Weather Dictates When and How I Fish My Terrestrials
Every year, I’m asked by clients, when is the best time for them to come up and experience the terrestrial bite? For years, I kept a terrestrial fishing journal to help me better serve my clients. The journal documented the arrival times of specific terrestrials and when I first started catching fish on them. It seemed to help me for a couple seasons, but after that, I started to become too reliant on the data in the journal, and I lost sight of the most important variable of all in timing the terrestrial season–weather. Depending on what the weather is doing for the current year, it can speed up or postpone the arrival of the terrestrial season. Some years it will only sway the start of the terrestrial season a week in either direction, while other years, it can sway the arrival well over a month. Understanding the role weather plays in the lives of terrestrials can help anglers nail down more accurately when the terrestrial season will begin and peak in their area. If you can be one of the lucky few to time and start fishing terrestrials before everyone else does, you can be rewarded with some of the biggest fish of the year.
Read More »A Closer Look / The Large Mouth Bass
I’M GUILTY.
I have called them ugly fish. I have shown a lack of interest in bass largely due to their color palette. Then, just the other day I noticed the fin on this large mouth.
I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.
Read More »Little Things Matter: Tippet Spools
By Bob Reece
I’m a huge believer in the fact that little things matter.
I believe this holds true in all aspects of life, including the world of fly fishing. In the tackle setups that we as fly fishers use, our tippet is often one of those petite items of importance.
Spools of tippet in various sizes are an essential part of a successful day on the water. Their material allows fly fishers to create the connections needed for effective presentations and bringing fish to our nets. While this is widely understood, we often overlook the small aspects of maintaining and using these supportive spools.
Many tippet spools have built in cutters that are imbedded in their plastic rims. During the bustle of a day on the water, the free end of tippet often works its way free from the metal eyelet and elastic band that hold it in place. If the tippet ends up on the same side of the band as the cutter, it is often nicked when peeled off the spool. These unintended abrasions weaken the tippet material and create the possibility of breaking off larger fish. To avoid this occurrence, check your spools throughout the day and leave a slightly longer than normal tag end when cutting off lengths of new tippet.
The same elastic bands that hold the tippet in place, can also blind us to the amount of material that we have left. I spend a significant amount of time fly fishing waters off the beaten path. It’s more than frustrating to reach for your first round of tippet and realize that there are a few inches left of the size that you needed most. I’ve made a habit of
Read More »The Case For Stoneflies
By Louis Cahill
I watched a video the other day about the most important insects for trout fishing.
The host listed the aquatic insects, we are all familiar with as anglers, in order of importance. I was a little shocked to hear my favorite bug come in last on the list, with very little discussion of his life cycle or how to imitate him.
I DECIDED TO TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO EXPLAIN WHY THE STONEFLY IS MY FAVORITE PATTERN FOR TROUT.
If you are a dry fly purist, I can understand why you might not recognize the importance of the stonefly. The supersize varieties that come to mind are a brief, seasonal hatch and can be hard to predict for casual anglers. You might carry a few flies, in case you’re lucky enough see the huge bugs on the water, or you might drift one along the bank if nothing else is happening. If, however, you’re the kind of angler who likes fishing nymphs or, like me, you live somewhere nymph fishing is the starting point, not plan B, stoneflies are the bomb.
There are many different varieties of stonefly and they come in all sizes. For trout feeding below the surface, which is most trout most of the time, they are an important food source, especially in the cooler months, and the patterns that imitate them offer some tactical advantages to anglers. Understanding these advantages means first knowing a little more about the life of a stonefly.
Stoneflies are one of the oldest forms of life on the planet, predating the dinosaurs. They are a successful species but they still have some rough edges evolution hasn’t polished off. These evolutionary shortcomings are what makes them so interesting to fish and anglers.
Stoneflies are slow to mature. Most varieties have a nymphal cycle lasting two to three years. Over that time they slowly grow from tiny nymphs to big, juicy monsters. That means two important things to anglers. In streams where they are found, stonefly nymphs are present all year round and examples of any species exist at many different sizes. That means a stonefly nymph is a good choice in any season and the selection of an appropriate size fly is pretty forgiving.
