Anytime I come across any sort of wood on the water trout fishing, whether it’s a log jam, isolated root ball, or low overhanging tree, I always take the time to fish around it.
Wood offers trout cover and safety which are two very important elements that trout look for when they’re deciding where to position themselves in a river or stream. Wood also in many cases offers current breaks, eddies, and soft seams, that allow trout to feed easily and safely out of the calorie burning swift current. Furthermore, there’s an incredible amount of food that falls off wood cover and hangs out amongst wood, that very often ends up in the stomachs of trout. All of the above make wood prime habitat for trout.
Did I mention that brown trout love to hangout around wood? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught nice brown trout around wood, especially when deep water is located near by. And don’t even get me started about how productive it is fishing flesh flies in Alaska around all the salmon carcass loaded wood snags. Back in the day when I guided there, we used to take all our freshly filleted salmon carcasses at the end of the day and dump them in wood snags in the river. Overtime it would create epic honey holes from the huge rainbows that would take up residence for the easy pickings. When the opportunity to fish wood arises, always present your flies alongside it, and you may end up with a big trout hook-up.
Keep it Reel,
Kent Klewein Gink & Gasoline www.ginkandgasoline.com hookups@ginkandgasoline.com Sign Up For Our Weekly Newsletter!
A solid technique for fishermen in general. I tune in on wood snags for bass as well. Fish like cover. Wood is good.
Spot on advice…the hardest (i.s. most likely to snag up) cast usually equals the best fish. And that’s an absolutely gorgeous photo…
Thanks Erin, glad you liked it. Its a theme I’ve been working on lately (bends are like best friends, wood is good, foam is home, ect). Louis and I are glad you are following the blog.
Kent
The Hiwassee was running on 0 generators Tuesday so I was able to wade out and cast to a down tree I usually can’t fish due to its location. My problem was the current took the fly under the tree (it’s not a log, but a whole tree) where if I let it drift too long it would tangle in it. All I could figure was to use a hopper even though there weren’t any on the river I could find and twitch it back to me barely avoiding the snag each time… I got a big fish to roll over on the fly but it didn’t take. What’s your opinion on fishing that type of cover this time of year? Fly, action, and how to adjust to that reaction of the fish?
Absolutely; wood is good for streams! In addition to enhancing fish habitat; large woody debris (LOD) effectively stores sediment in small streams thus protecting water quality. Also; the wood decomposes over time adding nutrients to the stream which benefits microinvertebrates (aquatic insects). More bugs = more fish
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