The Magic of Soft Hackles
SOFT HACKLES ARE THE SHARKS OF THE FLY BOX.
Like the shark, the soft hackle is one of the oldest of its ilk, and like those ancient predators, it has evolved very little from its inception. Like the shark, it is a deadly design that could not be improved upon. Take, for example, the Kebari flies used by tenkara anglers for hundreds of years. Basically Soft Hackles with a reverse hackle. So effective, that traditional tenkara anglers only fish one pattern. Many modern fly anglers overlook traditional Soft Hackle patterns that are as effective today as ever.
There are two primary reasons for the effectiveness of the soft hackle. For starters, it’s the ultimate impressionistic pattern. It looks like almost everything on the aquatic menu. A fish who is looking for something specific is very likely to see it in a soft hackle. The second reason is, there’s just no wrong way to fish one. If you struggle with getting a drag free drift, a soft hackle is a very forgiving pattern. As long as it is in the water, it will produce fish.
FISHING SOFT HACKLES
As I said, there is no wrong way to fish these flies, but there are some proven tactics you can employ. For starters, dead drifting the fly as a nymph is never a bad plan. The Soft Hackle is as effective in this role as any pattern. That said, the dead drift does not take advantage of some of the pattern’s unique properties.
Perhaps the most common and most productive presentation for a Soft Hackle is the swing. The hackle has a tendency to trap an air bubble making the fly a natural emerger pattern. There are tying techniques, which I will go into, that enhance this effect. When fished deep and swung to the surface, the glowing air bubble inside the hackle is more than any trout can resist. One of my favorite ways to rig this pattern is to drop it about sixteen inches behind a Wooly Bugger with some weight in front of the Bugger. Drift the team deep through a run then lift them to the surface or quarter them down and across and let then swing and hold on.
When fishing from a boat, it’s very effective to cast a Soft Hackle straight across the current and retrieve it slowly, about four inches at strip. A hand-twist retrieve works well. This is also effective when teamed with a Bugger. Even more fun,
Read More »Caring For Zip-front Waders
MODERN WATERPROOF ZIPPERS HAVE REVOLUTIONIZED THE DESIGN OF WADERS.
The ease and convenience of zip-front waders is easy to get used to. There was a time when I scoffed at the idea, but now I can’t see fishing in anything else. Especially with the durability and dependability found in the new waterproof zippers. My Simms G4Z waders are bombproof and require virtually no maintenance. Still, waders are expensive and it pays to take care of them.
Here are a few tips to keep your zip-fronts going strong.
Never pack your waders zipped
This is the most important thing I can tell you about waterproof zippers. I once spent a very cold week steelheading in open waders. Throwing a pair of waders with the zipper zipped into your duffle and driving to the river may not be the end of them, but fold those waders and put them in a bag and hand them over to an airline and you’re screwed. When your bag ends up at the bottom of a pile of luggage a lot of weight is on the fold in that zipper. As that fold is flattened, the teeth pop apart below the pull. The zipper pull will not re-mesh them and the separation will grow until the entire zipper is open. Your waders are done. Always pack your waders unzipped to avoid this problem.
Wash your zipper
It’s a good idea to wash your waders once in a while anyway. This will greatly increase the longevity of your fishing buddies. It will also keep mildew from growing. Mildew, in addition to smelling awful, will degrade the seams and cause waders to leek. While you’re at it, wash the zipper thoroughly with running water and dry your waders wrong-side-out. This will clear grit from the zipper that can jam the pull and damage the teeth.
Lubricate your zipper
Lubricating your zipper will keep it moving freely and
Read More »Faith and Steelhead
by Tim Harris
I just returned from my first real steelhead trip to the Deschutes in a couple of years.
I had to miss out all of last two summer seasons due to illness though I did manage a few days last winter where I actually hooked up several fish and landed one nice hatchery fish.
