Does Casting Technique Matter For Small Stream Trout Fishing?

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By Louis Cahill

You can sure catch a lot of trout with no more than ten feet of fly line, but does that mean that casting doesn’t matter?

I had this conversation recently. I was fishing a classic, pocket water stream with a friend and at some point he asked me point blank why I was catching fish and he wasn’t. He was shocked when I told him the problem was with his cast. Neither of us had more than ten feet of line out of the tip of our rod.

It’s a problem that plenty of beginning, and even intermediate anglers have. Even with a very short line, poor casts make for poor presentations. the problem is compounded in tight quarters where your first presentation really needs to be your best. Flailing about in close proximity to fish is generally not productive.

One of the most common casting mistakes I see anglers make, when casting a short line, is using too long a stroke. Often, anglers will do this because they are struggling to load the rod. With the head of the line still on the reel, it’s impossible to load the whole rod like you would in a longer cast. The problem very quickly becomes one of line management. The long, and usually circular, casting stroke dumps the fly line on the water, making it nearly impossible to get a good drift. Especially in the conflicting current of fast pocket water.

Fixing this problem is super simple, and comes down to

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A Flybrary for Anthony

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By Mark Greer,

WHEN MY SON, ANTHONY, SUDDENLY DIED IN MARCH 2011 IT WAS BEYOND DEVASTATING.

His loss was the most excruciating pain that I’ve experienced during my life time. Anth was a talented fly fisherman and a Green River Outfitters Guides Association (GROGA) certified guide on the famed Green River below Flaming Gorge Reservoir. He was a college student, he tied his own flies, and he fished every waking moment that he could. He was also the kind of angler that would walk up to another angler on the water, strike up a conversation, offer them a secret tip for that specific spot, and then leave them with a couple of flies which he’d been successful with that day. He was also a fly-fishing evangelist, as everyone that expressed an interest in fly-fishing, Anth would take them out with him – teach them to cast, and give them the needed gear to get them started and off on the right foot. 

In an effort to cope with the loss of my son, I did two things. I kept a journal where I’d write my thoughts and what I was struggling with, and I started a (picture) scrapbook of all his fishing adventures. I also decided during that first year of his passing that I’d do a special remembrance project for each year for 10-years. These projects, along with the journal and scrapbook, became my makeshift-therapy for dealing with my son’s death. Here’s a list of those projects.  

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Kiss the Bank with Your Terrestrials

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One of the best times of the year to catch big brown trout is during the summer months.  

When the terrestrial bite is in full swing, brown trout will often tuck up under overhanging foliage super tight to the banks. Often they’ll be in less than a foot of water waiting patiently for the land born insects to fall to the water for an easy meal. Targeting this habitat on the water will increase your brown trout catch ratio over rainbow trout. Although rainbow trout will utilize overhanging foliage, they still prefer foam lines with current and deeper water for the most part.

Target Overhanging Foliage
This beast above devoured a beetle pattern that was placed perfectly in the strike zone. Kiss the banks with your terrestrials targeting undercut banks and overhanging foliage, and you could land a trophy like this. Just because they’re isn’t current doesn’t mean it won’t hold a good trout. The main factor is

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Stocked Brook Trout – Strip it, Skate it, Swing it

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I’M VERY FORTUNATE TO HAVE A GREAT TROUT STREAM NEAR BY THAT OPERATES A DELAYED HARVEST PROGRAM (CATCH AND RELEASE FISHING BY ARTIFICIAL FLIES ONLY) THAT STARTS IN THE FALL EVERY YEAR, AND RUNS INTO THE EARLY SUMMER.

I love visiting this trout stream because the DNR stocks big male and female brook trout, some of which, can push well over twenty inches. To consistently catch these beautiful brookies, I usually have to experiment with different types of flies and presentation methods to find out what’s the best option for the day’s fishing. Sometimes all I need is a simple drag free drift with a dry fly or nymph to catch them. Other times, the brook trout will completely ignore my dead drifted flies and I’m forced to impart extra action and movement on my flies to trigger bites. When I can’t get stocked brook trout to rise to my dry fly or take my nymphs dead drifted, I’ll then try fishing tactics like stripping a streamer, skating a dry fly or swinging a tandem nymph rig. For some reason, the added action and movement, often will trigger reaction strikes from stocked brook trout that have lock jaw. Moving your fly upstream, and causing it to make a wake, be it a dry fly or wet fly is another technique that can work wonders. Everyday can be different, so it’s important that you figure out what kind of presentation and type of fly the brook trout want to help you find success. Now that I’ve gone over how movement can trigger bites with the stocked brook trout, let’s talk about each in a little more detail.

