**NOTE** This is Part Two in a Troutbitten Short Series about weights and measures. This will all read a little better if you back up and read Part One first. However, the information in this article also stands alone. I performed a single haul on the back cast, and...
Fishermen are bad with numbers. We’re notorious for embellishing the size of our catch and the numbers of trout in the net. We overstate, exaggerate and overestimate everything. Okay, admit it — fishermen are a bunch of liars. Now, a lot of this is in good fun, and it...
Try making a perfectly straight cast. It’s nearly impossible. To do it, the rod tip and rod hand must be in flawless, vertical alignment. So too, the loop coming forward must be perpendicular to the water, or the line will angle to one side or the other. Straight-line...
Call them educated. Say they’re picky, experienced, touchy or selective. The wild trout that many of us target are efficient feeders, and they don’t buy lousy presentations of a fly. In many regions, the rivers are so rich with bug life and baitfish that these trout...
. . .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 . . .
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 . . .
When fishing dries, the cautious angler has many chances to fool a rising trout. Start behind the trout at the back door. Next move over and try the side door, beside the trout. Then try going right down the middle and through the front door.
Making consecutive casts with a dry fly produces often enough to believe that the next cast will seal the deal. But there’s a lot more to it . . .
I’m not suggesting that 6X and lighter tippets are always a crutch. But they certainly can be. Extra-thin tippets are an easy way to solve a tough problem — getting a good dead drift. But sometimes, choosing a harder path makes all the difference — because you might learn more.
. . . How and why in the article . . .
There’s a sweet spot to every drift. For each swing of a wet fly, strip of a streamer or drift of a dry, there’s a range — a distance — where the fly looks its best. This is the moment where the fur and feathers tied to a hook are most convincing or most natural. It’s when the fly is really fishing and not just dragging through the water. Good anglers recognize this sweet spot of the drift. They maximize its length. They position themselves in the river to control it with their rod tip or with slack line. And they set it all up to happen over the best trout in the river . . .
We’re looking for the best part of what happens after a cast. We’re searching for the sweet ride. And we’re trying to make it last as long as possible . . .
I sat. And I laid the fly rod across my knees like a hunter’s rifle. I waited and watched. I scanned the river and sank deeper into the mossy earth until my breathing evened out.
My heartbeat slowed and recovered its normal pace, having accelerated on the walk in. I was warm and content. I sat with a stillness reserved for moments like these and watched only with my eyes. The silence calmed me until I could feel the blood pulsing beneath my skin. I sat, alive and aware, eager and anticipating, serene and satisfied all at once.