Slack Free Presentation: Video
In fly-fishing, slack is always the enemy.
That’s never more true than when you are fly fishing on saltwater flats. Slack, however, is an ever present fact of life. No matter how good a caster or angler you are there are conditions beyond your control which can introduce slack into the system. Anglers who are successful are the ones who learn to regulate that unwanted slack.
There are a couple of easy techniques you can incorporate on every presentation which ensure that you will always be tight to your fly and fishing at your best. These simple tricks quickly become muscle memory and are done without thinking. A little practice is all it takes.
Watch this video where Bruce Chard explains how to easily make slack free presentations.
Read More »Trash On The Flats
IF WE CAN FLY FISH FOR CARP, WHY NOT LADY FISH?
I was in the Bahamas last month for a little DIY bonefishing. I love DIY trips. They have a whole different vibe from a guided lodge experience. I’m sure I miss some opportunities fishing without a guide. I may not catch as many fish, or as big a fish but I fish at my own pace and am a whole lot more relaxed. I appreciate a guide who works their ass off for me but it’s nice to just walk the flats, sometimes with my wife who doesn’t fish, and just explore.
This last trip was one of those and it allowed me to do something I really enjoy. Catching a few saltwater trash fish. On a guided trip there is always this pressure to stay on task and boat as many, or as big a specimen of what ever the target species may be. I’m generally curious about all kinds of fish and when I see something different, well, I just want to put a hook in it.
Some guys get really serious about it. They wouldn’t consider casting to a barracuda, for example. I think anyone who doesn’t enjoy catching a cuda on the fly is seriously missing something awesome. I get the whole idea of sticking to the program, and nobody loves catching bonefish more than me, but at some point
Fish Boy Is Sorry
A quick heads up, this story contains some adult language and ideas.
I was fishing a little mountain lake with my buddy Dan when he told me, “the last time I fished this place I was on a date”. “Why the hell did you bring a date up here”, I asked. “Well”, he said, “things were getting kind of serious and I thought I should show her what she was signing up for”. “So you took her fishing”? I laughed, “you should have locked her in your apartment and disappeared for three days, then showed back up stinking and drunk, that’s what she’s signing up for”!
Fly fishing has developed it’s own culture and it’s own code of misconduct. It reorients priorities and skews a person’s perspective of what “normal people” will tolerate. For some guys it’s like Mardi Gras. A fishing trip is an excuse to blow off the steam they build up at work or home and then they’re back to normal. For others it becomes a life style choice. For some an occupation. Living with a fisherman has got to be tough. I know my wife puts up with a lot from me and, to her credit, does it cheerfully. However, if you talk to any hard core angler it’s not uncommon to find a long list of ex-wives and girlfriends who just couldn’t, or wouldn’t take it anymore. Fishing, like any other addiction, complicates relationships.
Many of my best friends have made big life decisions base purely on fishing. Uprooted their families and moved across country without jobs or left their families alone for months at a time to guide in some far flung location. I have a friend who commutes over fifteen-hundred miles between his family and the water he guides year round. I know guys who have walked away from homes and given them up to foreclosure to be on the water they feel called to fish.
Read More »Fly Fishing with Stealth – 8 Common Mistakes
How often to you think anglers miss opportunities catching trout because of the lack of stealth? The more educated trout populations are in a stream, river or lake you’re fly fishing, the more important it is for fly anglers to mimic the way a hunter stalks game in the field. I estimate that I give away upwards of 50% of my trout catching opportunities due to my lack of stealth. Below are 8 common mistakes fly anglers make on the water that blow their cover and success.
Read More »3 Fly Fishing Situations When I Will Stop My Streamer During the Retrieve
Warning: The fly fishing advice you’re about to read may go against your present beliefs. There’s a good chance you’ll feel inclined to tell me I’m nuts for recommending it. That’s totally cool, I just ask that you read what I’ve written, before you make the decision to set me straight.
IT HAS LONG BEEN DRILLED INTO OUR HEADS, THAT THE WORST THING A FLY FISHERMAN CAN DO WHEN A FISH IS TRACKING HIS/HER STREAMER, IS STOP THE RETRIEVE.
I agree with this advice 95% of the time because most prey when threatened by a predator, will swim as hard and fast as possible to escape being eaten. That being said, I’ve been on the water many times when the constant-strip retrieve, or even the speed-up retrieve with my streamer, has failed to get me the hook up from a following fish. It was only when I thought outside the box, and found the courage to go against the popular view that streamers should always be kept moving when a fish is tracking, that I found myself with a bent rod.
