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DECEMBER 2000 TIP When You're on the Salt, think like a Stream Angler

Most of us landlocked anglers, when we get to the salt, are absolutely flummoxed by the site of all that unbroken water. First, there's so much of it, and you know its darn deep not very far off the land. It's like the mother of all bath tubs. How the heck do you fish it?
Well, Ken Hanley, veteran saltwater guide, owner of Adventures Beyond (which offers intensive on-the-water salt water fly fishing seminars), and author of Fly Fishing the Pacific Inshore; Strategies for Estuaries, Bays, and Beaches, has some good advice that applies to inshore fly anglers anywhere, anytime. Here it is:

FISH THE DOWN-CURRENT SIDE OF STRUCTURE AND COVER. Learn to let the tide and current be part of your delivery system. The natural flow around and over obstacles creates a perfect environment for predators to intercept prey. Think like a stream angler for a moment. In a stream, the prime ambush stations are located on the down-current side of ledges, logs, and rocks. You can use the same principle to locate fish in much of the inshore environment—with one major difference. The tide will dictate changes in the current's direction of flow. The “down-current” side reverses with every shift in the tide. To be effective, you need to pay attention to signs of those shifting currents. You can't simply approach an area from the same side all day long. Both the bait and the gamefish reorient themselves as the tide floods or ebbs.

So there you have it. Fish the salt like the shifting river that it is, and you’ll find fish. If you're planning a trip to the inshore salt water anywhere in North America, Ken's book, Fly Fishing the Pacific Inshore; Strategies For Estuaries, Bays, and Beaches, is an indispensable reference. Don’t go without it.

NOVEMBER 2000 TIP Fish the "Edge of the Circle"

How many times has this happened to you? You come upon that fallen tree against the bank, a root wad, or log jam with the perfect holding water right up against it? You know there's a fish there, you can feel it. You unleash the perfect cast, dropping your dry fly right up against the cover, and nothing. You do it again, and again. Still nothing. The perfect water skunks you.
Well, George La Branche, widely regarded as the father of American dry fly fishing, would say you did it all wrong. In his classic The Dry Fly and Fast Water, he describes the problem. Instead of dropping a floating fly right on the root, or snag, or whatever the perfect shelter is, you have to place it at the base of the fish's cone of vision. The "cone of vision" is that inverted cone which marks the field of a trout's vision as it looks to the surface. A fly dropped right in the middle of that cone may be in a blind spot. So, what to do?
George says to imagine a semicircle about twice the diameter of the obstacle creating the cover. Work the curved line of that semicircle from bottom to top. While the downstream section of that semicircle may be the least productive (if the fish is tight to the cover), start there in case the fish is closer than you think. You don't want to spook it. Once you've covered that area thoroughly, move up on the semicircle, closer to the snag. At the top of the semicircle, your fly should land well above the obstacle and float down to it.
By fishing the edge of the circle, not only will you place your dry fly more thoroughly in the trout's field of vision, you'll lose fewer flies.
La Branche was a man ahead of his time—his theories of approach and presentation are as fresh today as they were in 1914. For more of his wisdom, read The Dry Fly and Fast Water.

OCTOBER 2000 TIP Quit Slacking, You Deadbeat

Or is it, "Get the lead out you slacker. . . ."? In most meanings of the word, slack is bad. Think about it. We have "slacking-off", "slack jaw" (one of my personal favorites), "slackard", "slacker", and no doubt some other uses of the term not suitable for an upstanding, clean-living, family oriented web site like this one.
Actually slack isn't all bad—"cut me some slack", . . . there must be more; none immediately come to mind. Well, we don't care about the good slack anyway. We're here to talk "bad slack". As in the slack in your cast that puts line in your lap, flies in your ears, and impure thoughts in your mind (those would be the "bad" impure thought, not the "good" impure thoughts).
Ask any veteran guide to list five of the biggest challenges in guiding new anglers, and most if not all will list casting problems among the top five. Ask for a list of the top five casting problems, and most will list slack in one form or another.
The basic rule of thumb for casting line with a fly rod is that the weight of the line works with the flex of the rod to make the cast work. That line has to load that rod, which will flex and then toss the line when the tip unflexes. The idea is to use however much of the line is beyond the rod tip to load the rod. If you have big loops of slack on the water when you start your back cast, you dissipate power of the rod's flex into that slack before you can pick up the line off the water, making for an ugly cast, or worse.