Now I’ve got the steelhead sickness again, it is time though to break out the floating line and the switch rod and begin to swing Streetwalkers across the currents. I’ll get up before dawn and head to the river in the early morning, rig up and wade out just as it begins to get light. Then begins the methodical, meditative practice of cast, mend, swing, and step until I am at the bottom of the run and I pack up and go to work. The cast is meditative too – strip, lift, swing, create the D loop, and let it rip. Mend once, maybe twice. Swing slowly. Take one to two steps down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
All the while you are keeping faith.
Read More »I Must Have Washed My Streamers On Hot
How did all of my streamer patterns get so small?
I must have left the box in a shirt pocket and thrown it in the wash on hot. It seems like just the other day that all of my buddies would look at my streamers and shake their heads, often with a look of disgust. Seriously, it was like five minutes ago, the idea of throwing a four inch long fly at a trout was considered absurd. For a minute it wasn’t, and now I’m getting looks again.
These days it seems like half the guys I fish with are heaving eight- or nine-inch feather snakes at cowering trout. Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe there is some wisdom in fishing a fly the size of the average fish in the river. I’m sure of one thing, and it’s proven to be true my entire life. When I am the voice of reason, things have gotten way the hell out of hand.
I firmly believe that there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to fly size. A quick survey of YouTube videos under the topic “Streamer Tying for Trout” will quickly make you believe I’m in the minority. Everybody with a vise and a GoPro is in a race to see who can pile the most material onto the greatest number of hooks. Are those things really catching fish?
My feeling is this. You’ll get the occasional fish on those huge flies, but you’re asking an awful lot of a fish to attack something like that. I find I do better by
Read More »How to Stop the Dreaded Fly Fishing Birds Nest
Does this look familiar?
Just about every angler has created this tangled artwork at some point, some more than others. I’m pretty good at untangling knots because I get more practice than the average angler from my guiding, but even this one required me to break out a fresh leader and completely re-rig. If you find yourself untangling knots more than you’re fishing, try fixing the problem by following these five helpful tips.
1. Watch your forward cast and backcast when false casting.
“In the film A River Runs Through It”, Jerry Siem (one of the casting stuntmen) never watched his backcast. It’s important to note that his fly casting skill level ranks among the best in the world, which allowed him to get away without doing this. It’s also pertinent to point out he was casting a single dry fly in the movie scene, not a tandem nymph rig with split-shot and a strike indicator. Could he have made the same casts in the movie with a tandem nymph rig without tangles, of course he could, but that doesn’t mean every other angler out there should try to mimic him. The majority of the best casters in the world watch their backcast, especially when they’re fly fishing in areas where casting room is limited. Your first step to limiting the number of tangles you create on the river is to watch your forward and backcast diligently. Your timing will be better, you’ll find you won’t need to make as many false casts, and you’ll keep your flies out of the trees and bushes.
2. Cast with grace, not with power and muscle.
Many fly anglers out there cast their fly rod much harder than they need to. So hard in many cases, that they end up overloading the rod and also get a out of control sling shot effect with their flies. Let your fly rod do the work by executing a smooth pick up of the fly line starting at the 8 o’clock position (rod tip close to the water), then begin loading the rod by smoothly accelerating the fly rod between ten o’clock and 12 o’clock. Make sure you’re stopping your rod quickly for both your forward cast and backcast, not slowing down to a stop. This will have your fly rod stopping at its fastest point at the end of the casting stroke, which will transfer your power effectively from the fly rod down through your fly line. Focusing on these casting mechanics will help you cast more graceful, and you’ll find it much easier to keep your fly rod traveling in a straight line path, and that will allow you to form efficient loops. Slow down and don’t rush your cast either. Left Kreh, is one of the best fly casters in the world at demonstrating how to make a graceful cast to get the most power out of a fly rod. If you want to see what I’m talking about just search him on YouTube.