• Stoneflies are poor swimmers. The nymphs have hooks on they’re feet to hold on to rocky bottoms in fast water. Once they become dislodged, which happens often, they tumble pretty helplessly in the current. This makes them an easy meal for trout and easy to imitate for anglers.
Many stoneflies are big. That makes them an attractive food source for big trout. This is purely anecdotal, but most of the big trout I’ve caught in my life have eaten streamers or stoneflies. The size of the imitations also lends itself to building in weight, making the flies serve double duty as both weight and bait. This makes them especially useful in tandem with smaller nymphs. There is a school of thought that says lighter patterns move more naturally in the water. While I don’t disagree with that entirely, I think the practicality of getting the fly to the bottom is more important.
Stone flies come in a wide variety of
Wade to Win
WADE TO WIN, BY BRUCE CHARD
Wading is an exciting way to experience saltwater flats fishing for species like bonefish and permit. It offers the angler a more personal, mano y mano, experience with his quarry. There are a few skills you’ll need to master for a quality wading experience. These tips should make walking the flats a breeze.
The Wading Ready Position
While wading the saltwater flats, it’s important to find a good, comfortable ready position. This position will help you be relaxed as you stroll quietly through the shallows. You’ll be ready to make a saltwater quick cast with ease.
Here are some pointers that make up a good wading ready position.
•Have the fly line, coming from the first stripping guide, pinched to the cork with your index finger. This helps to load the rod quickly on your first false cast.
•Hold the fly at the bend of the hook or cradled comfortably in your cupped hand.
•Do not let the fly touch anything, from the start of the cast until you present it to the fish. Some anglers like to drop the fly in the water and then cast. This motion causes all kinds of issues. They usually hook themselves and miss the shot.
•You can tuck the cork handle of the rod under you arm pit with the rod tip sticking out behind you . This is a nice way to relax a little and stretch your hands
Line Management While Wading
Here are a couple of fly line management tips that will help you when wading.
Fishing Fast
By Owen Plair
There are a lot of situations where fishing fast is the difference in getting an eat or the fish not seeing your fly.
Either because the fish is very close to the boat, or moving at an angle where you only get one cast. When it comes to sight fishing, we’ve all had that surprise fish. That one fish that seems to come out of the magical hat in a split second, 30ft of the skiff. There isn’t much time to present a fly to those close distance, or magic hat fish, but here are a few things that will have you prepared for fishing fast, and putting more magic hat fish on the fly.
HOW DO YOU FISH FAST OR EXACTLY HOW DO YOU DEFINE FISHING FAST?
The first, and most important, rule is being ready and aware on the bow. Keep 6-9 ft of fly line out of the tip of your rod while holding your leader or fly in your line hand. This is called the ready position and it’s key to getting a good first cast off. Keeping 6-9 ft of fly line out of the tip of your rod will help your rod load faster on the first casting stroke and allowing you to get that short distance between 20-30ft of fly line out very fast. Sometimes that 6-9ft of fly line along with a 9-12ft leader is all you need for an up close, in your face shot at a fish. Holding your fly or leader keeps the fly ready to fish, instead of dangling in the water getting the chance to hook up on the bottom or on a piece of grass when you go to cast.
Line management is a big part of being ready to fish fast. Make sure you always have enough fly line stripped out from the reel, usually safe with 30-60ft, maybe more or less depending on the fishing scenario. Most shots are between 30-60ft in your average sight fishing situation, so no need to strip out your entire fly line off the reel. That will just cause more heartache with tangles, especially on a windy day.
You want to have your line in a safe area, where there nothing to snag. Whether it’s on the bow, in a stripping bucket, or on the floor of the skiff. Your fishing partner can help with line management while fishing and also going bare foot on the bow will keep you from standing on line. In the colder months wear thick socks!