Deal with slack in two ways—at the start of the back cast, and in timing the start of your forward cast. Fix the first of these problems, and you go a long way towards fixing the second.
If you've completed a drift of your fly:
First, put your rod tip right at the water and strip in any slack between the rod tip and the end of the line.
Second, start your back cast with your rod tip still at the water. Most of us understand stripping in the slack, but too often, after slipping in the slack, we lift our rod tip up gently to about eye level before starting our back cast. This does two bad things. First, it puts slack back in the line (look at that loop drooping between your rod tip and the water). Second, it guarantees that, when you start your back cast, the line's trajectory is going to be flat to slightly downward on the backcast—a sure recipe for disaster. Your line stands a good chance of hitting the ground before the rod ever loads on the back cast. This really gets ugly as you try to cast more line.

How does removing your slack help your timing on the back cast? Simple. Because you got rid of the slack, your rod will load well and you'll get better line speed. And because you start the cast with the rod tip at the water, the trajectory of your back cast remains high, so that your line doesn't fall to ground before it can load the rod on the forward cast.
All of us, beginner to expert, at some point are bedeviled with the problems that too much slack in our cast can cause. Often it's at the end of a long day when we start to tire. When this happens to you, take a breather, enjoy the scenery (if you aren't fishing where there's some nice scenery, you must be fishing in your bathtub), and then concentrate on stripping in that slack before you cast, and on starting your cast with the rod tip at the water. More often than not, this will clean up your problems and soothe the savage beast within.

SEPTEMBER 2000 TIP Put the Wind in your Teeth

Lakes and wind go together like ham and eggs, salt and pepper, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, like . . . well, you get the idea. If you go stillwater fishing, you're going to get wind. An almost automatic response, perfectly understandable, is to seek sheltered waters. Why not? Outside of the most avowed masochist, nobody likes to cast into the teeth of a wind. But sometimes, the wind is where you should be, especially if you're dry fly fishing. Gary LaFontaine explains why in his book, Fly Fishing the Mountain Lakes. Here's just one tip for using the wind.
The downwind edge of a lake will serve as a catchment area for insects on the surface. "An angler who rushes up to the water probably won't see trout streaking for the depths. If he does, he might wonder what those fish were doing within a few feet of the shore."
Start your dry fly fishing right at this "compression zone" next to the bank. "Waves, especially with a wind driving the water, hit the land and wash back out, a miniature version of ocean breakers pounding a beach. The next wave and the splash of the last wave kicking out collide, catching and compressing all the flotsam, everything from pine needles to drowned insects. A scum line forms along the bank, the distance out depending on wind strength."
How to fish it? Gary suggests dapping with a long rod, a short line, and lots of stealth. Let the dry fly hang straight down from the rod tip, adding a split shot a few feet above the fly if the wind is strong enough. Use bushes, trees, boulders, or any other terrain features to approach the water and find those feeding fish.
For more information on fishing mountain lakes (and other stillwaters) see Gary's book, Fly Fishing the Mountain Lakes.

AUGUST 2000 TIP Pinch the Loop when Tying Knots in your Leader

One of the most annoying things on the stream is when you try to tie a fly on your tippet and after threading the tippet through that tiny eye on the fly, you can't for the life of you hit that loop in the tippet to complete your knot. Guides see this routinely, and most of us, no matter how experienced, slip into it occasionally (some of us more than occasionally).
Here's perhaps the most common occurrence. You make the four or five twists back up the tippet on your improved clinch knot, push it back through the loop formed at the eye of the fly (or so you think) and then, back through the top loop, pull it tight, and Voila! The danged thing comes untied. Then to heap insult on injury, you try to start the knot over without getting rid of that kinky little untied end, and it does it again. And again. This is especially annoying, not to mention embarrassing, if you happen to be the guide when this happens. And some days, when you're really on a roll, it seems like that monofilament has a mind of its own—and it hates you.
Not to despair. There is a simple solution. Sooner or later you're going to have to pass the leader back through that loop, so make it big, and pinch it between your thumb and index finger and hold it open until you have passed the leader back through it. This will work on all of your leader knots (improved clinch, double surgeons, blood knot, etc.). Without the magical pinch, the knot will tighten as you progress through the steps, decreasing the size of the loop and consequently the size of your target for that piece of leader. The longer in the tooth you get, the harder it is to hit that seemingly tiny little target. So pinch that loop open and save yourself some time and a lot of aggravation. And remember to hang on to those little pieces of leader until you get home (see July 2000 Reader's Tip).

