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!
Kent Klewein Gink & Gasoline www.ginkandgasoline.com hookups@ginkandgasoline.com Sign Up For Our Weekly Newsletter!
I love this type of water! Like you said it holds fish, and more fish than a lot of people might think. And you’d be surprised at what you might hook into. I’ve hooked into some nice trout hanging right in the middle of the head of the chute, in the fastest current. I prefer to use euro-style nymphing tactics for this type of water. I’ll use a bigger, heavier stonefly pattern on point with a smaller, lighter natural pattern above on a tag. I’ve found that in this situation most takes will come on the stonefly pattern right when it gets to the bottom. Like you mentioned Kent, these chutes bring in a lot of food and the trout that hold in these lies are most likely feeding quite a bit.
Justin,
Thanks for your input on this one. I know you are quite familiar with this scenario. That sounds like a good rig for fast water for sure. Have a rockin day man.
Kent
Thanks for the advice! Where ever you were had such a beautiful scenery.did you end up catching a fish? 🙂
Megan,
Yes we did. I’m still not the best on camera and that was take five and the trout had caught on by then. One of these days I won’t get tongue twisted and I’ll get a fish on camera while demonstrating 🙂
Kent
I also find it very effective when fishing a long section of rapid curretn or chutes to hit the pocket water with very small (#8-14) marabou streamers. keeping really tight to the bank, it seems decent fish you might never expect are hiding in the most unlikely locations. Great segment!
tight Lines,
Koz
I love these videos and posts about fishing smaller streams. This looks just like where I spend my time in Central New York. It’s nice see how you approach the water. I always enjoy the blog!
Greg,
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the videos.
Thanks for giving us feedback.
Kent
Nice work. Have has lots of success doing just what you described.
I fish like this in the Kennebec River here in Bingham Maine. Mostly Rainbows and they are always in the fastset parts of the eddy. Thanks for your advice!