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What Does It Take to Catch a Big Trout?
For many years, I believed that it takes nothing special to catch a big trout. I argued with friends about this over beers, during baseball games, on drives to the river and through text messages at 1:00 am. My contention was always that big trout don’t require anything extraordinary to seal the deal. They need a quality drift, a good presentation, and if they are hungry they will eat it. I frequently pushed back against the notion that big wild trout were caught only with exceptional skill.
So for all who’ve heard me make this argument, I’d like to offer this revision: I still believe that large trout don’t need more than a good presentation. But what is GOOD may actually be pretty special. Meaning, it’s rare to find the skill level necessary to consistently get good drifts and put them over trout (large or small).
Here’s more . . .
We Wade
We wade for contemplation, for strength and exhaustion, for the challenge and the risk. We wade for opportunity . . .
Podcast: Why Do We Miss Fish, and Why Do We Lose Fish on a Fly? — S3-Ep11
We all miss fish and lose fish on a fly. Why does it happen? Is it an accident? Is it avoidable? And how can we improve our hookup and landing ratio on the water?
STORIES
Night Shift – Skunked
I've read a lot of fishing blogs, and I can't recall any accounts of a complete shut out. I've seen lots of hero poses with gorgeous slabs of wild trout spilling over wet, dripping hands with the flash of a fly rod reflecting in the sun. My RSS feed is filled with...
Home-Stream Fish of the Year
My home-water is not full of big fish. Burke likes to call it fishing for midgets. Is that politically incorrect? OK then; it's usually a matter of fishing for little fish. However, this evening we caught a larger one -- easily my fish of the year on this water....
Night Shift – The Thicket
Friday night I wrapped up my gig at the Phyrst with my buddy Noah, then made the transformation from musician to fisherman again. I've done this a bunch of times now, and the thorough contrast in venues is remarkable: from the noise and chaos of the State College bar...
TACTICS
New Structure | Old Structure
Eventually, a river accepts new additions. within a few seasons, time and water make the changes to the riverbed. Nature finds its course, and trout respond.
Light Dry Dropper in the Flow
. . .The flow of the fly line through the air is finesse and freedom. Contrasted with nymphing, streamer fishing, or any other method that adds weight to the system, casting the weightless dry fly with a fly line is poetry.
The cast is unaffected because the small soft hackle on a twelve-inch tether simply isn’t heavy enough to steal any provided slack from the dry. It’s an elegant addition that keeps the art of dry fly fishing intact . . .
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 . . .
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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