All good trout rivers are full of rocks. Bankside and midstream, big ones and small ones -- rocks are everywhere. Unless the bottom is gravel or sand for long stretches, the composition of the riverbed is a series of boulders and stones scattered in various sizes....
I feel fortunate that I grew up fishing small streams. I learned to read trout water on wooded creeks that roughly paralleled dirt roads or meandered away from them. Access was more often at a dusty pull-off rather than a paved lot. But these weren’t tiny brooks...
Sawyer and I were fishing the seventeen year Cicada hatch of 2008. It was a wonderfully consistent summer with cooler than average temperatures and higher than average river flows. Add with the occasional thunderstorm that tinted the water and kept trout active, and...
Someone recently told me that fly fishing seems like a lot of work. They said it looks more like tying knots while walking upstream than it does fishing -- that the whole thing seems like a lot of trouble just to catch a fish. I thought about it a moment and replied...
Every angler goes fishing to get away from things — and most times that means getting away from people too. So whether they be friends or strangers on the water, going around the bend and walking off gives you back what you were probably looking for in the first place . . .
Of all the reasons why I fly fish for trout, two captivating things keep me coming back: refining a system, and breaking it all apart.
Go into any new exploration with a clear head and without expectations. Remove your prejudices and forget your preferences. Achieve this, and you may well be surprised by what you find with a fly rod in your hand. Ignore this, or fail in the attempt, and you’ll likely learn nothing. Worse yet, you may learn the wrong thing.
Let the river teach. Let time be the gauge. Let the fish have their say. Forgo conclusions and look instead for certainty in trends. Test honestly and without bias — always . . .
If you fish hard and pay attention to the details, you’ll often catch, miss or turn enough trout to learn something. At the heart of the puzzle is an eternal question: What do the trout want?
The best days start by learning what most trout in the river are doing. So, gather data toward those questions, and then branch off from there.
The real joy of having Troutbitten as my career is in all the chances I have to be creative. The articles, presentations, videos, web design, and the guided trips — each one is an opportunity to communicate ideas about why we fish, how we fish, and what keeps us wishing to fish, day after day. Thank you for that chance . . .
This article is part of the Walk Along series. These are first person accounts showing the thoughts, strategies and actions around particular situations on the river, putting the reader in the mind of the angler.
Tuck. Drop. Tick. Lead. Now just a five-inch strip with the rod tip up. Pause slightly for the fly to drop. Focus . . . Fish on!
Good fly fishing requires great footwork along the way. Staying mobile, reading the water, body positioning, wading not walking, and gear preparation. These are the keys to better wading . . .