Presentation is Everything...or is it?

Any experienced fly angler will tell you that presentation is the most integral part of getting a fish to take your fly.  On almost every cast we are mending to get a dead drift or a perfect swing. Other times we are stripping line or moving the rod to impart that tantalizing or antagonizing motion to elicit a strike.



Big flies for big fish



Sowith that said , I was on the water the other day with my friend Ron going after some big browns with big flies.  We had been in the water for a couple hours, had one fish to hand already, and were just starting to get into the good stretch of the river.  Suddenly, my phone began to ring in my chest pocket.  I normally don't answer my phone on the river, but today I was expecting an  important call that I knew I had to take.  I waded over to the river bank so I could put my fly rod down and answer the call.  As I was finishing my conversation Ron caught up to me and we took a few minutes to catch up about what color flies and presentations were moving fish.  After a few minutes I picked up my rod to resume moving downstream. I dumped my slack line out to the middle of the river to get ready to start casting again.  As I turned to say one last thing to Ron I put my boot right into a gap between two rocks and promptly lost my footing.  After some serious arm flailing I was able to quickly catch myself and came up with nothing more than a wet arm.  While Ron and I were having a good laugh my streamer had managed to swing downstream about 20-25 feet from where we standing.  All of the sudden my fly rod lurched so hard it almost ripped itself out of my hand.  Instinctively, I set the hook and felt a strong tug on my line as my rod bent towards the water.  

Literally falling into an 18" brown trout



My eyes were the size of silver dollars by this time and I was able to get over the sheer shock of what was going on and had a decent sized fish bulldogging like crazy trying to spit out my fly.  A few minutes later we snapped a picture of an 18" trout that had to be pretty embarrassed when he finally met up with his fish buddies and apologized for being late because he got caught by an idiot that fell in the river.  This isn't the largest trout that have caught on the river, heck it wasn't even the biggest fish caught that afternoon, but it is one that l will remember for a long time though.  I guess the moral of the story is that it's better to be lucky sometimes than it is to be good,  maybe it is to just go out on the river and have fun, or it could simply be the next time your phone rings on the river be sure to answer it? I guess it just goes to show that you never know what is going to happen on the river.  Get out there and have fun!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and gets their fill of turkey and football. Then on Friday you can get out onto your local water to work off that all of that food and pie. The weather looks great across the Midwest and since most of the big box stores are opening on Thanksgiving night all of the good deals will already be picked over by Friday anyway. 

On Saturday you can get out to support your local retailers on Small Business Saturday: http://smallbusinesssaturday.com/.

A Fly Lamp

Everybody has that closet or room filled with old stuff.  Maybe it is an old dresser from college, an papasan chair from your first apartment, or an end table from your old living room set.  For me it was a lamp that was passed on to me from my grandfather's house.  For the longest time this lamp, which is also permanently attached to a small table, just say next to my fly tying bench and I never really used it for much.  The other day I came across and old box full of old used flies. Most of which had been fished to death.  Finally, it hit me and I was able to put both some old flies and an old lamp to good use.

What is that saying...."everything old is new again"?

I'm sure that I'm not the first person to start sticking flies on a lampshade nor do I think that I have a second career brewing on an HGTV show.  I do, however, like my 'new' lamp.

So Close...Yet So Far

Steelhead Alley is only three hours away....three short hours. Three hours is a very short drive to go fishing, especially for steelhead, but it is a very long drive when the water and weather are going to be iffy. Fall fishing in the alley usually means swinging flies, and swinging flies is fun.

Last fall we had to deal with low water which sowed the run down.  Then we fished through downpours that muddied up the rivers in a matter of hours and blew them out for three days. Another time is was 5° F temperatures and trying to punch flies through self ice. 

This fall two of our trips to Steelhead Alley have already been literally washed out by heavy rains and run-off pushing high water through the Lake Erie tributaries, and there is now rain in the forecast looming our next scheduled trip. Rain is great and we need it to keep those shale rivers flowing, but our trips seem to be hitting the rain and not the prime conditions that occur after wards. I guess this is just the price of admission for steelhead fisherman while others will say that we are "paying our dues." I really can't complain too much though. There are guys on the West Coast that swing flies for days on end through perfect conditions just hoping for a tug, but I am jealous of the fly fisherman who call Ohio's North Coast their home.