3. Make sure you’re pausing long enough in between casts.
So you’ve managed to accomplish the first two steps with ease, but as you work out more fly line that’s needed for longer presentations, you begin to feel your fly cast falling apart. Chances are, if this is happening to you, it’s because you’re not lengthening your pause between casts as you work out more fly line
Fly Fishing: Float N’ Fly Rig for the Fly Rod
This past week I wrote a fly fishing tactics post for targeting bass on reservoirs during the fall. At the tail-end of the post, I touched base on how effective a Float N’ Fly Rig (basically a nymphing rig on my fly rod) can be for catching good numbers of bass during the late fall and winter months. From late fall through winter, when water temperatures begin dipping into the mid-50s and lower, catching bass on deep reservoirs with traditional fly fishing setups can become extremely difficult for two reasons. The first reason is because bass start becoming sluggish as their metabolisms plummet from cooling lake water temperatures. With lower metabolisms, bass feed less frequently and they also move shorter distances to forage on food (in an effort to conserve energy). This is bad news for fly anglers because it drastically shrinks the size of the strike zone (the hot zone around a bass that a fly or lure needs to enter, to consistently trigger bites) and it makes it much harder for fly anglers to find, present, and retrieve fly patterns through these small strike zones. The second reason the bass fishing is tough this time of year is because a good portion of the bass on the lakes will move out of the shallow water feeding grounds of the fall and back out into the main lake deep water areas, where they’ll often suspend in the water column in 10-25′ of water.
The main problem with cold water suspended bass is that it’s really hard for fly anglers to keep their fly patterns in the strike zone throughout the entire retrieve. It’s really only in front of the bass for a small percentage of the retrieve. The first half of the retrieve an angler struggles to get the fly down to the level of the bass, and the last half of the retrieve, the fly is coming up and out of the strike zone as it gets closer to the angler and the boat on the surface. With a Float N’ Fly Rig, the suspension/floating device (strike indicator set to a preferred depth) allows you to maintain a consistent depth with your fly pattern during the entire retrieve, even when you’re working it extremely slow to entice cold water bass. That’s critical for triggering lethargic bass that often need to be coaxed into feeding. What you’re trying to do with your float n’ fly rig is make that baitfish jig pattern look injured or dying. It needs to look like an easy meal and the bass will suck it in if you get it close enough to them. The best technique is to make a cast to the bank, let your fly sink, and then slowly bring the entire rig back to you with very subtle rod tip bounces or jiggling. All you want is the strike indicator to barely be moving as you’re bringing the rig back to you. I usually stop the twitching and pause for 20-30 seconds a couple of times during each retrieve. The more windy the day is or the more chop there is on the water, the less you have to twitch the rod tip, because you’ll naturally get action on your jig from the choppy or wavy water on the surface.
Read More »These Boots
By Justin Pickett
Tossed in the back of my truck for the ride home, they find their place amongst my gear.
Purchased for future fishy adventures, these boots will see their share of waterborne excursions.
They are made of synthetics; rubber, nylon, plastic, metal.
These boots wait for duty, standing out against the grimy gear strewn about.
Streamside. Strapped. Solid. Secure. My steps are confident.
These boots’ first strides along my home water’s banks are welcomed.
Lugging my heavy, clumsy feet without complaint, they do their damnedest to keep the rubber side down.
These boots have tread along the banks of waters big and small. The Piedmont. The Rockies. The Appalachians. Patagonia.
Freestone streams. Tailwaters. Wild. Not so wild. An impromptu, low country flood tide.
These boots have scaled waterfalls, hiked paths less traveled, and blazed a few of their own.
They have been there for the highest of highs, and my biggest of falls.
Read More »My Tenkara Fix
By Justin Pickett
We had hardly settled into the lodge in Patagonia and already I’m itching to wet a line.
There is a pond in front of the main lodge, with a small stream meandering through the backside of the property, as well as the Chimehuin River just a hundred yards away, through the trees. To say that I’m dying to float a fly on either of these pieces of water is an understatement.