TECHNIQUE #1 – TRY STRIPPING STREAMERS WHERE THE BROOKIES ARE LOCATED

I’ll never forget a day on the water with my good friend Joel Dickey several years ago, where he landed two brook trout well over 22 inches with a streamer. They were the biggest stocked brook trout I had ever laid my eyes on in the Southeast, and the only thing that proved effective for catching them that day, was retrieving a streamer across their noses erratically. Try fishing brightly colored streamers that incorporate flash for stocked brook trout. Multi-colored streamer patterns with yellow, orange and blue have served me well over the years. Take an attractor approach when tying or purchasing your streamers, you don’t need to fish natural looking streamers that resemble the local sculpins, crayfish or baitfish.  These can work also, but I’ve found streamers that are colored loudly get the most attention. Your streamers don’t need to be very big either. A two to three-inch streamer is all you need to get the job done. Just keep in mind that the brook trout will not always be fooled by your streamers. I provided this technique first, because right after brook trout are stocked, they usually are suckers for streamers. After being caught with them a few times though, they start to wise up, and will chase but not always eat streamers. Try streamers where you can locate brook trout or know it’s good water for brook trout (usually slow moving runs or tails of pools), and if you don’t have any luck, be ready to try other types of flies and techniques.

TECHNIQUE #2 – TRY SKATING A BIG ATTRACTOR DRY FLY

Skating big dry flies across the surface of the water can be highly effective for stocked brook trout. I like to fish large dry flies that float well and have enough bulk that they’ll create a nice V-wake when I’m skating and twitching them. A bright foam body with rubber legs, stacked deer hair and a palmered grizzly hackle feather works well. If you don’t tie flies, a

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Flood Tide Redfish

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By Owen Plair

I ALWAYS TELL MY CLIENTS THAT THE FLOOD TIDES ARE A GIFT, TO ANGLERS, FROM MOTHER NATURE.

Targeting tailing redfish on flood tides, from Northern Florida all the way to North Carolina, is one of the most unique opportunities for fly anglers. Something about seeing a tail slowly cut through the top of the water column, surrounded by short spartina grass, on a flat that is only covered by water a few times a month is simply special. Watching these fish casually tail their way through the flat, digging their noses in the mud looking for fiddler crabs is almost as fun as watching them at the end of your fly line.

This is a simple and short explanation of this unique style of redfish and will be the introduction to more articles on flood tide redfishing, which will be more detailed on characteristics of flats, fishing, presentations, fly selection, and equipment.

What is a flood tide?

A flood tide is a larger than normal tide that pushes water onto short spartina grass flats, allowing redfish to feast on the thousands of fiddler crabs that live there. In areas where flood tides occur, there is a lot more tidal flow than most redfisheries in the US. For example, here in Beaufort our average tide is between 6-7 ft, but your flood tides would be 7.5-8.5 ft which pushes enough water on these short grass flats for the redfish to move in.

On average we get around 10-15 of these tides per month, depending on moon phases, and only fish the floods from the middle of March till the end of November, depending on weather patterns. Once the water temp gets below 65 the fiddlers go down and the redfish stop tailing. No food means no tails. Tide charts are your best friend when it comes to flood tides and I seem to find myself always looking forward to the next set of floods!

How do you fish a flood tide?

When fishing the flood you usually want to start around

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Land More Bonefish By Safely Clearing Your Line: Video

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Watch the Video!

A lot of bonefish are broken off in the first few seconds of the fight.

One of the most common problems for new bonefish anglers is managing the whirlwind of fly line created by the fish’s first blistering run. If left to its own devices that line will find something to wrap around. Maybe your real seat or reel handle or even your head. Whatever it finds, these powerful fish will break off immediately when the line comes tight.

It’s a situation that’s easy to avoid, once you know how. Once you strip set on a fish, just separate your hands by at least three feet and let the line slip through your fingers, keeping pressure on the fish, until all of the line is all out. Then you can use the reel to really put some pressure on the fish.

WATCH THIS VIDEO TO SEE HOW IT’S DONE.

