Relax, Read the Water and Believe
Sometimes, wanting too much can get you in trouble on the water.
If you set your goals too high and lose sight of the real reason you’re out there in the first place (to be blessed with catching a few fish and relaxing), before you know it, you’ll find yourself standing in a river feeling lost and heart broken. It’s not that wanting is bad, it’s just that too much of it, like most things in life, can be detrimental. Want has the ability to turn into greed very quickly if you aren’t careful. And fly fishing with greed on the mind is the quickest way to doom yourself to failure. Greed fogs your mind, keeps you from thinking rationally on the water and your fishing, in turn, suffers.
Read More »Spey Casting Diagnostics Checklist
By Jeff Hickman
SPEY CASTING IS A PROCESS REQUIRING SEVERAL STEPS TO BE FULLY COMPLETED IN A SEQUENCE.
To effectively and consistently make good spey casts you need to focus on these steps, especially when learning. But even veteran and advanced two-handed casters also need to focus on the important steps. Everyone who has Spey fished has had a meltdown at some point where their cast completely falls apart. In my experience these meltdowns are triggered by one small element changing. That one element starts a chain reaction that wrecks the entire cast. The cause could be external such as a change in the wind direction or wading depth or the change could be internal — you got lazy on your anchor placement or started dipping your rod behind you.
Recently while presenting at the annual Sandy River Spey Clave in Oregon, I jokingly made a reference to a fictional Spey Casting Diagnostics Checklist that I printed on waterproof paper and kept in my wader pocket. I was simply trying to make people laugh as Spey casting presentations can be a bit on the dry side. After the presentation many people came up to me and asked if I could give them one of my checklists. Since I did not actually have one, I told them I could email a checklist over. But it occurred to me that this is something that people want, so here is my short checklist that you can print and bring with you to the river next time:
Read More »Bonefish Body Language
By Owen Plair
Being able to read the body language of any fish is by far one of the best ways to anticipate the bite, especially when it comes to feeding a bonefish.
Recently I had the opportunity to experience bonefishing on South Andros, Bahamas, and learned a lot during the week about how the body language of a bonefish can visually tell you what’s happening when you can’t see the bite.
From skating flies for Atlantic Salmon in Russia to targeting migrating Tarpon in Islamorada, and countless species in between, watching a fish open their mouth, and eat the fly was something I had always been accustomed to when sight fishing. I had never thought about sight fishing Bonefish and the fact that you can never really see that little white mouth open up and swallow the fly. There was only one fish during the entire week I could see open her mouth and swallow the fly because by chance it was 10ft off the bow on a cloudy day.
The first 4 or 5 fish of the trip I hooked simply by listening for the guide telling me, “Set mon, set!” It’s amazing how fast your brain and muscles work together when pulling the fly line tight to a bonefish’s bottom lip. Hooking those first few fish of the trip was amazing but the feeling I had, as an angler, not being able to anticipate the bite drove me absolutely nuts! I simply just couldn’t figure out what the guide was seeing that I wasn’t and I soon started to ask questions after every fish, learning through experience on the water with my guide.
One of the most important things I learned about reading a bonefish bite was looking for the sudden stop.
Most times in fishing when the fish stops behind your fly they’re stopping for a reason. Either they’re eating your fly or changing their mind and turning off. I found that with bonefish, it was that the best way to anticipate the bite. Every time a fish would stop I was ready for the long strip set. The bite was still invisible to me but I learned the “stop” which helped me anticipate the fish eating and prepare myself for the set. It also took some time to get used to stopping the fly for the fish to eat. Most other species I’ve targeted always like a constant moving fly.
Another key body language
Read More »Sealing The Deal, Landing Bonefish
It’s time to seal the deal on that trophy bonefish.
Now that we’ve covered a few of the fundamentals of bone fishing it’s time to seal the deal. Landing saltwater fish is a little different from landing a trout. For one thing saltwater guides don’t carry nets. Try to net a tarpon some time and you’ll see why. When bonefishing the angler is usually expected to land the fish himself. The guide will be busy looking for the next fish.
It’s not difficult to land a bonefish but doing it wrong often ends in a broken rod. Even a small bone is a powerful fish and he’s going to freak out when you try to land him. If you put too much pressure on the rod tip it’ll snap. It’s called high sticking and unlike the high sticking trout anglers do when nymphing, it’s a bad idea.
The trick is to keep enough line out of the rod tip that you can reach your leader without forcing the tip to bend hard. In this video our buddy Bruce Chard shows you how to do it right.
WATCH THE VIDEO!
Read More »What’s in a net?
