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Here’s a bit of mystique about the flies we all love to fish with. Delicate, finely wrought, each one is a little work of art. In part because of that mystique, if we buy ‘em, we hate to lose ‘em. If we tie ‘em we hate to lose ‘em. And the thought of mutilating one of our precious little treasures . . . well, horrors!
Get over it. It's just a fly. It's likely tied to a leader tied to a $50 line attached to a $200-plus reel attached to a $600 rod. It's the cheapest part of the rig.
When Gary LaFontaine and I first started fishing together in the early 70’s we were still using a lot of classic wet flies, Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear, Royal Coachmen Wets, Parmachene Belles, and the like. Maybe because we were tying our own and they somehow didn't manage to look very delicate or finally wrought. As a result, if we got into a hatch of feeding fish that didn't like our dry fly imitations (this predated no-hackle flies and parachutes), we would often pull out a wet fly, clip the wing back, and fish it in the surface film. Sometimes, we'd do the same thing with a dry fly if we were out of wet flies. More often than not, butchering those flies was the difference between a skunking and a good day.
Even today, when we have a seemingly endless array of good imitations of nymphs, emergers, and low-riding dry flies, a little fly butchery can still make a day. For me, parachutes are a classic candidate. If my parachute isn't pulling fish and I don’t happen to have a good emerger pattern (or it's not working) I'll clip the wing down to a short post, trim away most of the hackle, maybe rub it in some mud to saturate the body, and Voilá! I have a nymph. You can do the same with any number of dry flies.
So the next time you're in the middle of the hatch and you're getting your butt kicked, get out your scissors and start whacking away. You may be pleasantly surprised. That’s all there is to it. Try it. You’ll like it.

Here’s one of the most annoying parts of dry fly fishing for me. I open my box at the start of a season (or a day) and the one dry fly that’s going to work has the hackles smashed on one side so that when the fly is on the water, it lists like a drunken sailor at a Tail Hook reunion. It usually happens when I got in a hurry and put my fly back in the box wet. It used to drive me crazy. Swift guy that I was, after fruitlessly yanking and ruffling the hackle in an attempt to make it like new, I’d toss the mashed fly aside into my “bad fly” tin (actually, I had several of these receptacles, and still do, for that matter -- full of antique crappy flies that I tied in a moment of misguided inspiration and later consigned to the bad fly tin when good sense returned).
At least that was the drill until Fritz took me aside one day after seeing one of my magic tins and explained the obvious to me. Fritz was a bartender at a fancy hotel bar in downtown Missoula. I tended bar in a blue collar neighborhood that he liked to unwind at. Among the old-timers, he was one of the legendary fly fishng experts. Once he learned of my interest in fly fishng, he’d give me mini-clinics over the fifteen-cent beers he liked to drink. After looking at my tangled mess of mashed flies, he said, with a mixture of disgust and exasperation, “Kid, what the hell ’er you doin'. Those are perfectly good dry flies . . . well maybe not good dry flies -- in fact they’re pretty damned ugly -- who was the cripple that tied those things? But there’s nothing wrong with those hackles that a little steam wouldn’t fix.”
Steam? Well, duh. Generations of housewives could have clued me into this one. That’s all there is to it. take your hemostat (in those days all I had was a pair of needle nose pliers), boil some water (preferably in a teapot -- it gives a nice concentrated blast of steam) and hold your fly in the steam for a few seconds. Those hackles will staighten out before your very eyes. When you get done, don’t just plunk them into the box. While they’re still wet, they’ll just mash again. That how they got that way in the first place. Hang them up somewhere until they dry (a good use for pieces of old fly line or outdated leader).
That’s all there is to it. Try it. You’ll like it.

