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ALL ARTICLES
PODCAST: Fighting Big Fish #7 – Everything All At Once – S20, Ep7 (VIDEO and AUDIO)
The season 20 finale covers small water, shallow water, drag settings, strip sets, locations, and using the rod to control the fish.
Random or Rhythmic
There’s another theme we’ve been talking about this summer too. Within your chosen pace of fast, slow or somewhere in between, do you want the motion random and erratic or on cadence and in rhythm?
How to Fish One Fly Rod for Everything — Dries, Streamers, Nymphs and Wets (VIDEO)
I use one fly rod for everything. It doesn’t matter if I’m fishing dry flies, nymphs, wet flies or streamers, the rod I leave the truck with is the rod I’m using all day. If you’re locked into the mindset that you need a bunch of fly rods to fish different tactics and flies, think again. I promise, there’s an easy, efficient, effective way to use one rod for everything.
STORIES
On Your Own Terms
So many factors figure into trout habits, and I feel like it’s my job to keep up, matching flies and presentations to the trout’s terms. And then sometimes I don’t want to . . .
. . . A few of those apex fish are still out there hunting cicadas. Still swimming. Still searching. Maybe they’re doing it on their own terms too.
Woody And The Fly Shop
You can tell a lot about a fly angler from a quick look at their leader. If there was an educational course for working at a fly shop, that’s something the teacher would share early on. And I’ve seen this trick pulled countless times in shops, when the answer-to-question ratio was getting pretty thin . . .
“Hey, go grab your reel, and let’s see how you have things set up.”
Fishing Marginal Water — Thoughts and Strategies
There’s nobody around for miles, you have every braid and river bend all to yourself, and there’s a real possibility of the biggest fish of your life to the net. The prospects of marginal water are tantalizing. But you have to be willing to cover miles of river, wade the rough stuff and accept a slim fish count, all for the low percentage chance of a couple trout where they aren’t supposed to be. You have to fish hard.
. . . Success on marginal water takes some time and patience to get it right.
TACTICS
How to Fish One Fly Rod for Everything — Dries, Streamers, Nymphs and Wets (VIDEO)
I use one fly rod for everything. It doesn’t matter if I’m fishing dry flies, nymphs, wet flies or streamers, the rod I leave the truck with is the rod I’m using all day. If you’re locked into the mindset that you need a bunch of fly rods to fish different tactics and flies, think again. I promise, there’s an easy, efficient, effective way to use one rod for everything.
Nymphs On the Drop (VIDEO)
Sometimes, trout eat nymphs on the drop — as the fly is falling or fluttering to the bottom. And when we recognize that, it’s time to make some adjustments to our rig, the presentation and even the water we choose to fish.
This video shows how I fish for trout when their focus for nymphs is out of the strike zone and above them. I cover tracking the flies, floating the sighter, longer casts, power curves, tuck casts, slack to the nymph, strike detection and more. And I walk through all of this while fishing through a favorite section of river.
Fish and Film – Dry or Die (VIDEO)
Every summer I fish dry flies more than anything else. This year, without really planning on it, that’s all I’ve fished. I haven’t touched a nymph or a streamer for about two months now. It’s been dry fly or die.
Summers are my off season from guiding, but life gets complicated. There’s all the branches of the Troutbitten Project to keep up with, and rest of life creeps in too. It all gets mixed together. It get’s too cluttered. And maybe simplifying my flies and tactics is a response to all that.
NYMPHING
Straight Talk About Competition Nymphing (with VIDEO)
A handful of strict competition rules have been passed on to the whole nymphing community. And maybe that’s not such a good thing.
Tight Line Dry Dropper and Fishing the “Y” (with VIDEO)
There’s a lot to be done with this system — many different ways to fish, with presentations that go far beyond what is commonly shown and talked about. This is not Euro dry dropper. And we’re not fishing within the constraints of rules and regulations that stem from the competition scene.
Instead, by taking a broad look at what’s possible with a tight line dry dropper approach, fly choice, leader design, weight position and rigging methods all open up into a set of tactics that are more fun and lead to more trout at the end of the line.
RIVERSIDE (Video and Podcast): Are Light Nymphs More Effective? Is Less Weight More Natural?
What’s the nymph really doing under there? How is it affected by the currents? And is the attached tippet dragging the fly unnaturally across, over, up or out of the natural, one-seam drift that our picky trout are waiting for? the current trend for lighter flies and lighter tackle has taken a strong foothold. But just a few years ago, the concept of anchor flies was driving weighty considerations in the opposite direction.
STREAMERS
VIDEO: Crossover Style – Streamer X Nymph
Crossover Technique is streamers on a tight line. It’s part streamer concept and part nymphing. There’s always a streamer on the point, and sometimes a nymph is added as a second fly.