JULY 2000 TIP Cut Me Some Slack

Cut me some slack and catch more fish . . . What? Everybody knows that slack is bad when you're fly fishing. Slack sucks! Think about it. If you have too much slack on the water when you make your back cast, it's going to slap you in the face. If you screw up your timing on your false cast, you'll create slack and hit yourself in the back of your head, or maybe in your chest, or maybe just drape it around your ears and on your rod.
Well, all that's true, but we're not talking about slack on your back cast or forward cast. We're talking about slack in your line and leader after it hits the water, when the fly is on its way to the fish. And, except when you're stripping a streamer or wet fly through the water, or maybe a nymph in some select circumstances (see January 2000 Tip of the Month), slack is a good thing, and you should aspire to it at every turn.
So why do you want slack in your leader? Well, for most dry fly and nymph presentations, you won't get much of a presentation if you can't get the fly to drift naturally (i.e. "dead drift"). For example, most mayflies, when emerging, will drift down current once they break loose of the nymphal shuck, drying their wings. They're pretty still on the water. If you want to get a nymph to the bottom, regardless of whether you use a strike indicator or simply dead drift it, you have to get enough natural drift to allow it to sink. This necessarily involves good mending techniques (see May 2000 Tip of the Month), but it can also require putting some slack in the line and leader. If you don't have some slack when you do your mend, you'll just drag your fly through the water.
There are a number of ways to impart slack to your line and leader. Mike Maloney, a professional fly-casting instructor, mentions three good ones in the Pocket Guide to Fly Casting. They are the S Cast, the Bounce Cast, and the Pile Cast.
The S (or wiggle) Cast is just a minor adjustment to a standard cast. As your line loop passes your rod tip on the forward cast, wiggle the rod tip side to side. The line and your leader will fall in gentle s-shaped curves on the water, giving you a longer drag-free float. Practice this one with larger and smaller wiggles, and wiggling for shorter and longer periods to see how the line reacts. Then put it to use on the river. This can be especially effective if you have to float a fly to a feeding fish from upstream.
The Bounce Cast involves simply checking the line on its forward flight (when the tip is at about 11 o'clock) so when the fly hits the end of the line, it bounces back and causes the leader and line to bounce back toward you. To make this one work well, you have to adjust the length of your cast to overshoot the target if you don't stop its progress. This one works best if you generate a lot of line speed on the cast. If you have too much slack on your back cast, you'll have big, slow, wide loops that won't allow you the speed and bounce you need to make this work. This cast is good for those times when you want to get a few seconds float in an eddy, looking for a strike before the current whisks your fly away.
The Pile Cast requires you to aim your cast high in the air so that when it falls towards the water, the line falls back on itself. Start with a standard back cast, and on the forward cast, drive the rod up and out to about a 45 degree angle so the line goes up on its forward trip. This one requires some practice so you don't tangle the line. This one is good when you have to cross currents of varying speed.
Practice these three casts, and you'll cut yourself some slack when you need those drag-free drifts.

