A Tight Line Presentation is Key in Saltwater Fly Fishing
SLACK IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.
When fly fishing in saltwater, keeping the slack out of the system is job one. Slack can cause missed fish, long distance release and even refusals. A tight line is key at every stage of the process, but many anglers overlook the initial presentation.
Triggering a fish’s instinct to strike relies on the fly having a lifelike action when the fish first catches sight of it. That means that the fly should move in the manner of the prey it represents from the instant it hits the water. In most cases that cannot be accomplished with slack in the system. Even, or maybe especially, when fishing crab patterns where the natural action is the fall to the bottom, slack kills. These flies are often eaten as soon as they hit the water and if the line has slack, you will never know it.
There is nothing more important to success in saltwater fly fishing than a tight line presentation, but it’s not an easy thing to pull off. Here are some tips and a video to help you get the slack out.
Read More »Tying Extra-Long Fly Leaders That Actually Turn Over
There are some big advantages to fly-fishing with a long leader, if you can turn it over.
Long leaders, up to eighteen feet in some cases, can be a huge help when targeting spooky trout or species like carp and bonefish. There’s a definite advantage to having some extra stealth, but only if you can turn that leader over. If you can’t, you loose the ability to deliver the fly accurately and with a clean presentation.
Most anglers struggle to turn over long leaders. Sometimes that’s a casting problem, but often it’s just an issue with the leader. Understanding how a leader works, and how to build one properly can really take your fly fishing to the next level, letting you catch fish you may have considered above your pay-grade.
Generally anglers will start off with a fairly standard nine foot leader, and lengthen it when they feel they need to. There’s nothing wrong with that, if you do it right. But if you know you are going to be using a long leader all day, I recommend you start from scratch and build a leader that’s right for the conditions. I change my leaders like I change my socks and I’ll take things like wind and light into consideration when I build them. I like having every advantage.
If you want to learn more about building custom leaders, read my article about Understanding Leaders.
Today, I’m going to talk about how to make an effective long leader starting with a standard leader, whether it’s one you tied or bought at the shop. I will suggest that you tie your own leaders. If you do it right, they will always perform better.
Most anglers will lengthen their leader by adding a long section of tippet. Unless you are doing some kind of technical nymphing, where you want thin tippet that cuts quickly through the water column and gets your flies deep in a hurry, lengthening your tippet is the worst possible way to add to your leader. It is the easiest method, and like most shortcuts, yields the worst results.
Read More »A Truck Vault Can Make Your Truck The Bat-Mobile of Fly Fishing
IT’S HUMAN NATURE, I SUPPOSE, TO ADMIRE IN OTHERS WHAT YOU LACK YOURSELF.
As I look at the chaotic pile of fly rods, reels and fly boxes in the corner of my office, I am not at all surprised that one of the things I admire most in others is organization.
Organization is a skill my good friend Michael White takes to a new level. Whitie is a sales rep for Simms which means he pretty much lives in his truck. What’s more, wherever that truck is headed, there is usually some great fishing. That was the case the other day when work, and fate, brought Whitie and me both to the Jackson Hole area. Fortunately, we both had the same day off and were able to get out on the water together.
Whitie’s truck is nothing short of the Bat-mobile of fly fishing. In addition to upgraded off road suspension and the best car audio system I’ve ever heard there is an intense gear organization system. In the back under a huge pile of Simms samples that any angler would kill for there is a weatherproof, fireproof, combination locked Truck Vault.
Pull out the two bed length drawers of the Truck Vault and there, perfectly organized, is every piece of fly fishing gear you could ever need. Rods organized by single and double hand. Reels by line weight. Flies by hatch. Waders, boots, packs, everything you need to fish anywhere there’s a road to get you there. It’s a thing of majestic beauty.
The gear never needs to go in the house. It lives there in the truck, ready for action 24/7. There’s even enough room
Read More »Keep Your Rod Tip Off the Water for Longer Drag-Free Drifts
Are you finding yourself struggling to get long drag-free drifts on the water?
If the answer is yes, you may be holding your rod tip too close to the water during your drifts. When your rod tip is positioned too low, you’re putting unnecessary fly line on the water that you in turn have to manage in order to maintain a drag-free drift. As soon as this unwanted fly line hits the waters surface, it’s immediately subjected to the surrounding currents. Depending on how fast the current is at your feet, the less time it will take for it to be pulled downstream and begin effecting your drift. Eventually all the slack will be pulled out in your fly line and your drag-free drift will be compromised. There’s of course a happy medium though, on rod tip position. Too high, and anglers will find it difficult to effectively mend and set the hook. I generally tell my clients to keep their rod tip at least three feet off the water’s surface.
Here’s a simple drill to help you understand and visualize how improper rod tip position on the water can negatively effect and decrease the length of your drag-free drift. Lay out a nice 30+ foot cast on the water. Make sure you stop your rod tip high above the water (a good 4 feet). Watch your drift for a few seconds, and then
Read More »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
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