Stream Etiquette, Two Stories About How To Share The Water
TWO EXPERIENCES IN TWO DAYS LEFT ME WITH TWO VERY DIFFERENT FEELINGS.
I spent a couple of days fishing in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago. A dear friend came in from Colorado and gave me the chance to share some of our eastern rivers. We had two close encounters with other anglers which proved to be lessons in stream etiquette. One a great example of how to share the water, the other not so much.
Stream etiquette is often complained about but seldom taught. What’s expected on the river changes from place to place but there are some simple ideas of respect and tolerance that are universal. If you’re not sure what’s cool and what’s not, I hope these two examples are helpful.
ENCOUNTER #1
My buddy and I arrive at a favorite piece of water with about an hour and a half of light left. The run is down in a gorge and we inspect it from above before hiking down. There’s no guarantee that it hasn’t been recently fished but no one is there now, so we head to the water. We are both fishing tenkara rods and my buddy is ready to fish but I want to make a fly change before fishing this new spot. I line up across from the first pool and start rigging while my buddy heads to the next pool upstream. Just then another angler rounds the corner and calls out. He has hiked up from down stream and was out of sight when we inspected the water.
To my mind, this is his water. As I see it,
Read More »Bonefish Fly Lines: Beyond The Cast
By Louis Cahill
Does having the right fly line mean catching more fish? Absolutely.
Having the right fly line for the species you’re targeting and the conditions you’re fishing is key for a successful day of fishing. You can buy a line from almost any manufacturer bearing the name ‘Bonefish’ but that doesn’t mean it will be the best line for the day you are on the water. It may do a great job of loading your fast action saltwater fly rod, but not catch you a lot of fish.
When shopping for a fly line, we focus almost completely on how the line casts. Of course it’s important to have a good cast but often it’s too late when we stop to think about how the line we chose fishes, and there are some big differences. This, of course, applies to all types of fishing but is especially pertinent to bonefishing, so I’m using that as an example.
It’s very common these days to see anglers over-line their fly rods. Putting a 9-weight line on an 8-weight rod absolutely makes it easier to load, but that ease of casting may come at a price. I fished recently with an angler who had paired his Sage One 8-weight with a 9-weight RIO Outbound Short. He liked it because it felt like his Winston trout rod. The only problem was, he couldn’t catch a fish.
There are three things wrong with this setup. First, the head diameter on that line is huge! It casts a huge shadow and makes a thunderous racket every time it lands on the water. It spooked every fish on the flat. Secondly, the short head meant that he had to strip the line in completely every time he recast. There’s no time for that in bonefishing. You need a line you can pick up and recast quickly. Lastly, by slowing the action of his rod down to that of a trout rod, my friend had lost all of the benefits of having a fast action rod.
I’ve seen this problem go the other way, too. I tarpon fished with a buddy a while back who had chosen a RIO
Read More »It’s The Little Things
“I know it when I see it!”
Kent and I were doing a presentation at a fly shop the other day and after showing a couple of hundred fishing photos, during the Q&A part of the program, a fellow raised his hand and asked “do you guys catch any small fish?”
I guess I’m as guilty as anyone for perpetuating the idea that size is all that matters in fishing. I sure don’t feel like that’s true but when you look through my photos you, sort of, start to get that feeling. It’s easy to go too far the other direction too and get all moist and sloppy about tiny wild fish. I really do love tiny wild fish but that’s not all there is to me either. I just want to catch a great fish.
I guess I’ll define a great fish this way. When asked how he would define pornography Sen. Jessie Helms replied, “I know it when I see it!” I guess that goes for fish porn too.
The average size fish in the stream where this little guy was caught is around eighteen inches and I caught plenty of those fish the day this photo was taken, but this beautiful little guy that my buddy Dan landed is the one I’m going to show you. In my opinion he was
Read More »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
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