JUNE 2000 TIP Skip Your Hopper to the Fish

Plop and drift—the classic method of fishing a hopper pattern—is, in the words of Gary LaFontaine, “a chump method”. While it's easy, and will occasionally pull strikes for most anglers, Gary suggests a better method.
The skip cast works on two levels—first, it aggressively puts the fly into the fish's window, and second, it provides a trajectory to get the fly back into those snags and under overhanging branches where hopper-chomping fish like to lurk. Here’s the way it works:
Instead of doing the classic overhead backcast, perform your backcast with a radical sidearm motion (remembering, of course to check behind you for any fly-eating weeds, bushes, or trees). Initiate your backcast with a lot of speed so you get a tight loop. On the forward cast, drive the fly to the water with a low angle cast that makes the fly skip, much as you would throw a flat rock to make it skip. The lower you can get your casting motion, the better this will work. If possible, kneel or squat when you do the cast.
But, as Gary says, "don’t just use this when you need to make that tight cast under the overhanging stuff". Do it all the time. The double splash is a big part of its pull. The first splash, sharp and hard, alerts the fish. The second splash, soft and feeble, mimics the struggling hopper without spooking the fish. The key here is to not nail the fish with the first splash. Try to keep the first splash four or five feet off the fish.
The next time you're working a hopper, put this technique to the test. In the meantime, check out other great dry fly techniques in The Dry Fly, New Angles, by Gary LaFontaine.

MAY 2000 TIP Sinner, Mend Your Ways Whilst There's Still Time

Have you ever had one of those days when no matter what you did, you couldn't get your dry fly to drift drag-free down the stream? Or you couldn't get that dad-blamed nymph to the bottom of the river, no matter how much weight you added to it. This happens to everyone some time or other. If this isn't one of your problems, then stop now. Go onto something else at this fabulous web site—buy a book (or several books); check out the weather; e-mail us some adoring, sycophantic fan mail. But don't bother to read on. It will be a waste of your time. But if this is a recurring problem, then stick with us—you might learn something.
Line control is the key to good dry fly and nymph technique on streams and rivers, and mending your line is the key to good line control. Simply put, mending the line moves the line from one place on the water surface to another place usually up current or down. The whole point of mending (and other techniques such as the reach cast and the pile cast) is to delay current drag on your fly off the line you want.
Most of you probably know the basics of the mend. It is simply a little circular flip of the rod tip which lifts the line nearest you off the water and puts it somewhere else on the water. Mending isn't difficult to learn. At first, most people will be a little to exuberant and the fly will likely come rifling across the water at the tail of a big honking mended loop. Lighten up. It's only fly line you're lifting off the water, not an Anaconda. Once you can mend gently so you move only your line and not the fly, then start using the mend to move your fly onto the path you want when you overshoot your mark. Not that you ever do that, of course.
The second most common problem most people have with mending is timing. Most people wait too long after the cast hits the water to mend. once the fly and line hit the water, it only takes a few seconds for the current to start moving the line around enough to drag the fly. Once that happens, it's tough to mend and maintain control of the fly.
The solution? As soon as your fly and line hit the water, make your first mend. Which way will depend on the current nearest the rod tip. And once you've made that initial mend, don't get all smug and self-congratulatory. Pay attention to what the current is doing to the line and continue to mend less constantly.
Mending doesn't come without some thought. At first, you have to make yourself do it. But if you stick with it, it will become as unconsciously automatic as your casting stroke. And it will help you catch more fish. For other help on casting and line control, see the Pocket Guide to Fly Casting with Mike Maloney.

APRIL 2000 TIP Fishing the "Royal Wulff Hatch"