Anybody who has been reading these tips over the last three years has figured out that we are positively obsessed with slack. We're not talking slack in the jaw or slack in the work habits; we're talking slack in the line (That's the institutional “we”--most of the Greycliff staff are more tightly wrapped than I am. When they think of slack, they think of me, and their thoughts are directed at my jaw and my work habits). Peruse previous tips, and you’ll see what I mean.
So I thought I’d pretty well cornered the market on slack. Then I re-read John Judy's “Slack Line Strategies for Fly Fishing.” This is a book that was published in 1994 and has just come out in paperback. If you already have it, then get up, waddle over to the book shelf, pull it down, and re-read it. It's worth the rerun. If you don’t have it, get it. It's a bargain if you had to pay three times the price. Anyway, John talks--clearly and eloquently--about the Roll-cast mend. His point in pitching it is that a traditional mend allows you control out the one-third of your line closest to you. The roll cast mend lets you address the other two thirds.
What follows is the nuts-and-bolts. You want the good stuff, buy the book, Slack Line Strategies for Fly Fishing. Here’s the essence. Make your regular cast, but hold back a little slack. Once the cast is on the water, raise the rod tip until your rod is vertical in the air, releasing that little bit of slack so you don’t drag the fly. Now, pointing the rod tip where your want the loop to go, do your roll cast. That rolling loop is your mend. The size of the loop depends on the amount of force you apply. With a little practice, you’ll find that you can exert an amazing amount of control over your line.
So that's the nuts and bolts. As the title implies, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Get the book, follow his advice, and, after a little practice, cast and mend (but don’t behave) like a fly fishing god.

SEPTEMB\ER 2002 TIP •

Sorry, there was no tip this month.

AUGUST 2002 TIP • Keep Your Fly on the Water

Here's a scene that repays itself over and over for guides floating with novice anglers. The guide, seeing a good run coming up, says, "get a cast about a foot out from that bank."
The angler, fresh from a fly fishing school (and there are plenty of good ones) and thoroughly drilled in the importance of precision casting, puts out a good cast, but lands it a foot and a half out from the bank, and immediately picks up and casts it again. The second cast lands smack on top of the good water, and, because the boating is now drifting below it, the fly immediately drags, the angler picks up and casts again. Any fish that might have been in there are long gone.
Here's another. This one happens to me all the time. You find a working fish, get into position, make your cast, it floats just short of the fish's lie, so you pick up for a better cast. The fish heads for the next county.
Both of these cases are symptoms of the same pathology. It's the "Oh-my-god-my-cast-isn't-perfect-I'd-better-quick-pick-up-and-cast-again" syndrome. It's grounded in a perfectly legitimate principal -- that we should make our casts, especially to rising fish, as accurately as possible. The problem is that it elevates the principal of accuracy over an even more fundamental principal -- that you can't catch fish if your fly isn't on the water.
In the first case, I've had new anglers -- at least until I started barking at them to "leave it on the water" -- spend more than half their fishing time with their fly in the air. In short order, they're tired and frustrated. The antidote? If your first cast isn't perfect, let it ride. It might just be in good enough water to catch a fish. A float through less-than-perfect water is still better than no float at all. Besides, you'll get other casting opportunities for the perfect placement all afternoon long. Be patient with yourself.
In the second case, I'm usually a little bit adrenalized by the sight of a rising fish, and the impulse is to get that fly back over the rise as fast as possible. Chill out. The fish usually doesn't care if you made a bad cast as long as you don't rip the fly through it's feeding lane like some kind of miniature ski boat. Let the fly float on through, swing clear of the feeding lane, and then do your next cast. Fairly often, you'll get the bonus of an opportunistic feeder who hits your fly on the swing.
The bottom line? Keep your fly on the water as much as you can, perfect cast or not. you'll catch a lot more fish that way.

JULY 2002 TIP • Reach for your Drag-Free Float

A couple of weeks ago, I spent five days guiding anglers on a float trip. It was nearly a perfect trip. We had lots of water that was clear enough for dry flies, and enough big hungry fish to keep people interested. And great clients. Every serious angler ought to spend a few days rowing a boat and guiding other anglers. It is a wonderful way to focus on technique -- what works, what doesn't. On this trip, on a fast, steep-gradient river where the opportunities bounced by at a good clip, getting a good drift was what worked.
My anglers on this trip were good casters (which, all by itself can make a trip a good one -- no pierced ears or nervous ticks from a hazardous guide day). But, like lots of us, their line-control skills hadn't kept pace with their casting skills. Not to worry. They were quick learners.
And quick is what you have to be when working to maintain a drag-free drift. Our innate response is to lay out a nice cast , admire it for a few seconds, watch our fly a little bit, and then try to mend. Too often, with this sequence, our mend drags the fly out of its line or, worse, sinks it. The best approach is to get your mending started before your fly hits the water. The easiest way to do that is with a reach cast.
The reach cast isn't a cast per se, but rather is the mid-air adjustment of your standard cast. It relies on a simple principal -- Wherever your rod tip goes, so goes your line. The great thing about the reach cast is that it's simple, and you don’t have to fool around with your power stroke. Here’s all you do -- Once you have completed your forward power stroke and the line is still in the air, point your rod tip to the right or the left (depending on where you need your mend). The line nearest the rod tip will lay down either upstream or downstream of your fly (again, depending on where you want it), giving you an instant mend. It's okay to actually “reach” with your rod in the direction to want to point -- this will accentuate the mend some.
One caution -- The first few times you try this, you're likely to yank your fly out of its trajectory. This isn't a muscle move, just a gentle point of the rod tip. A little practice will work out those yanky tendencies., then practice this until it becomes automatic. You’ll be glad you did.