My clothes are still in my big Simms duffel. All of my gear is strewn about the floor of mine and Louis’s cabin. Dinner is being prepared and most everyone else is drinking wine and relaxing while enjoying the sunset. After all, we’ve been traveling for the past twenty or more hours, making connections and hiking from gate to gate. Apparently the airport in Buenos Aires is going through some “renovations”, requiring what seemed like a ten mile hike from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. Sheesh! Not to mention the long drive through some amazing landscape required to get to the lodge. So needless to say, to those that were relaxing on the porch, I probably seemed like that crazy first-timer who’s just jones-ing to catch his first trout in Patagonia, and I’m not afraid to admit that’s exactly who I was.
I started grabbing fly boxes and getting out my rods while I was explaining to Louis what my intentions were. I could’ve cared less about wine and dinner at this point and time. First off, I’m in freaking Patagonia to fish! Second, I’m a beer guy.
Halfway through rigging up my rod and reel Louis made a great suggestion. “I think that little stream would be a perfect place to use the Tenkara rod.”
What a great idea! The stream
Read More »Shea Gunkel’s Shot Glass Baetis
By Bob Reece
Baetis Mayflies are an integral piece of the food web in many trout inhabited watersheds around the world.
While their physical size is minimal, their population numbers can be immense. These significant numbers frequently draw the attention of feeding trout. These periods of responsiveness can take place during any month of the calendar year, depending on the characteristics and location of the body of water.
The wide spread nature of this insect should be a significant indicator to fly fishers as we make decisions regarding pattern selection for our fly boxes. I believe that it is essential to dedicate at least a portion of our available fly inventory to this small but significant bug. In our current world of fly fishing the market is filled with various Baetis imitations. Through my extensive time on the water, I have found one, year round producing pattern that I believe to be in a class of its own. Shea Gunkel’s Shot Glass Baetis.
When Baetis nymphs reach maturity, they buoy their way to the surface with the help of a small bubble of gas. Gunkel’s pattern takes this key element into account by applying a transparent glass bead in the thorax of the pattern. This transparent component placed in the anatomically correct location, perfectly matches the food profile seen by feeding trout. Additionally, the thin profile of the abdomen, downward tucked tail fibers and clear coat on the fly’s dorsal surface; round out a pristine pattern that satisfies the most selective trout.
Gunkel spent years tweaking and adjusting this pattern before it became available through Umpqua Feather Merchants. The only aspect of the pattern that
Read More »Steelhead, Karma and the Art of Showing Up
I know of no more mystifying fish than the steelhead.
Everything about anadromous steelhead is a mystery. An esoteric exercise in chaos theory beginning with an inexplicable choice to swim to the ocean and ending with an equally mystifying decision to eat a swung fly. The more we as anglers try to impose reason and method on these fish, the more they defy us. This fuels a sort of brain fever in the steelheader which, unchecked, can manifest itself in self loathing, delusions of grander, obsessive behavior, mysticism and other antisocial behaviors. There is an element of psychology to all fishing but none more than steelheading.
Swinging a fly for steelhead is wonderfully technical. The finesse, the attention to detail and the absolute focus required to do it right are staggering. And while all of the technique is absolutely essential to master and crucial to execute, it often has nothing to do with the catching of a fish. That’s where it gets really mind-bending. I’ve seen it time and again. Talented anglers making perfect casts and swings time after time to no avail, while another angler does everything wrong and is rewarded with a fish. I have personally been on both sides of that equation. It’s a real thing.
In the long run I am convinced that good technique prevails, but in the short run it can often seem random. In the end, there is nothing in steelheading more important than being in the presence of a fish who is ready to eat a fly. End of story. For those of us who believe we control our destinies, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. I firmly believe, however painful it is to hear, that the fish chooses us, not the other way around.
So what is the angler hoping to catch a steelhead on the swing to do?
The best thing I can tell you is, show up, stay positive and do the work. That’s what puts fish in the net. This year on the Deschutes Steelhead Camp I saw a classic example from my friend Mark Haffenreffer.
Read More »