Mike Lawson is the consummate spring creek angler. He should be. He has spent his career on the Henry's Fork, which is, in places, just a huge spring creek. And he will tell you that to do well on the Railroad Ranch section of the Henry's Fork, you have to commit to matching the hatch . . . most of the time. His advice for when to ignore that wisdom? Well, obviously . . . fish the Royal Wulff Hatch.
Huh? It gets worse. Mike has refined the entomology of the Royal Wulff even more. The popular Prince Nymph? It's the nymphal form of the Royal Wulff . . . Yikes.
Actually, Mike hasn't really lost his mind from too many years of breathing that thin mountain air. It just seems like it sometimes. In this case, he's on to something. No, not the Royal Wulff hatch. But the use of the Royal Wulff on otherwise hyperselective fish when matching the hatch isn't getting you anywhere. But, listen to Mike tell it.
"When the tiniest of the tiny flies are out, the Royal Wulff can be quite effective. If you get a hatch of size-22 mayflies, and you have maybe three dozen of these naturals per square foot of water surface, how many of the naturals is the fish actually going to let drift over before he takes one? It's going to be awhile. And if you're matching the hatch exactly and getting the proper drift, you're not going to be able to tell what was your fly and, probably, neither is the fish. You need to get in a rhythm to coincide with the feeding rhythm of the trout. Take time to observe the trout's feeding pattern before you lay a bunch of casts over him and alert him to your presence. Then, if you have a little size-18 Royal Wulff on your tippet, you can time your cast so the fly arrives at the trout about when he is going to rise. It gives the fish an opportunity to see something a little different, and the trout will sometimes take the odd fly. It is important to use a small Wulff, however. More often than not, size is much more important than pattern. A couple of other great patterns for 'breaking the hatch' are a Renegade and a Black Beetle."
"Is this 'Wild Thing' theory a guaranteed method? Not hardly. It is something to try when you are frustrated, and it will remind you of the importance of good presentation. Hatches should not be intimidating."
So there it is from the horse's mouth.
Here's one good embellishment on Mike's Royal Wulff tactic. If you simply can't let loose of your hatch-matching fetish, trail a second, hatch-matching fly—either nymph or dry fly—behind your Wulff. Then the Wulff becomes both an attractor and an indicator. And who knows, lightning may strike in the form of two fish at once.
To read more of Mike's peculiar wit and fly fishing wisdom, look for Fly Fishing the Henry's Fork, by Mike Lawson and Gary LaFontaine, coming this May.

MARCH 2000 TIP Nailing the Rise Forms

Catching fish during the height of a caddis hatch can be one of the most mystifying and frustrating things the novice (or experienced, for that matter) angler can try to do. First, you have fish feeding with what appears to be wild abandon—splashy, slashing rises with fish sometimes completely clearing the water in their frenzy. Second, these crazy fish are often big ones. It can be heart-stopping to see a 20-inch-plus fish vault out of the water, to smack down on the surface on reentry. And finally, even if you happen to have the right pattern, they can sometimes be outrageously difficult to catch. How could anything apparently so voracious be so darned finicky?
Here are some things to consider. Those splashy, aggressive rises most often are the clearest sign that the fish are chasing caddis. Caddis tend to be aggressive swimmers when they come to the surface, so fish need to be aggressive to get to them before they clear the surface and are out of reach. So if you see those rises, look around to see if you find any of these little moth-like critters flitting through the air. If you do, make sure you have the right pattern.
There is a plethora of caddis patterns on the market now, in lots of different colors and a host of sizes. If, heaven forbid, you have to have just one caddis pattern, make it an olive or bright green in a fourteen, and make it an Emergent Sparkle Pupa (from the Book Mailer Newsletter). This will cover a multitude of sins. Better yet, ask the regulars where you'll be fishing what the prevalent caddis sizes and colors are. They'll be able to give you good information on patterns and sizes.
Once on the water, you may still not be catching fish, right pattern and all. This can get really annoying in a hurry. Vary your drift. If a dead drift doesn't get the strike, impart some movement. Or try getting slightly upstream and swinging the fly by the fish—remember, these flies are active swimmers.
And if all that doesn't work, take a tip from Eric Peper, author of Fly Fishing the Beaverkill. If you see a regular riser and he's ignoring you, get into a rhythm of false-casting, focus on where it rose last, and wait. When it rises again, put your fly right on top of that rise form. Often the fish will come right back to your fly and take it. Why? Well, who knows for sure, but as Eric relates, one theory is that the fish have a tendency to miss these fast moving flies, so if one pops right into their window after a strike, they may hit it just to make sure. Give it a try. It may just be the ticket to beating back the frustration of a fishless caddis hatch.
Eric's book, Fly Fishing the Beaverkill, is full of good advice applicable to much more than simply the Beaverkill.

