6 Tips for Executing a Proper Figure-Eight Retrieve
For the first time, this year, I got to experience the thrill of watching a musky devour my bucktail streamer right at the boat during a figure-eight retrieve.
I had dreamed of witnessing this first hand for years, and I have to say, it live up to all the hype. You get a huge adrenaline rush every time you lure a musky into following or eating your fly during a figure-eight retrieve. I think this one aspect of musky fishing alone, is why so many anglers fall in love with musky. Although I’ve heard of anglers catching trout, striper and other species with a figure-eight retrieve, musky by far, provide the highest success rate of all game fish for using it. Musky seem to spook far less than other game fish when they’re in hot pursuit after prey, and that’s the main reason this niche retrieve works so well for them. I totally screwed the pooch on my first couple opportunities to use the figure-eight retrieve for musky. This unorthodox retrieve takes a while to get used when you don’t regularly practice it. Done wrong, a figure-eight retrieve will fail to trigger eats. Luckily, during my trip, I had my good friend Charlie Murphy, a genuine musky bum, give me some pointers. Below are six tips to get you executing a figure-eight retrieve like a pro.
Read More »4 Types of Trout Water to Target During the Summer
Are you finding that the dog days of summer are limiting the time you have success on the water trout fishing?
Generally, the best time to trout fish in the heat of the summer is the first and last couple hours of the day. This is when the air and water temperatures are the coolest and the oxygen levels in the water are at there highest. That being said, there are a few things you can do to help you buy yourself a couple extra hours of good fishing. Below are four types of trout water I target during the summer.
Read More »What The Little Fish Are Saying
This post has a soundtrack. Take a second to start the video below.
MAYBE YOUR STATURE AS A FLY FISHERMAN ISN’T DETERMINED BY HOW BIG A TROUT YOU CAN CATCH, BUT BY HOW SMALL A TROUT YOU CAN CATCH WITHOUT BEING DISAPPOINTED. — JOHN GIERACH
Like it or not, I am in the big fish business.
I hate admitting it, but that’s how it started. I carried a camera to take photos of fish and the small ones were not the fish who got photographed. Eventually folks started to buy the photos I took and I found there was a simple equation. The bigger the fish, the faster the sale. That’s a pretty hard-nosed view of fly fishing and I’m not especially proud of it.
Call it skill or luck or hard work, a lot of big fish have come my way. I’m grateful for each of them. I hope there will be many more but I no longer measure myself in inches or pounds of fish. Not because I’m above it or used to it or jaded about it. I still like to catch big fish but I’ve come to understand my place in the equation.
Sometimes I choose the fish. I plan, I strategize, I stalk and pursue. Often, by force of will, I bring the fish to me. Sometimes I choose the fish, but every time the fish chooses me. I think about this when I am swinging a fly for steelhead. Like a practitioner of tai chi, I mind my swing. Seeking always the perfect presentation. Mindful and empty, dreaming not of what was or what may be, simply present in what is.
It is in that moment that the fish chooses me. I accept that all I have done is to make myself available to him. It is not done without skill or planning. It is not an accident. It is the culmination of years of effort but I recognize that it is a culmination for him as well. It is not a thing I have done alone. I have not brought the fish to me, something larger has brought us together.
In that convergence there is something that defies explanation. Among the thousands of fish that have passed in and out of my hands, some are special. I can not always say why. Once in a while a fish connects with me in a way that is deeper than either of us can grasp. There is a convergence of place and time, of hand and heart the sum of which is greater than the two of us.
One of these fish is worth a year of my life. That is
Read More »3 Reasons I like To Fish The Bahamas In January
By Louis Cahill
I’ve been fishing South Andros, in the Bahamas, for bonefish every January for about a decade.
I’ve fished there, and other spots in the Bahamas, during every season and the fishing has always been good for me, but I think January is my favorite time to visit. The fishing is much of the reason, but there are a couple of other things that make January special.
BIG BONEFISH
January is a great month for big fish. Especially when there has been a lot of rain. Many anglers shy away from the winter months because the weather can be unpredictable, but there is a big upside to that weather. Cooler temperatures, meaning days in the 70s, encourage smaller fish to school up in deeper spots, leaving a higher percentage of big fish on the flats. Rain oxygenates the water, bringing out the larger crabs and other tasty creatures. That, in turn brings in the big ocean bones.
