Flyfishing generally

[Guest Mike Connor]

This is more or less a transcript of a short talk I usually gave to beginning fly-fishing classes. I noticed that we have a few newcomers at the moment, and this may answer a few general questions in advance.

 

You are a fisherman at last! You have arrived at a lovely venue, a river or a lake, at no little expense, you have read all the books, or none at all, bought all the best gear, or the cheapest you could find, and have a well filled box of flies, or three "Walmart specials".

 

You have been fishing for a long time, only a short time, or this is your first trip. You are full of hope and anticipation, and can not wait to catch a fish. So what do you do?

 

This depends to some degree on your personal preferences, ( assuming you already have some in regard to fishing). If you are a confirmed dry fly man, then you might start looking for evidence of hatching insects.

 

If you have been fishing for a while, and perhaps studied various books on entomology, then you might begin by catching an insect, and then carefully classifying it, according to all the various characteristics, right down to the number of hairs on its left testicle.

 

Having determined to your satisfaction what the insect is, you have a look in your box for an exact imitation, and proceed to fish this with confidence. You may however be one of those unfortunates who has no idea how many hairs a fly has on its left testicle, or even if it has testicles, so what do you do?

 

Well, if you see a few flies fluttering about, and even better if you see fish rising to them, it is an excellent idea to imitate these. It seems reasonable to assume that a fish does not attempt to count testicle hairs, ( just like most anglers, although doubtless this knowledge is gratifying in itself), indeed it seems safe to assume that the fish knows very little about what it eats, and does not "think" about it much either.

 

Fish are creatures of habit and instinct. Assume however for the moment that it did in fact do so, it would probably then think something like "Oh there is another one of those small brown things with blue wings that I have been eating recently", and promptly takes it.

 

Based on this assumption, if you see fish taking small brown things with blue wings, then it certainly can do no harm to look in your box for a small brown thing with blue wings in order to imitate it. If you only have small brown things with brown wings, try them anyway. If you only have three flies, then choose one and try it. If you don't try it, you will never know whether it will work or not.

 

Sometimes, fish which are taking small brown things with blue wings, may indeed be induced to take somewhat larger pink things, with white wings, or huge orange things with green wings. Nobody knows exactly why, although there are many theories.

 

Unfortunately you can see no fish taking at all, and there are no insects about. There are still one or two tricks you can use to get information in any case. You can check the spider´s webs in the area. Look under bushes, rocks, in crevices etc. Recently hatched insects will be trapped in the webs. You can shake a few bushes, and see what flies out. You can also use a small sieve to investigate the surface film, and just below, and see what nymphs or other insects are in evidence. You might have a "hatch chart" which gives you some idea of what might or "ought " be hatching at this location at this time. Or, you can do what most people do, ( at least those who are not fishing for the first time ), choose their favourite fly in such circumstances, and commence fishing.

 

You have no favourite fly? Use a "red quill". or an "Adams" or a "hares ear". These flies are effective everywhere.

 

How do you commence? Well, you should at least observe for a while before starting to cast, and most definitely before starting to wade. Many people wade into water that holds fish, scaring these, and others in their flight path, and proceed to cast to the other side of the river. Avoid this. Avoid wading at all if you can. If "obliged" to do it, then wade slowly and carefully. Especially on small streams, wading is disadvantageous for a number of reasons. It scares fish, and it destroys the stream bed.

 

So you are ready to cast. What do you do? Think again! A flyline is not only a casting implement. It is an elongated float, a "bobber" if you like, and you can use it in exactly the same way. It is sometimes ( quite often!), better not to cast at all, but to drift your flies into a spot.

 

This avoids spooking fish, and is easier to do in any case. It also teaches you line manipulation very quickly. You are not a dry-fly man though. So what do you do?

 

Well perhaps you would like to try nymph fishing? There are a lot of various nymphing techniques, all are designed to present a sub-surface fly, the immature stage of an aquatic insect, to the fish in a lifelike manner. The term" lifelike" is used advisedly. In many cases, a "dead drift" is the best presentation.