By Justin Pickett
My indicator drops below the turbulent surface and my rod bends over as I come tight to a nice rainbow trout.
Her initial reaction took her further into the head of the deep run, shaking her head violently in an attempt to escape the grasp of my hook. As this trout began to hunker down in the current, I applied some low, downstream side pressure, which she didn’t like at all. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, she darted downstream, leaving me in the rear-view with zero intentions of returning.
I was fishing with my buddy, Blake, who is new to fly fishing. This was the first fish that he had seen on a hot, downstream run. As this rainbow steadily peeled line from my reel, I looked over at Blake and instructed him to grab the net and get after it, but just as Blake began making his move downstream this trout shot through a small chute with several branches that hung just above the current on the opposite bank. As I reeled down to keep up, I waded my way towards the obstacle that I was sure was going to end this fight. I had my buddy come to the downstream side of the chute so I could pass my rod under and through the branches. After successfully making it through all the foliage without breaking off, I let Blake take over the fight.
I grabbed the net and hit the bank running so I could gain some ground on this crazy trout. About thirty yards later, I finally made it well downstream of her and stepped further into the water. I knew if I could get in front of her, then I would likely turn her back upstream and stop this crazy train. With her head now turned back upstream, and, seemingly, calmer, we were able to play this fish into the net quite easily. No doubt, this fish was likely as worn out as we were after all that!
Fast forward a couple of days and I found myself having a conversation with Louis about anglers who feel that if they themselves don’t net their own fish, then they consider that catch “incomplete”. It’s as if they feel the need to put an asterisk by that memory because they either asked for, or received, assistance to land a fish.
While I can certainly respect these anglers’ stance on the matter, for me, it doesn’t take away from my experience. Am I always going to have someone net a fish for me? Well no, but it will also always depend on the situation at hand. I’m not going to have someone net a native brook trout for me, but, in my opinion, there are times when having a good net man is beneficial to both angler and fish. In reference to the scenario above, if I
Read More »Why ask why? Try dry flies
By Jeff Hickman
CATCHING A STEELHEAD BY SKATING A DRY FLY IS THE COOLEST WAY TO CATCH THEM.
I always have said that one fish on the dry is worth ten on wet flies…but why? It’s not like it’s impossible to catch them on dries. It can actually be quite productive at times but people are often just too afraid to try. If you only have one day to fish there’s a lot of pressure to catch fish, so why opt for the most challenging method? Well, there is, in fact, only one way to catch a steelhead on a dry fly and it start with tying it on your line!
Is a steelhead eating a fly off of the surface that much more unbelievable than a fish eating a fly swung just under the surface, or for that matter, a fly swung deep with a sink tip? It’s not. In fact, I think that there are times when a dry fly can work better. The disturbance and wake it cuts through the water’s surface can excite fish and elicit savage grabs.
The visual display you get when watching the fly skate across the surface is super fun and you can learn a lot by seeing where your fly actually is. Watching a fish come airborne for it, slap it, thrash at it, boil on it or just gently suck the fly down is one of, if not the single, most exciting experiences there is in fishing. Seeing them come for the fly is super exciting even if you don’t hook them. It is that extra element of playing with the fish that is the coolest for me!
photo2But what is even better
Read More »How Fly Rods, And Hearts, Break
Broken fly rods are a fact of life, but there are things you can do to stop it from happening to you.
It happens to all of us. We all know the sinking feeling of holding that treasured favorite fly rod, shattered in our hands. Most of us can’t help but form emotional attachments to our gear. Favorite rods and reels become old friends, with whom we share memories of great days, special fish and life lessons learned. Warrantees are great, but it’s hard to replace an old friend.
I hear a lot of anglers complain about specific rods or rod brands, saying things like, “ I’ll never but another ‘Brand X’ after breaking two in a month.” It’s a delicate topic to address without hurting someone’s feelings, but the truth is, fly rods don’t break for no reason. While a high performance carbon fiber rod is certainly more fragile than its soulful fiberglass counterpart and a full spectrum between, the truth is that anglers break rods.
With extremely rare exception I have never seen a rod break for no apparent reason, even the ones I’ve broken my self.
If you are stewing over that statement, I ask you to bear with me for a bit and entertain the possibility that I’m right. Building and fishing bamboo rods for decades has taught me a thing or two about breaking rods and shedding tears. I’ve seen a lot of rods break and I even saw one catch fire and burn. (Long story.) In the interest of keeping those great fly rods fishing, I’ll share with you the most common reasons fly rods break and how to avoid them.
