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Fly Fishing Strategies — Look for the Changeout Spots
As you wade the river, or when you’re on a float trip that covers miles of great water, you’re looking for moments — you’re looking for places — to make that next adjustment.
I call these the changeout spots . . .
Podcast: Bonus Round Q&A with Full Panel — Tight Line Skills Series, #10
Season Two concludes with a round table discussion for answering the most common questions about tight line and euro nymphing skills. My full panel of friends, Austin, Bill, Trevor and Josh join me to get deep in the weeds of the tactics, to clear up misconceptions, and offer their own ideas.
What about the wading staff? Thoughts on choosing and carrying a wading stick
I always thought wading staffs were for the retired crew, something to lean on as you wait for the spinner fall — a third leg, when the left one has knee issues and the right one has had its hip replaced. However, one of the hardest-fishing guys I knew at the time was a guide on the Yough. Twenty-something, athletic and a strong wader, he carried a ski pole tethered to the bottom of his fishing pack, and he waded whitewater like a Grizzly bear.
So the day before our pre-dawn, westward departure to the Yough, I cut a wooden broom handle down to about four feet, zip tied a long-and-strong shoelace to the top and looped it to a carabiner on my wading belt.
I learned two things on that trip — a third leg makes you a faster wader and more efficient angler. And a broomstick makes a lousy wading staff . . .
STORIES
slowfloat
Good thing we don't just go fishing to catch fish, because there wasn't a whole lot of that going on yesterday. Burke and I teamed up for a Sunday float, and we tried to make the Steelers' playoff loss quickly drift away into a fading memory by rowing through some...
Last Cast – 2014
The light of the last day of the year began to fade, and I reminisced a bit. It’s been an incredible year for me, full of life lessons that I probably needed to work on for some time now.
Here’s to living the next year vividly . . .
Float
Burke and I floated today. It's almost late enough in the season to call it a winter run, but not quite. Need snow for that, and I'd say real winter hasn't started yet. Action was about what we expected for this river at this time of the year, which is to say, it was...
TACTICS
Streamer Presentations — The Cross-Current Strip
There are a lot of ways to retrieve a long fly after the cast. And that’s really what’s so much fun about the streamer game. Fly anglers might spend hours fretting over the imperfection of a drag free drift on a dry fly or twice as long considering the depth and drift of a nymph, but when the streamer is tied on, it’s a chance to let loose. Nothing else in fly fishing allows for such freedom of presentation. “Everything works sometimes.” No other fly type fits that tenant so well.
But what will trout respond to most? That’s the question. And on many days — most perhaps — the answer is a cross-current strip. Here’s why . . .
Streamside | Dave Rothrock’s Drop Shot Video
I get a lot of questions about drop shot nymphing, and though I’ve mentioned it countless times in other Troutbitten articles, I’ve never devoted a whole piece to it. Why? Probably because it would take a full series of articles and many diagrams to convey my own take on drop shot nymphing. I’m sure I’ll get to it someday, but for now, here’s a quick rundown of my own drop shot thoughts, followed by a link to Dave Rothrock’s new video, How to Set Up a Drop Shot Nymphing Rig . . .
The Pre-Cast Pickup (with VIDEO)
The pre-cast is a simple motion that lifts some (or all) of the fly line off the water and gets the leader moving. It’s an elegant solution to a common problem.
When the dry fly drift is over, simply activate the line and get it moving before starting the backcast. The motion of the pre-cast pickup breaks the hold of surface tension. And that’s the key. Once the surface lets go of the line, it is easily lifted off the water with minimal disturbance . . .
NYMPHING
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STREAMERS
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ANGLER TYPES IN PROFILE
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BIG TROUT
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NIGHT FISHING
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