Your chances of landing a double-digit bonefish are better then than at any other time. This year was a great example. I can’t remember a time I saw more really big bonefish on the flats. Several of the folks attending the January bonefish school landed double-digit fish. For a couple of them, it was their first bonefish trip. That’s pretty exciting.
IT’S A GREAT REBOOT
When January rolls around, I need a break. I’m worn out from the hustle of the holidays and, even here in the Southeast, I’m ready for a break from the cold weather. The photos on the right show Josie, my potcake dog, playing in the snow and the view at Bari’s Lodge just a few days later. A week of bonefishing on beautiful white sand flats and sipping cocktails on the beach is just what I need to recharge for the coming year. I have always
Read More »Scent attractor in fly fishing?
I RECENTLY DID A PHOTO-SHOOT FOR ATTRAXX, A COMPANY WHOSE NAME MAY BE FAMILIAR TO SOME OF YOU.
Attraxx makes soft plastic baits for gear fishing in both fresh and saltwater. These aren’t your grandfather’s rubber worms. The plastics are infused with five patented attractors that stimulate fish into striking. It’s apparently far more complex than just scent or taste and frankly I don’t totally understand all of the details. These guys have a handful of PhDs to my none, but I spent a few days watching these high tech baits in action and I can tell you they work insanely well.
I’m not a gear fisherman. I don’t say that because I feel like I’m above it. Gear fishing takes a lot of skill and knowledge, it’s just not my thing. I don’t do it so I’m not good at it and I don’t understand it. Doug Long, the man behind Attraxx, does understand it. I’ve known Doug for years as a skilled fly fisherman and we’ve wetted our boots together on plenty of occasions so I was surprised to hear that he was now running a plastic bait company.
I was even more surprised to hear that Attraxx is considering new products for fly fishermen. Imagine that, flies tied with materials that release neural stimulators into the water, whipping fish into a feeding frenzy. A couple of years ago I’d have said, “no way! Nobody will buy it,” but these days, I’m not so sure. Let’s look at the trend.
People raised a fuss when
Read More »Understanding Leaders Means Better Fly-fishing
When it cones to fly-fishing leaders there are lots of right answers.
There has been an ocean of ink spilled over the subject of leader formulas. It’s pretty common for anglers who are learning to tie leaders to obsess over leader formulas, and the press has made the most of it. I’ll warn you now, I’m not going to give you any leader formulas. What I am going to do is try and help you understand how a leader functions and how to start designing leaders that will work best in a wide range of conditions.
What does a leader do?
To understand how to craft a leader that’s best for the fishing conditions, you need to understand what a leader does. A fly fishing leader has one purpose.
A leader translates the energy of the fly line to the fly in a way that creates the best presentation.
That’s it. Period. If, like me, you believe that there is nothing more important in fly fishing than presentation, you have to appreciate the importance of the leader. If you look closely at that sentence, you will also recognize that the term, ‘best presentation’ is highly subjective. What, exactly, the best presentation means is dependent on a factors like target species, fishing conditions and fly selection, just to name a few. It’s easy to see that no one leader formula can deliver the best presentation in every situation.
A word about store bought leaders. They are fine and you can get by with a store bought leader for most of your fly fishing. They will never work as well as a hand tied leader because there are limitations in the manufacturing. In general, pre-made tapered leaders all have hinge points and, in many situations, have butt sections which do not effectively transfer energy. Quite a few anglers will protest that the knots on a hand tied leader cause tangles. That’s simply not true. I’m not trying to be a wise -guy, but if you are having that issue, it’s a casting problem not your leader. Read this to fix it.
https://www.ginkandgasoline.com/fly-fishing-tips-technique/fix-your-tailing-loops-once-and-for-all/
What determines how a leader functions?
A hand tied leader is made up of short sections of conventional fishing line which transfer and dissipate energy from the fly line. There are several choices the angler makes about each section when crafting a leader that control how it functions. Let’s look at each of these choices and how it effects leader performance.
Read More »Do weights and simplicity go together? A tenkara perspective
ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO I VISITED CHEESEMAN CANYON FOR MY FIRST TIME.