Understanding how to read the water, and spot fish will help you greatly. The thing I find works best is
Read More »Tom Rosenbauer’s 8 Tips to Becoming a Better Fly Fisher
THERE ARE FEW GUYS OUT THERE SQUEEZING CORK WITH THE ANGLING CHOPS OF TOM ROSENBAUER.
Tom is the author of nearly two dozen books on fly fishing and too many articles to count. Add to that his podcast and posts on Orvis News and it’s fair to call him one of the leading educators in the field. Tom’s been an angler his whole life and was tying flies commercially when he was just fourteen. He has fished all over the world, including the English chalk streams, Christmas Island, and Kamchatka. He invented stuff you use every time you fly fish, like the magnetic net keeper and tungsten beads for fly tying.
Tom is now the Marketing Director for Orvis and a driving force in the rejuvenation of that great brand. A few people know that he also makes his own chocolate from the beans, which is incredibly technical not to mention amazingly delicious. He’s a hell of a nice guy and a good friend.
Tom has a lot to share on the subject of fly fishing so we asked him for some broad strokes. Some basic tips that will help you be a better and more satisfied angler. Here’s what he got back to us with.
Tom Rosenbauer’s 8 Tips To Becoming a Better Fly Fisher:
1. Observe everything. Look around every time you catch a fish and figure out why it was there and why it ate at that particular time. Look at the sun angle, the surrounding terrain, current threads in rivers, or highways on the flats.
Read More »The Snap-T Cast With 2-Hand Rod: Video
The Snap-T cast is an essential for any 2-hand angler.
You really only need to know a couple of casts to be an effective angler with spey or switch rods. One of the casts you just can’t live without is the Snap-T. This easy and powerful cast lets you launch the fly when the current is off your casting shoulder. It generates the power needed to cast heavy sink tips but works equally as well with light dry lines.
WATCH THIS VIDEO TO LEARN THE SNAP-T CAST FOR 2-HAND RODS.
Read More »Trust Your Guide
Trust your guide they say. Always trust your guide.
There is no more trustworthy bunch than the guides at Bair’s Lodge on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Why you wouldn’t trust them is beyond me. What is not to trust? In a real sense, in the South Andros backcountry, our lives will be in their hands- there is no freshwater, no cell phone signal, and I’ve taken to calling the miles of braided channels and flats with no distinguishing land features The Hall of Mirrors. If your guide cashes in his chips back here and peels off the poling platform, you are going to be royally screwed. If it weren’t for the sat phone in the emergency case, that is.
But it is one thing to carry your gear down to the skiff in the morning, shake your guide’s hand, look him in the eye and decide he’s trustworthy, and quite another to put that trust into practice on a flat with bonefish coming in hot. Perhaps we need to start our morning with those team-building trust drills that corporate consultants loved so much in the recent past. Put your fly rod down before you fall backward.
On one sunny Bahamas morning I found out what trusting your guide really means
Read More »Trout Of Japan
by Daniel Galhardo
“THE SEA-RUN FORM ASCENDS RIVERS OF JAPAN IN MAY WHEN CHERRY TREES ARE IN BLOOM AND THEREFORE IS KNOWN AS THE SAKURA MASU, OR CHERRY SALMON”.
As part of my mission of spreading the tenkara story to anglers outside of Japan, I have made a point to visit Japan every year. I’m currently on my 6th “pilgrimage” to the country, meeting with teachers who share with me their techniques, their insights into tenkara, and of course their favorite fishing spots where we search for trout.
There are two main types of trout that we target in Japan: the amago and yamame. There is also a char, the iwana (side note, most tenkara rods we offer at Tenkara USA are named after Japanese trout/char).
The amago and yamame are virtually identical, except that the amago features red spots thorough its body while the yamame does not. The yamame and amago are also referred outside of Japan as “cherry salmon”. In his book, Trout of the World, James Prosek explains “Among Japan’s many varieties of native salmonids is a beautiful pink and violet salmon that exists in both anadromous and landlocked forms. The sea-run form ascends rivers of Japan in May when cherry treers are in bloom and therefore is known as the sakura mass, or cherry salmon”.
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