the two of us.  Something was obviously wrong.  We were fishing water we’d had success on in weeks prior, and fishing flies we knew were working on the river.

The key for me was not getting too caught up in the fact that we weren’t catching fish, and to just enjoy being where I was versus where I typically am.  We walked out in the mid day and started talking to others on the river.  We soon discovered that nobody was catching fish.  One group of eight guys had one fish in four days of fishing!  We fished the evening, and picked up one more fish between the two of us.  We hit the river hard at daybreak the next morning, and managed one each before the river was bumped to unwadable conditions, and the fish shut down.

What caused the no-bite conditions is a mystery still.  Monday at work, I scoured the interent in search of an answer.  My journey led me through moon phase charts, barometric pressure theories and river temperature thoughts.  In all of that reading, I came away with the feeling that people tend to read far too much into this.  The truth is that the fish we seek are complicated creatures.  I know from keeping thirteen aquariums in my home and dozens of fish that they are complex animals with needs and wants that we can only guess at.

Rusty fished on Thursday this week in our “home waters”, under conditions that my research had pointed to as “unfavorable conditions”, though my instincts told me that the conditions were perfect based on past days on the stream under those conditions, and he made a killing.  Managing a 22″ + bow and landing close to 20.  Proving that the moon phase, and barometer aren’t sure fire ways to know the fishs’ tendancies.

Just enjoy your time on the water.  Even if you’re skunked.  We never know what tomorrow brings, or for some of us, even the next time we’ll fish, so take every moment for what it is, and if a fish blesses you with a strike, then great.

Philip Light

About

Posted by philip on October 12, 2007

Let’s all think about why we do this.  Let’s forget the science.  Let’s forget the gear.  Let’s stand in the canyon in the half light and forget about our “other” world.  Let’s stop to admire the fish we just caught.  Let’s forget numbers.  Let’s get back to basics.

You’ll find on this site that my posts favor the core of fly fishing.  You won’t find detailed scientific research here.  My hope is to help people catch fish by focusing on how to catch fish.  I’m a firm believer in simple equipment and outfit.  You’ll find a simple, clean discussion about fly fishing, with some humor mixed in.

Enjoy!