 

This means exactly that. The fly should drift at the exact same speed as the current, as if it were dead. Dead insects, and even most live ones, are not capable of much movement. On occasion, it may be that movement is required, ( for instance when nymphs are rising to hatch), but it should be remembered that small insects generally do not move all that much, or that fast.

 

There are various ways and means of achieving this. One of the easiest, most successful, and indeed most productive, is to use a strike indicator. Basically, a strike indicator is also a bobber. It is attached to the leader, and may be used in a number of ways. One very efficient way is to place the indicator on your leader, so that your fly fishes at a certain depth. This may be achieved by using weighted flies, or by small pieces of split shot on the leader.

 

Some people might frown at the use of an indicator. Indeed, somewhat greater skill is required to fish without one, but it is a valid technique, and works very well.

 

OK, you have decided to nymph fish, but you don´t know what fly to use. What do you do?

 

Fortunately, very many nymphs are extremely similar, and there are fly patterns which will successfully imitate a whole host of creatures. Two of my favourites, which may be used almost anywhere, are the "pheasant tail nymph", and the "gold ribbed hares ear". Quite a lot of people also favour these tied with "goldheads" which are weighted beads, applied to the hook, before the pattern is dressed. These are often very effective indeed.

 

There are thousands of nymph patterns, but I would be quite content to use these two, if I was bound too. Once you have specific information on the nymphs in your region, you can go to more specific patterns if you wish.

 

Regarding "commencing", the same applies to nymphing as to dry fly fishing. perhaps even more so. See above!

 

You want to try something else? You might try a wet fly. What is a wet fly? A wet fly is an imitation of practically anything which may be found under the surface, and there are hundreds of thousands of patterns to choose from.

 

One of the easiest wet fly techniques is known as "down and across". This simply means that the flies are cast downstream at an angle to the stream, and allowed to drift on a tight line.

 

There are many other techniques. What to use? I like soft hackles for this. A small selection of soft hackles, which are simple flies usually consisting of a thread body, and a gamebird hackle, such, as partridge, grouse, etc. are very effective for this technique, and as they imitate a whole range of insects, you can use them more or less anytime, with some hope of success.

 

You would like to fish a streamer? Much the same applies. A streamer is usually fished very actively, although sometimes a dead drift, and various variations,like sink and draw, varied retrieve etc, may be very effective. You can also fish them down and across, and then retrieve them.

 

What streamers to use? Once again, there are some "general" streamers which are effective nearly everywhere. The woolly bugger is one such, There are more variations of this fly, than one could count, but the standard "black" "brown" or "olive" buggers are pretty hard to beat. These are also tied with bead heads, or "bead chain" ( bathplug chain) eyes, to give them weight and a specific action. This also adds "flash".

 

Well, that was about it really. There are lots of other techniques, and millions of other flies, but if you start with one of the above mentioned, you will not go far wrong, Countless numbers of fish have fallen to these patterns and techniques, and will continue to do so. If you want to see what some of these flies look like, you might try here; http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/authors/mike03.htm

 

There are thousands of others. Some equally as good. These are the ones I like. There is an awful lot of information available, on all sorts of aspects of fly-fishing. Start with the above. You may have noticed that no "ologies", were mentioned much. Learning a bit about entomology, ecology, and biology, will help you a great deal, and is very satisfying in its own right. It will also help you to catch fish, but it is not a pre-requisite.

 

Things like assembling and matching tackle, leaders, knots, and a whole host of other things, must also be learned. But this does not take as long as one might imagine, and is basically the same whatever method of fly fishing you prefer. At the start, use what you have. Knotless tapered leaders are more than adequate for most things. Tucked half blood knots are excellent for attaching flies, and a surgeons loop suffices for tying on tippet. You may move on to more complex techniques and set-ups, and more expensive rods and equipment, once you have the basics. I wish you a pleasant journey.

 

TL

MC

[Guest Newt]

Mike - another great one.

 

First time I've ever seen "beginner" advice on this topic that would be likely to leave a beginner thinking he/she might be able to do as taught and catch fish.