Search Month: January 2022

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.

So I was startled, but not surprised, when something heavy hit my legs in the dark around midnight. Fishing to the banks upstream while standing in the swift middle current, the hefty thump happened so fast that it was past me and downstream before I could move. That was too soft to be a log, I thought.

I flipped on my headlamp and looked downstream to see a porcupine returning my wide-eyed gaze. His head turned, and he glared back, as if the hit-and-run was somehow my fault. I almost expected him to flash a middle finger, but I guess he needed both paws for swimming . . .

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.

Trout learn to see some colors, some materials, some shapes and movements as fake. And when they see the same fake fly often enough, they stop eating it. That’s what we mean by angler pressure. So, part of the game becomes a guess about what flies the trout have learned to reject and how we can turn the fish on again.

That’s the unnatural thing about trout seeing too many fishermen and too many flies . . .