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...
My hands are cold. It’s the second week of May, and I’m caught unprepared by a cold front that has moved in with more wind, more rain and more of the wet stuff than was predicted. “Last night’s forecast promised better than this.” I think it before I catch myself....
The parachute post on your size-twelve March Brown dances down-current. The fly drifts in harmony with the surrounding bubbles that were formed fifty feet upstream, where the river rolls over the riffle and begins widening into this shady flat. Dressed with a dose of...
** This is Part Two of a Troutbitten short series. But it also reads well as a stand alone dry fly piece. Find Part One HERE. ** A fly touches the water with a trout in the area, and a few different things can happen. Ideally, the fish sees the fly, buys our...
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.
For many years, I never much considered casting dry flies on a Mono Rig as a viable option. I enjoyed the art of casting a dry with a traditional fly line. And if you asked me about dries on a long leader system back then, I’d shake my head and tell you something about using the right tool for the job. But in the last few years, much of that has changed. And now, I suggest that a long Mono Rig is, in fact, the right tool for the job — sometimes.
There’s a time and place for everything. And fishing dry flies on the Mono Rig has become one of my favorite ways to approach trout, not just because it’s a convenient and quick variation when swapping over from a tight line nymphing rig, but because it is stunningly effective . . .
It’s the effectiveness of a nymphing rig and the excitement of a dry fly rig, with boosted catch rates.
In this four part series covering dry dropper styles, I’ve saved the best for last.
I prefer methods that lend excellent control to the angler. And tight line rigs, with direct contact as the primary feature, are built for just that. Add a dry fly to the rig and tight line dry dropper is the best of all possible worlds . . .
Casting styles change with the water. The same stroke that lays a dry line with perfect s-curves in a soft flat is useless in pocket water. As the river picks up speed, so must our casting. Effective drifts are shorter, so we cast more. Mixed surface currents greedily pull our built-in slack over to the next seam. So our casting matches the currents. It’s more aggressive. Faster.
But fishing rough or mixed currents doesn’t mean we give up on a good dead drift. And the best stroke for the job is one that I call the Crash Cast . . .