Somewhere along the line, our luck ran out. Our string of success, of willing trout, good size and numbers, simply ended. The weather turned foul and filled the creeks with mud. With runoff from spring fields, those soils, loose and uprooted, gave up enough earth to...
** NOTE ** This article is part of the Walk Along series. These are first person accounts showing the thoughts, strategies and actions surrounding particular situations on the river, putting the reader in the mind of the angler. It’s dark in the garage, and I haven’t...
I often wonder if most of our industry standard, accepted, and “best" streamer tactics are based on the limitations and necessities of the fly line itself. With a standard setup, if we cast any further than twenty feet across the river, the leader and fly line must...
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...
. . . If visibility is twelve inches or less, well then, things are pretty muddy.
Today, visibility was at least twice that. And I’m not saying it was clear enough for trout to make out details at two feet, but if you dunked your head under the water and looked upstream, you could probably see shapes coming from about twenty-four inches away. And if those shapes looked like food, you might be interested. Maybe not.
I have a bunch of tips for fishing this kind of water, and I’ve learned to enjoy the challenge. But all of my tips start with this . . .
There’s a world unseen below the surface. The riverbed weaves a course and directs the currents, giving shape to its valley. Water swirls behind rocks. It moves north and south against submerged logs. The stream blends and separates, merges and divides again as vertical columns rise and fall — and all of this in three dimensions. . . . Eventually, knowing and admiring what lies beneath is as easy as seeing what flows above.
The river’s flowing at three times the average. So the merge point at the lower tip of the braid is indistinct, washed away in a mix of watery lines and lanes that blend together. It’s tough water to read at the surface. And yet, a close look with a trained eye — from someone who’s walked and cast through this slice of river countless times — reveals all that is needed. Imagination and memory does the rest.
Can I reach the middle break and fish to the pocket as usual? Let’s see . . .
Sure, some guys say you’ll catch the river beast only in high water. And most general trout fishing books contain a section that puts a positive spin on high water, detailing tactics that are sure to fool trout even with a river in flood stage.
I used to go out in such conditions because I believed that stuff. I thought once I brushed up on my muddy water techniques I would land the biggest trout in the river.