FEBRUARY 2000 TIP Tilting with the Wind

Wind, perhaps more than any other force of nature, is capable of reducing an otherwise rational and sane fly fisher into a gibbering, cursing, apoplectic nut case. Wind can take the most minuscule blemish in your cast and turn it into a monstrous, suppurating sore. Do you cast with a big, wide-open loop in calm periods? Add a nice 20 mph head wind and watch your cast collapse into your lap. And everyone sooner or later will come up against a stiff wind coming from your casting-arm side that wants to smack you with your line on the forward cast, or, worse, wrap your line around your head, rod, and legs.
Like most things in life, nothing is fool proof. If the wind is so strong and steady that it lifts the #2 weighted Woolly Bugger you want on the water–off the water and keeps it there, go home, go shopping, go bowling, go to a bar. Go anywhere, but get off the stream. you'll only make yourself crazy. But most of the time you won't be facing those gale-force situations, and you can learn to cope pretty well with the wind without being reduced to consulting the signs of the zodiac or uttering strange incantations. Fortunately, there are some relatively simple solutions to casting in the wind.
Casting into the WindIf you have the classic headwind, start with your rod tip right at the water and all the slack out of your line, and drive your back cast up high behind you (stop the rod at about twelve o'clock). Make sure the line straightens out behind you. Then drive your forecast down and forward, stopping your rod at about eight o'clock. With a little practice, you'll find that you can move a cast through the wind.
Wind from the Casting Arm SideThe classic response to wind from the casting arm side is to initiate a radical side-arm cast. This will work. Sometimes. But there's a really miraculous method to dealing with this problem that will have you slapping your head the first time you try it. Do your normal casting stroke, but, instead of bringing the rod tip straight overhead, tilt your rod 30 to 40 degrees to the downwind side. Now the line will pass you on your downwind side, clear of your head, your body, and the rod. Piece of cake.
For more information on how to improve your casting, see the Pocket Guide to Fly Fishing and the Pocket Guide to Fly Casting.

JANUARY 2000 TIP Dancing with the Nymph

The Blue Winged Olive is one of the most ubiquitous of the mayfly species. It can also be one of the most frustrating to match. As often as not, anglers leave the scene of greedily feeding fish—clearly eating the BWO— skunked and disgusted.
From the time most of us first started fly fishing, it has been an article of faith that you must (on pain of death, or at least universal scorn and derision—a fate worse than death?) dead drift your nymph and dry flies. Well, maybe; but then again, maybe not.
The dirty little secret here is that the streamlined nymphs of the BWO (Baetis) are swimmers. This means that, as they approach the surface, they don't simply drift languidly to the top, buoyed by a bubble of gas. They swim and move in bursts of as much as three to six inches and generally cause a ruckus when compared to some of their more passive brethren.
The fish feeding on the nymphs and emergers key into that motion. Some fish are so focused that you can dead drift a nymph by them dozens of times to no avail. But strip that nymph back by them, and they'll smack it. So if they’re ignoring that dead drifted nymph, try this: Get across and slightly above the fish you want to catch. Cast above the feeder much as you would if dead-drifting a fly to it, but also cast a couple of feet beyond the logical drift line. As soon as the fly hits, start a steady, deliberate short strip retrieve ( two-three inches per strip) through the fish's feeding lane. Keep your rod tip close to the water's surface as you strip. Once the fly has passed through the apparent feeding area, let it continue to drift. Fish will often move with it and take it as it swings.
Good fly patterns for the Blue Winged Olive nymph are legion—pheasant tail nymphs and gold-ribbed hare's ear two reliable old standards. Add beads to either of these, and they'll work even better. Just about every region has it own patterns to match this nymph. Two good flies anywhere in the country for this kind of nymphing are Gary LaFontaine's Beadhead Twist Nymph and the Pheasant Tail Twist Nymph (subscribe to our free, wacky Book Mailer newsletter to learn more about those flies).
One last suggestion. As the hatch progresses and the fish start taking the bugs off the surface, consider a two-fly rig with a small dry fly on top and a nymph underneath. Let this rig do a traditional drag-free drift to entice the surface feeders, and then let it swing at the end of the drift to get those straggling nymph feeders. You can read more about the Baetis and other swimming mayfly nymphs in Mayflies, the classic work by Malcolm Knopp and Robert Cormier.
This "Tip of the Month" came from Mayflies, by Malcolm Knopp & Robert Cormier.