The Crossover is all about taking a streamer to the fish. Instead of stripping our fly away from the trout, asking it to get up and chase, the Crossover style makes it easier for a lazy trout to say yes to the presentation.
Crossover techniques are subtle but attractive. We’re trying to inspire the trout to eat a bigger food form, while having precise control over exactly where the fly is and how it moves, all because we’re fishing it on a tight line, Mono Rig system.
PODCAST: The Blue Liner’s Bible — Questions and Stories (S16, Ep6)
I think we ended up right where we started, realizing that small stream fishing leads us into everything there is to love about fishing, and maybe helping to teach us some of the most important lessons of all. Wherever you are, wherever you fish, take some time to hike upstream into a narrow, shaded valley. You just might fall in love.
PODCAST: The Blue Liner’s Bible — Bigger Trout, and Streamers on Small Streams (S16, Ep5)
This one’s about using streamers to find the biggest trout in the smallest waters. Our job for this episode is to highlight the changes we make, or the different strategies we might have, for fishing streamers in small waters vs the bigger ones.
ANGLER TYPES IN PROFILE
Angler Types in Profile: The Substitution Guy
. . . “Great. I have some ideas on how to make your fly better,” Bruce said flatly.
That stung a little too. What improvements are needed? I wondered while Bruce stashed my beloved streamer into his fly box. I watched until the end, until the shadow of the closing lid engulfed the mallard flank, and the glint from the copper conehead was no more. Farewell, good friend.
Seven days later, Bruce sent me photos of his “improved” version, noting that he’d substituted white for tan marabou, changed the collar dubbing to something “with necessary flash,” and added opal tinsel to the tail. “The fly just looks bare without it,” Bruce assured me. Accompanying the pics and descriptions of what he changed, Bruce ended with the following: “This spruced up fly gets a lot more attention!!”
Now how the hell does he know that, I wondered. It’s only been a week . . .
Angler Types in Profile: The I’ve been doing that forever guy
Fly fishing is full of it — full of anglers who take themselves too seriously, and full of others who support it. Everyone knows everything . . .
So as fly fishing churns out newish concepts like articulated streamers and euro nymphing, it’s no wonder there’s some resistance to it all. No wonder at every turn we find guys with arms folded, shaking their heads and saying, “Nah, I’ve been doing that forever. . .”
Angler Types in Profile: Goldilocks
On the sweetheart days, the Goldilocks angler is there. Any other time? This morning? Not so much.
It seems that some fly fishermen are constantly looking for reasons not to fish. Provide them with a logical reason to stay home, and they will — and they’ll feel good about it.
BIG TROUT
PODCAST: Why We All Love Big Trout
This episode is about big trout — what they mean to us, why we chase them, and how catching a top tier wild trout often leaves a bookmark in the story of our fishing lives.
Podcast: How to Fight Bigger Trout — S3-Ep4
Something electric happens when we hook into the fish of the day, the fish of the season or maybe the fish of a lifetime. Our hearts beat faster. The adrenaline pumps because the stakes are raised. This is the fish we’ve been waiting for, and we don’t want to lose the opportunity.
Thirty-Inch Liars
Every fisherman in the parking lot seems to have a thirty-inch fish story, don’t they?
You know what I hear when someone says a fish was “about two feet long?” I hear: “I didn’t measure the fish.”
Bass guys don’t put up with this stuff. My friend, Sawyer (a dedicated bass and musky guy), is dumbfounded by the cavalier way trout fishermen throw estimates around. In his world, if you didn’t measure it, you don’t put a number on it. They take it seriously. We trout fishermen embarrass ourselves with estimates.
NIGHT FISHING
Night Fishing for Trout — The Bank Flash
I returned to a tactic that I’d employed on many dark nights where I couldn’t effectively reference the bank. I reached up to my headlamp and flicked on the light for an instant — a half second and no more — before returning back to the black. Then, just like the quick shots of lightning earlier, the lamp showed me the way. The image of the riverbank burned into my brain. Something inside of me calculated the adjustments and converted the images into accuracy with my tools of fly rod, line, leader and fly. It was a little bit of magic . . .
Night Fishing for Trout — Upside Down and Backward
Solving after-dark trout fishing mysteries begins by asking the same fundamental questions as we ask in the daylight: Where are the trout, and how are they feeding?
Night Fishing for Trout — Location, Location, Location
It took me seasons of trial and error to understand this truth: On some rivers — especially those with larger trout — much of the water after dark is a dead zone. Nothing happens, no matter what flies or tactics you throw at them. Drift or swing big flies or small ones. Hit the banks with a mouse or swing the flats with Harvey Pushers. It doesn’t matter. On most rivers that I night fish, there are long stretches of water that simply won’t produce.
But in these same waters, there are sweet spots to be found — places where the action is almost predictable (by night-fishing standards), where two, three or four fish may hit in the same spot. And then just twenty yards downstream . . . nothing . . .
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