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Spring Fishing on Tributaries for Wild Trout

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Several of our blog followers on numerous occasions have asked Louis and I if we ever catch small trout?

Jokingly, they mention, “All we see are trophy size fish in most of the pictures on the blog”. I assure you all, we catch plenty of small fish, and Louis and I both appreciate and photograph them on the water with the same gratitude and respect. It’s just fair to say, that a large portion of anglers out there are constantly striving to catch a trophy class fish. We tend to use our big fish photos as motivation and assurance that persistence pays off. However, it’s important to note, in most cases, there’s no distinction in our fishing technique. We pretty much fish the same way for all sizes of trout. We approach the fishing spots the same, we make the same casts and presentations, and we fish the same fly patterns. It really just boils down to whether or not it’s a numbers day or a big fish day, and we’re generally happy with either. Location does play a factor though for size of trout, but remember, a trophy fish should be defined by the water it inhabits. A 14-inch trout on a small creek has just as much right to hold the trophy status as a 20-inch fish on a big river.

Right now we’re well into the Spring fishing season. Water temperatures are warming, multiple species of bugs are hatching, and trout are really happy and aggressive with their rising metabolisms. There’s really no

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Scent attractor in fly fishing?

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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

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Cool Shots at Bonefish

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WHAT MAKES A REWARDING BONEFISH TRIP.

It’s hard to fly off to an exotic location for a week of fishing without having a goal, or at least some expectations. The first can be dangerous and the second disastrous. Still, one or the other is generally present on a fishing trip and the more the trip costs, the higher they usually are.

I’ll never forget my first bonefishing trip. My expectations were to actually see a bonefish and my goal was to not make a complete ass of myself when I did. (It’s good to have goals, right?) That trip did so much more than exceed my expectations. It was an awakening of sorts and the beginning of a life long obsession.

On subsequent trips I adjusted my goals. I wanted to catch a lot of bonefish. I wanted to catch big bonefish. I wanted to increase my hookup ratio. I wanted to catch bonefish on my own. I wanted to develop my own fly patterns. Eventually I just wanted quality fishing with good friends. One by one, all of those things went in the done column and I kept going bonefishing.

There’s not a thing on that list that I don’t still enjoy doing. Who doesn’t want to catch a lot of fish, or a big fish, or have a great day with a good friend. With the exception of the friend however, they all become less important with time. Most days all I really need is to stand on the bow and glide across a beautiful flat.

So what makes a day of bonefishing exceptional?

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Getting in Bed With Bass, Part 2

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By Justin Pickett

It’s time to get serious about catching that trophy bass.

In part one we covered the when, where and how of fishing to bass on beds. Now we’re going to talk about the get, flies and presentations that make for success.

The Presentation

So, you’ve found Ms. Piggy sitting just off of her bed, seemingly staring intently towards her nest and chasing bluegill away from her vicinity. It seems as though she’ll likely eat anything dropped near or onto her bed. What’s next?

First, let’s address your setup. I recommend swinging a 7-9 weight, fast-action rod with an aggressive weight-forward floating line. You’ll need the power in the ass of a beefier rod to help set the hook solidly. I don’t stress so much on reels for bass, as they do a lot more jumping and thrashing than they do any kind of running. I do make sure to hunker down on my drag though, just in case once tries to take me into some trouble nearby. I throw short, beefy leaders when fishing to bass on beds. I need my flies to turn over quickly because I’m doing a lot of close up work in shallow water, so I typically stick with 7.5ft leaders and 12-15lb tippet.

The second thing we’re going to touch on is your timing. When you decide to hunt for these fish is going to play into your success rate. Your chances are best in the early morning and evening hours. Low light can make these fish a little harder to spot (another reason to always wear polarized sunglasses), but that’s when fish begin to drop their inhibitions and feel less threatened by predators. High sun is a great time for spotting beds and fish, but also makes it a lot easier for the fish to spot you as well. ShadowsI’ve had the glare from a raising fly rod spook many fish in my experience. I’m not saying don’t try during the middle of the day, but the odds aren’t as great. When planning your stalking, try to plan fishing during the first and last few hours of the day, or on overcast days. The other reason for fishing first thing in the morning is the fact that they have had all night to settle in and chill by their bed. This is especially true for bass that see heavy angling pressure.

Thirdly, let’s talk fly patterns. I kind of have a system that I go through when I find a fish on a bed that’s aggressively protecting the bed. My initial presentations are done with

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