Cheeseman is a renowned fly-fishing destination in Colorado; it is well known for sizeable fish that think they are too good for our flies. The canyon features deep pools with relatively slow moving water. The water is typically crystal clear, which means you can see the fish down deep. Sometimes you can even see the white in their mouths, which means they are laughing at you as your fly goes by. You can probably sense some of my disdain for the behavior of those snooty trout, huh?
But the reality is that I love fishing those “3 miles of gold medal fishing,” as the sign by the parking lot announces. The fishing there is challenging. And, that is a good thing. It serves as a place to learn and grow as a fisherman. That first visit also gave me something I have been reflecting on for the last several years: do I really need weight to get my fly down deep?
Weights are used to get the fly down to fish holding deeper. They can be either wrapped around a fly in the form of a metallic wire, or connected to the line above the fly in the form of split-shot, putties, or in new forms of which I can no longer keep track. They are useful. I won’t deny it, and I will preface the rest of this article by saying I have absolutely nothing against the use of weights, although I do find it a shame that so much of it gets left behind due to tangles with branches and snags on river bottoms.
I personally approach fishing from a different angle. For the last 7 years I have been learning the tenkara method of fishing from different teachers in Japan. Tenkara, as you may have read in this blog and other places, is a simple Japanese method of fly-fishing that uses “only a rod, line and fly.” Perhaps I should rephrase that, tenkara can be a simple method of fly-fishing. The method can quickly get more complex by adding accessories to the rig and moving from “only a rod, line and fly” to “a rod, line, fly, strike indicator, floatant, splitshot and the-latest-announced-fishing-gizmo”.
There is historical evidence of tenkara flies that were wrapped with copper thread to make them heavy. And, we also know of tenkara anglers in Japan using weights above the fly. I am not by any means shunning the use of weight for any purist or traditionalist reason. But, rather, I have decided to see what I could leave behind in order to hone technique.
As John Gierach put it in the tenkara chapter of his book, All Fisherman are Liars, “[tenkara is] a useful thought experiment in which you ask not, How much do I need? But, How little can I get away with?”
The interesting thing about this thought experiment is
Read More »Guiding Tip: Set Your Client Free to Build Confidence
I’ve taken great pride over the years with my hands on style of trout guiding. When you take the time to explain the little details to your clients, and freely share what’s going on in your head, it really makes a big difference in them understanding the big picture. I’ve always believed catching fish should take a back seat to learning the how-tos of fly fishing. I’ve never seen much value in a client catching fish during a guide trip, if they can’t go out and replicate it on their own without me. It wasn’t until a few months ago, in fact, that I strayed away from my familiar guiding routine of holding onto the reigns.
Read More »Improve Your Catch and Release Efforts
By Justin Pickett
Catch and Release has become almost a standard of practice over the past several years, even more so, it seems, in the fly fishing culture.
The ever-changing culture within the fly fishing world has put the squeeze on those that choose to keep certain species or fish from certain fisheries. Sustainability. Preservation. Conservation. The words resonate through numerous articles, meetings, and video productions, and for good reason. If we want these precious resources to be around much longer, we’re going to have to start giving a damn and taking care of our streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, and estuaries. So yeah, I’m a big proponent of catch and release. With that said, I believe there is still room for improvement even amongst those anglers that do practice catch and release.
Example:
It’s summer time in the Deep South. You’ve just landed a big, gorgeous, female rainbow on one of your favorite north Georgia streams. You’ve played her hard for several minutes. She’s given her all trying to free herself from your fly and she’s worn out. You’re intentions are the usual quick photo and then an easy release to ensure that she “lives to fight another day.” But…. What if that’s not enough?
Come summer time, water temps are usually at the upper limits of a trout’s tolerance, especially in the lower elevation rivers and streams of the southeast, so making sure that a trout has been properly revived is of the upmost importance. In this situation, just making sure that you release the fish quickly may not be enough to ensure that it “lives to fight another day”. Bigger trout seem more susceptible to unrecoverable fatigue, to the point of going “belly up” if not allowed to recover before being released properly.
