For our Season 15 Intermission, my wife, Becky, joins me for a lighthearted look at what’s going on in the Troutbitten world. We talk about the upcoming leader sale in the Troutbitten Shop (May 23rd). We talk about the New Trail Troutbitten beer, the upcoming book on Fly Fishing the Mono Rig and a bunch of videos on the Troutbitten YouTube channel.
Becky also covers a couple favorite fishing terms near the end. 🙂
The trout is prized as a gamefish because it’s picky. It’s selective. Often, it requires a refined presentation to fool a wild trout. And in large part, that’s the draw toward fishing for them. Trout become picky for a variety of reasons, both natural and artificial (as a result of angler pressure). The Troutbitten crew tackles the topic, what makes trout so selective?
I guess I’ve been searching for something . . .
For months now, I’ve spent my limited opportunities on the water fishing progressively more remote locations. Turning down offers to float and cast over abundant wild brown trout on our major rivers, I thought I was looking for solitude. What I’ve found is a companion so powerful it cannot be passed off as simple memory. It’s my own history, and I’ve felt it so presently that it seems at times my flat shadow may take form and rise from the leafy ground to start a conversation.
There are two ways to tell the experience of an angler: how he holds a fish and how he keeps his secrets. The latter is probably more important.
A seasoned angler intuitively understands the vulnerability of a river. Spot burning is a real thing with real consequences . . .
A big river is one that you can’t wade all of. And fishing a big river requires discipline. Don’t fish what you can’t fish well. It’s about planning and following through.
This leader is perfectly built for subtle streamer presentations, at longer distances, with less leader sag and more feel. I’ve been working on the Crossover technique for half a decade or more. But in the last year, after the addition of the Super Pause and the slight downsizing of flies, a different leader build has made all the difference.
As an angler, reading the water comes down to understanding what a trout needs. We read water for depth, speed and structure, in reference to what a trout prefers. And when we talk about reading water, we’re thinking about it all from an angler’s perspective. If you’re kayaking down a river for recreation, then how you read water will be pretty different.
Everyone can pick out hydraulics and learn to read current seams. Those are the elementary building blocks of reading trout water. Then we take that knowledge and combine it with what a trout needs. And we eventually have a truly specific, knowledgeable approach to reading a river. Day to day, across the world, wherever trout live in rivers, creeks and streams, their needs are the same.
I don’t like using a rig that forces me into a water haul as my only option. I’m happy to use the water haul as the occasional problem solver, but for day-to-day casting, no thanks.