Why Trout Love Fast Water Chutes

Fast water chutes are great habitat for trout to set up residence around. Most of them provide everything a trout needs to survive, and fly fisherman should take the time to fish them because they almost always hold fish. Fast water chutes provide overhead cover that trout can quickly utilize by swimming into the chute if they feel threatened. The well defined current from the chute also acts as a food conveyor belt, supplying trout with a constant trickle of food 24/7. Furthermore, the turbulent waters created by chutes increase oxygen levels in the surrounding waters, and this is an added bonus and reason for trout to set up shop in and around chutes in streams and rivers. Lastly, chutes generally offer feeding lanes on each side that trout can take advantage of to feed effortlessly. These are the edges of the chute, where the fast and slow water come together and meet. Trout often gravitate towards the edges because it requires less energy to hold there, it’s very close to the conveyor belt of food and extremely close to their fast water overhead cover. Focus on drifting your flies along the edges of the chute first. After you’ve fish the edges, then work your flies through the main current of the chute.

There are multiple ways for anglers to fly fish fast water chutes, but most of the time, I find it most effective to wade to the sides of the chutes, and fly fish perpendicular to them. Doing so, it gives me better control of my drifting flies and improves my line management. Positioning to the side of a chute also improves my stealth, because I’m able to present my flies in front of the trout with just my leader, keeping my fly line out of sight. It also allows me to work with the current when drifting my flies, instead of fighting against it.

Check out the video below that demonstrates how I prefer to fish fast water chutes.

There you go, that’s how I tend to fish fast water chutes. As usual with fly fishing, there’s always other ways and strategies to fly fish trout water. If you’ve got a recommendation or you’ve found luck doing it another way, please take the time to drop us a comment. G&G is a family and our goal is to learn from each other to improve our skills and success on the water.

Keep it Reel,

Come fish with us in the Bahamas!