With most things in fly fishing, there’s always exceptions to the rule. No matter how rare the exception may come up, a fly fisherman should always be willing to experiment when traditional tactics aren’t producing. If I told you that you were going to be streamer fishing a river where there were lots of injured and dying baitfish, would you still believe that a constant retrieve with a streamer would be your best tactic? What about if you were fly fishing trout water that had huge populations of sculpins or I said you were going to be fly fishing on a lake for largemouth bass, with water temperatures in the high forties? These are just a few fly fishing situations when I’ve found that a stop-and-go retrieve with a streamer can produce better than a constant retrieve, when fish are tracking but not eating. Below are three situations when killing your streamer retrieve, could prove to be your golden ticket.
Read More »Public Lands Photo Essay
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave this last year, you know that there is a real and present danger facing our American public lands. A group of short sighted law makers would like to sell of your American birthright, or deed it over to states to sell if for them.
I’ve been fortunate to see several dozen countries in my life, and to fish many of them. I can tell you this with complete certainty. Our public lands are unique and precious. They are what, for sportsmen and women at least, set us apart from much of the rest of the world. I say this, not boastfully, but with great fear. We are on the verge of losing the very thing that makes the country great.
I could write a couple of thousand words about this issue, but I have chosen instead to show you exactly whats at risk. Here are a few photos I’ve taken while fishing some of our great public lands. You will recognize many of these places. Although all of our public lands are not so famous, they are equally precious. I encourage you to remember this when choosing the representatives who speak for you.
Please consider signing the Sportsmen’s Access Petition. For each person who does a message is sent to their representatives in congress. Make your voice heard.
If you’re interested, heres Adventure journal’s list of the 20 lawmakers hell-bent on selling your public lands. One of them may represent you…or not.
ENJOY THE PHOTOS. LETS ALL DO WHAT WE CAN TO INSURE THAT PHOTOS ARE NOT ALL WE ARE LEFT WITH.
Read More »Learn How To Row, Row, Row A Drift Boat!
I have to say, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have zero experience behind the sticks of a drift boat.
NOPE. ZERO. NADA. NONE.
It’s been nineteen years since I picked up my first fly rod and laid out an ugly cast across Fightingtown Creek, and in nearly two decades I’ve never learned how to row a drift boat. It almost seems sacrilegious to think about it. I’ve been in my fair share of drift boats and rafts along the way, but mainly as a guest or client, so it’s never really been expected of me to take my turn on the oars. I’ve also never owned my own boat or raft so learning to row has never been a necessity. Put my ass in a john boat on a farm pond and I’m good to go, but I’d fare better dropped off in Germany looking for a pair of left-handed chopsticks than rowing a boat down a western river! And we haven’t even thrown fishermen in the boat yet!
On our recent venture to the South Holston River, Louis and Chase Pritchett of American Made Flies were determined to take on the undeniable liability of teaching me how to row down a damn river in the G&G Adipose Flow.
On the second day, during some of the prettiest snow I’ve seen in a long time, we stopped to release a feisty brown trout near the bank. The plan was to fish a particular section of the bank and once we were done, then it would be my turn to get on the oars. A little catch, photo, and release and it was time to shuffle around the Flow so that I could take my place in the middle seat. As intimidating as it was being on a boat that A) isn’t mine and B) with two other anglers and friends that know what they are doing when it comes to drift boats, it was only a few minutes into my maiden voyage that I began to feel how the boat responded to different strokes with the oars, and different currents. Yes, there were some trials and tribulations. Mistakes were made, but It was a great experience. I had two great friends that were patient, and gave me several tips and constructive feedback on how to correct my mistakes. It was a truly awesome day. I was by no means what you would call “proficient” with those oars when my time was done, but I sure do feel more confident in stepping up and getting on the sticks next time around. It’s just one of those things you have to just go and do, and learn from experience. I honestly didn’t put a bend in my rod that day. Those browns weren’t diggin’ what I was throwing down that day, but it didn’t even matter. I could have rowed that boat all day. It was one of those days on the water I’ll never forget.
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO ROW A DRIFT BOAT? HERE ARE A FEW TIPS THAT I TOOK FROM MY FIRST EXPERIENCE LAST WEEK THAT MIGHT HELP YOU ON YOUR FIRST DRIFT WITH OARS IN HAND.
Don’t Crash The Boat – This one is important and Numero Uno and pretty obvious! Chances are you will
Read More »Stocking Nymph Patterns in Different Weights
THIS PAST WEEKEND, ON ONE OF MY HOME TROUT WATERS, I WAS FRESHLY REMINDED HOW IMPORTANT IT CAN BE TO CARRY DIFFERENT WEIGHTED VERSIONS OF MY FAVORITE NYMPH PATTERNS DURING TOUGH FISHING CONDITIONS.