A full box of steelhead streamers eager to go for a swim



We are not going to cancel another trip though.  We are going to find fish come hell or high water.

A little 'shot' of confidence

I'm not convinced that split shot spook fish, but I am convinced that bouncing a small shiny silver split shot close to trout doesn't help your hook-up ratio.  These Stix-N-Stonez weights are non-toxic, have a dull earth tone finish, and can provide that extra confidence boost for the fly fisherman, and sometimes a little confidence in your presentaion is all you need.

You can check out the entire Boss Tin product line here.

Winter is looming

The days are getting shorter and we are about to rolls the clocks back.  For most fly fisherman this means it's time to take apart their rods and reels, patch their waders, and start to tie flies for next spring. Here are a few things that you can do during the winter months to make you a better trout angler when the spring rolls around again.

1. Practice your casting.  Believe it or not more fish are caught when the fly is in the water then when the fly is tangled up in an angler's hand.  Keep a rod rigged up and ready to cast so you can get outside and work on casting during warmer afternoons or in short stints.  Even 20 minutes of practicing a few times per month will keep you in form and improve your cast for next season. And don't be self conscious about casting in your front yard, I have been the butt of many jokes by people passing by my house when I am casting to targets in my flowerbeds.
    
   While practice casting with a dry fly or piece of yarn is great it doesn't always mimic real world conditions (dry fly purists can move onto #2 now).  If you normally only fish a single fly you should really work on casting multiple fly rigs.  Fishing multiple flies offers so many advantages and will really help to improve your fishing, but you guessed it, is much harder to cast then a single fly.
    
   Here is a typical practice setup (illustration below) Take two old beat up bead head nymphs and cut off their hooks.  Tie one onto the end of your leader, then tie another 12-20" of tippet to the eye of the first fly, and finally tie on the second fly (you can also tie on the second fly from the hook bend in the first fly, but since you are practicing with hook less flies you will need to tie them eye to eye). I also recommend putting a split shot on the leader as well and if you normally fish with an indicator put that on too.  This will help give you a real world environment for casting two nymphs with weight.  You can also change out the first fly to a dry and remove the weight to practice casting a dry - dropper rig.
    
   
   
2. Do some reading.  The following books are filled with some of the best information and tactics for fly fisherman anywhere in the world.
   • "Sight Fishing for Trout" by Landon Mayer
   • "Tying & Fishing Tailwater Flies" by Pat Dorsey
   • "Fly Fishing the Book Series" by Gary Borger
   
    
3. Go out and do some fishing - "There is no such thing as bad weather....only bad clothing decisions".  I love winter fishing because the crowds are generally gone, especially on lesser known rivers, and both tailwaters and spring creeks both offer good trout fishing in the winter. Some tailwaters fish just as good, if not better, in the winter than they do in the summer. Your tactics will have to change a little and you will need to add a few layers of clothing, but if you can catch fish in the winter you can surely catch them in the spring.

Don't just spend your winter just waiting around, instead do a few things so you can catch more trout in the spring, summer and fall.

Great Online Fly Fishing Magazines

Here are some links to the online fly fishing magazines that we enjoy.  These will give you something to do once we roll the clocks back and lose an hour of fishing in the evenings next week.  Do yourself a favor and check them out.

• This is Fly
• Catch Magazine
• Southern Culture: on the fly
• Flymage

A few fly fishing truths and observations

Just a few thoughts that I had while fishing this weekend. We were supposed to make a trip to Steelhead Alley, but due to blown out rivers we were forced to stay home and fish our local trout stream instead.  In between fish I had some time to laugh about a few things.

1. The snags, leaves, moss, & rocks that you want to dislodge themselves from hooks never seem to, fish on the other hand seem to have no problem coming off.  Bigger fish are the especially good at this, unless it is a hognose sucker...those things practically require the jaws of life to get your fly back.
2. Fishing an articulated streamer in fall is the equivalent of raking your yard.  If you plan to fish a big streamer while there are leaves in the river you might as well just save yourself the trouble and do a little yard work at home instead....or just fish nymphs.
3. Trips that require the most planning usually fall through due to weather or river conditions...be sure to have a backup plan.
4. Leaving fish to find fish usually results in trip back to the fish....If you are moving to look for bigger or better fish be patient, they are out there.
5. When you take off your jacket it will start raining, when you put it on it will stop...when you pack it back up a downpour will start.

Please add any of your own in the comments section below.