6 Reasons fly rods break
Physical Trauma
This covers some very obvious issues as well as some very tricky ones. With no scientific evidence I’ll say that the three most common causes for broken fly rods are ceiling fans, car doors and spurned spouses. If you’ve run afoul of any of these, you know it instantly. The remedy is simple. Be more careful handling your rod and you spouse.
PTs can be pretty sneaky though. A rod can be damaged without you even noticing and may not break for some time. Then one day you hook an unremarkable fish and it shatters dramatically. That was the case with the rod pictured in the header. This beloved Scott S4s was most likely damaged when it slipped out of the rod holder on a rough boat ride.
Some of the ways rods are most commonly physically damaged include being hit by flies during casting, being transported in cars or boots, being dropped and being left in hot rooftop rod lockers or rod tubes left in the sun. The latter is particularly tricky because a rod can begin to delaminate without showing any sign.
Of course, physical traumas can occur in manufacturing and shipping. I have found rods on my doorstep, still in the box, in more pieces than normal but while accidents happen, they are rare and manufacturing flaws are even rarer. I have visited the rod shops of many major brands and I can tell you the folks there take care and pride in their work.
Breaks at the ferrules
It’s pretty common for fly rods to break at the ferrules. The female ferrule can split and often the shaft will snap on the male end, either inside or near the ferrule. Frequently it will be the butt section of the rod that breaks, leaving the angler puzzled how the thickest part of the rod could just snap.
These breaks are not mysterious at all. The ferrule junctions
Read More »“Do It Yourself Bonefishing” by Rod Hamilton, Reviewed
IT’S EVERY ANGLER’S DREAM TO CATCH BONEFISH ON THE FLATS BY THEMSELVES.
That may not be completely true, but if it sounds right to you, maybe you should pick up a copy of Rod Hamilton’s new book, “Do It Yourself Bonefishing.” It’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Rod, with the help of my good friend Kirk Deeter, has put together one of the most concise and easy to use volumes on the topic of flats fishing. This book covers it all and explains in clear terms how you can become a serious threat on the flats, without a guid or the expense of a lodge trip.
I’ll pause at this point to make my feelings clear. As I have said many times, if you are learning to bonefish there is no replacing the important role of a good guide who is willing to teach. There is also no better way to learn than the immersion you get from the lodge experience. That said, when you are ready to make the leap to bonefishing on your own, this book is a must.
The first half of the book covers the hows and whys of DIY bonefishing, including the equipment and skills you will need. Topics like how to spot bonefish, understanding tides and retrieving the fly are covered in great detail.
The second half of the book is a terrific resource
Read More »Fly Fishing: 3 Great Times to Fish Streamers
I fell in love with streamer fishing the very first time I cast one.
All it took was me bringing one trout to the net on a size 6 white Zonker, and I was hooked. I’ll never forget that beautiful 15″ wild rainbow trout, that I caught and released on a ten foot wide Southern Appalachian blue liner up in North Georgia back in the 90s. I remember the tiny stream being too overgrown and tight for me to make traditional fly casts so I crawled down on a flat boulder, stripped out some fly line and dead drifted the streamer downstream into a pool. Nothing happened at first but I didn’t give up. Instead of retrieving the fly all the way in, like most anglers regularly do, I instead made a few strips in and then let the streamer drift back down into the pool. On my third attempt, that gorgeous wild rainbow trout hammered my streamer and I brought it into my net. I still use that downstream stripping and drift back technique quite a bit when it’s called for. It works equally well with nymphs and dries.
Read More »In Our Fly We Trust
By Jesse Lowry
Fishing is as much of a mental game as any sport.
Whether it’s having confidence in your gear, the conditions, your technique, hell, even in the fish, the psychological factors play a role in how we perform on the water.
While a multitude of factors can be considered when deciding where, when, how, and with what we fish, having too much focus. or a focusing only on the negative factors, can be what stands between us and a successful day on the water. For instance, worrying that you can’t make a cast, or the weather is going to put the fish down, or these currents are going to make it tough to get a good drift, or the tide might not be ideal for this spot, or maybe I don’t have on the right fly.
While these are all valid factors to consider, they are all directed at the negative aspects of the proverbial hand we are dealt. This train of thought is tough to change. It is in our hard wiring. We are inherently risk averse as a species and thus try to avoid negative outcomes by using past experience as a guide. This leads to a bias where we focus on how we can fail as opposed to how we can succeed. Changing this type of thinking takes time and has to be done in baby steps. In my opinion a good place to start changing this biased way of thinking is with the fly we tie on.
I’ve had the same conversation with numerous fly fishermen in different parts of the world, regarding different species of fish and the consensus has been the same. A fly
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