The low and gin clear water had the trout extra spooky and cautious. All it took was one wrong move, like my shadow briefly being cast over the water, or a presentation made a little too hard, and the trout ran for their lives like they were being chased by a pack of starving otters.
I use split-shot most of the time with my nymph rigs to get my flies down in the strike zone. It works great for me almost all of the time, but keep in mind that the extra weight added by them, also increases the noise made when presenting your flies on the water. Since I had low and flat water conditions, it wasn’t necessary for me to use them to get my flies down for most of the water anyways, except for the deeper pools. I love my Thingamabobbers but I had to substitute them for small stick-on foam strike indicators to keep my presentations extra quiet. I could have used a dry fly as an indicator but it would have called for me to constantly adjust my dropper length to keep my flies drifting in the preferred depths from one fishing spot to the next.
For the most part, the trout were congregated in the deeper pools, buckets and troughs, where the most water was found, but there were also multiple spots where I found trout holding in shallow, slow moving water located near cover. These places required unweighted or lightly weighted versions of my nymph patterns to get a good drift through the target water. My problem, was that the trout were favoring hares ears and I was slap out of unweighted versions of them. My weighted versions worked fine in the deeper water, but they didn’t work so well in the shallow water. I managed to catch a few fish on soft-hackles and pheasant-tails in the shallow water, but I had to really be precise with my presentations to get them to eat. If I would have had more unweighted/lightly weighted hares ears on hand, I’m confident I could have landed more fish in the areas where the trout were holding in shallow water.
For some reason, the trout were willing to move much further to eat a hares ear than my other nymph patterns. I’ve learned over the years, that every fishing day is different and unique. Some days the trout will be opportunistic and will eat a wide selection of fly patterns, while other days, even on water that is so called “infertile”, where there’s low bug densities, trout may choose to go against their opportunistic feeding habits and flat out prefer one food source or fly pattern over the rest. It doesn’t make a lot of since, and it goes against what most fly fishing authors teach, but then again, you alway have to add fishing pressure into the equation. I think this was
Read More »Don’t Get Stuck in a Fly Fishing Rut
I see this simple mistake keep anglers from catching fish with startling regularity.
I was invited on a float trip recently and witnessed a remarkably common pattern, which may have greatly limited the number of fish brought to the boat. My fishing partner and I were told to arrive empty handed. That’s an unusual request for a day of fishing, but we were being hosted by a manufacturer who wanted us to test new products, so we complied. Well, almost. I’ve seen too many tough days on a drift boat to come aboard without an ace in the hole. I grabbed a pill bottle and dropped four trusted streamers inside. As long as I had a rod and line, I could make a day out of that.
When it came time to fish we were graced with beautiful weather, apparently for the first time in over a week and our guide was stoked. He had been eagerly awaiting the golden stone hatch and was confident that today was the day. He outfitted both rods with big dry flies and we pounded the bank. It seemed like a winning plan but after an hour and a half of drifting some very tasty water we were still fishless.
I clipped off my fly and tippet and tied on a streamer.
I didn’t get any attention at first but after a pattern change
Read More »Flats Boat Etiquette, Being A Good Fishing Partner
The reception to my last fly fishing etiquette post was so positive I thought I’d dive in a little deeper.
Flats fishing from a boat is a team sport. Whether you’re out fishing with friends, out with a guide or on a trip to a fishing lodge, you’re never out on the boat by yourself. Usually you are sharing your fishing time with another angler. It may be a friend, a spouse or a complete stranger but regardless of who you’re fishing with, one thing is the same. How you behave on the boat affects their fishing experience.
I’ve seem some pretty thoughtless things done on flats skiffs. Usually out of ignorance and often ending in embarrassment. Neither angler, or the guide for that matter, needs that. With that in mind, here are a few simple rules to help you be a good boat buddy.
BE QUIET!
Rule number one. First, last and always, be quiet. Saltwater fish are easily spooked and the noise of cooler lids, camera cases and beer bottles banging against the hull travel for great distances in the water. Don’t be a busy bee. Your buddy’s fishing time is not your chance to get a few things done around the boat. Be still. Rocking the boat moves water and fish can hear it. Keep your shoes off. Sock feet are quiet feet. Be obsessively quiet. You never know when you’re about to see the fish of a lifetime.
DON’T BE A BOW HOG
Share the fishing time fairly. It’s not fair to stay on the bow all day, even if you’re not seeing fish. The worst is when two anglers of very different skill levels get paired together. All too often the better angler spends the day watching his partner blow shot after shot. When it’s his turn to fish, he gets up, catches his fish in five minutes and is back in the chair for an hour.
There are some “rules” for lack of a better term. They vary a little and guys who fish together often sometimes have their own rules but they are all something like this.
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