JUST LIKE IN OUR OWN BODIES, DURING EXTENDED PERIODS OF EXERTION, LACTATE LEVELS SPIKE RESULTING IN AN INCREASE IN THE ACIDITY LEVELS WITHIN THE MUSCLES’ CELLS.
To keep things short, the crazy process that is responsible for the increased production of lactate (lactic acid) during extended periods of strenuous activity temporarily prevents the muscle cells from using oxygen as the fuel for muscle contractions and causes the fish to become fatigued during a long fight, if not completely exhausted. In order to correct this temporary acidotic state, two things need to happen; 1. Rest and 2. Oxygen! For humans, the oxygen is an afterthought. When we get tired we just rest and the oxygen just comes naturally. We breathe air, so it is readily available to our bodies. However, for a trout, the oxygen is found in the water. And not just any water, but cold, preferably moving water. The longer a fish is kept out of the water after a fight, the more it becomes difficult to recover that fish. The temporary damage that occurs during this spike in lactate levels can become too overwhelming to overcome, causing the fish to be too weak to return to a river or stream’s flows.
So, as responsible anglers, what can we do?
Read More »Bonefish Heaven
By Louis Cahill
This tiny key is the only dry land in sight. Just a rise in the sand with a little knee high vegetation, interrupting a seemingly endless white sand flat.
The skiff glides silently around it’s shore. The water is Coke bottle green and glistens in the bright Bahamian sun, a breath of breeze keeping it playful and light. In the distance, I can barely make out the dark stripe of deep water between us an Cuba. This is the southern keys. The place where South Andros breaks up into a complex of keys, shallow sand flats and, finally, faint sandbars before giving in to the sea. It’s bonefish heaven.
About a hundred yards ahead there is one sizable cluster of mangroves hugging the shore. Everything else is white sand and water. My eyesight, after seven surgeries to save my right eye, makes the whole scene resemble an impressionist painting. It’s beautiful and, at once, disorienting. Everything in my life now has an extra layer of challenge but I find that standing on the bow of a skiff, searching for bonefish is as comfortable an occupation for me as anything I do. Easier than driving and far easier than anything involving a computer screen. I know what bonefish look like, even if Monet or Dali are pushing the brush. I know how they behave and how they think. Perhaps most importantly, I know who I am standing on the bow. I don’t have to think to do this.
“I don’t care if you can see. You can point that rod and you can cast. We’ll catch fish,” Ronnie Bain told me when I stepped on the boat that morning.
A year ago, when I was in much worse shape and really shouldn’t have been here at all, I fished with Ronnie the first day of the trip. I had been in bed for six months. Three months I was not allowed to roll over. I became so degraded I couldn’t walk without help. The doctor told me to sit on the couch and hold my head up straight for thirty minutes a day, and when that thirty minutes was up I was exhausted and had to sleep. It was so disorienting I thought I might puke the entire time. I’d only been back on my feet a couple of months when I stepped onto Ronnie’s boat. I wasn’t at all sure I could stand on the bow and I could nearly see my hand in front of my face. I put on a smile and made a good show but I was afraid. Afraid that fly fishing, and specifically bonefishing, was over for me.
We had run down south that day too. A long ride down and when Ronnie stopped the boat he beached it on the back side of a little key and told us to get our wading boots on. Quietly, I panicked. There was no way I was up to wading. Not only was I not going to catch fish, I could seriously hurt myself. I was slow getting my gear together and Ronnie got his other angler set up on a wade line and came back for me. He helped me out of the boat and, with my arm over his shoulders, carried me across the flat. The bottom was rough with coral and I couldn’t see where I was putting my feet. My legs shook with every step. Ronnie held the back of my shirt as I cast and guided me, his voice soft and calm.
“More left, more left, a little longer, put it down.”
Within a minute I was hooked up to a bonefish. In the two years of ordeal and pain and helplessness, no one but my wife had been as compassionate with me as Ronnie Bain was that day. I don’t know if he has any idea what a gift he gave me, or if he could see through my dark glasses that I was balling like a child when I released that fish. I’ve caught a lot of fish in my life, but none as dear to me as that one.
“Ok Louis, we got two fish coming, a hundred yards out. Big boys. Coming by that big mangrove right now. You see them? Take your time.”
I look and I do see them. He’s not kidding, they are big fish.
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