JUNE 2002 TIP • Big Stuff on the Bottom

Mid-May through June is salmon fly time on many streams throughout Montana. Salmon is the color of the adult, and big is the size. When the fish are up on the adults, it's truly a sight to behold. But not every year is a banner time for dry flies. In fact, one-in-four years is a pretty good rule of thumb of astounding years to so-so years. Even when there are lots of bugs around. Why? Beats me. I assume science makes it happen some how. But I was an English major.
But here's the good news. Even when the fish are sneering at the dry flies, they're gobbling the salmon fly nymphs. Now at least a few of you are thinking, "Yeah, and the bad news is that you have to fish nymphs. Big weighted, ugly black nymphs. Yuck!" True enough, but actually that's the good news. Anybody can learn to do it, and, done right, it's actually a lot of fun.
Even my wife Glenda, who is about as much of a dry fly snob as there is (her mantra is "I'd rather be able to see what I'm not catching fish on, than to have to resort to those . . . things."), is finally coming around. Last week, on a little no-name stream in the extreme reaches of Western Montana, we ran smack into a salmon fly hatch. I fished a two fly rig with a black-legged Girdle bug and Gary LaFontaine's Natural Drift Stonefly Nymph and Glenda started with her usual big, fluffy dry fly imitation. I was hell-on-wheels; Glenda was getting a few, now and then. Finally she said, "Let me try that." Stunned, and not a little apprehensive -- rational adults though we are, we've more than once fallen prey to the malady of Spousal Teaching Syndrome (STS) -- I handed her the rod.

Helping Glenda get the right drift helped me focus on the keys to fishing nymphs deep. It's simple:

1) Use a short leader -- four or five feet if you can get away with it, not more than seven in any event.
2) Put your casts upstream, and keep them short! This is the most heavily violated rule of all. Maybe because we have these nifty rods and we want to cast everything a mile. The key is keeping your line tip off the water, so only your leader is in the water. Fifteen feet is about it for most situations. With stone flies, you're usually fishing rocky, tumbling water, deep, so you can get close without spooking fish.
3) Keep your rod tip up. This doesn't mean raise your arm in the air like the Statue of Liberty. That will get the rod tip up, but it'll also get you a sore shoulder. Just get the rod tip high as quick as you can to get the line tip to the surface of the water.
5) Follow your line tip with the rod tip.
6) Set the hook whenever that line tip stops or acts weird. You hook a lot of rocks and bottom but, with a little persistence, you'll also hook a lot of fish.

Oh, by the way, Glenda actually caught some fish on a big ugly nymph that day, and she's still talking to me. Once again, true love triumphs over the scourge of STS.

MAY 2002 TIP • Embrace the Wind on Stillwater

Quick. True or False -- Wind ruins fly fishing on lakes and ponds. If you're a true-blue, red-blooded stream fisherman like me, you may have answered "True." And you would have been wrong, wrong wrong! At least according to Gary LaFontaine and legions of British stillwater specialists. Here's what Gary says in Fly Fishing the Mountain Lakes:

Successful fishing on stillwaters, even during a hatch of aquatic insects, is often a matter of wind management. The mistake too many anglers make is to view the wind as the enemy . . .
English fly fisherman feel almost exactly opposite from American fly fishermen about the wind. They get discouraged when there isn't at least a breeze blowing; and fanatic stillwater fly fishermen are ecstatic when there is a gale kicking up whitecaps. The trout are easier to catch in broken water, not nearly as likely to spook at the splash of the line or to examine an imitation critically. But there's something else that the wind does that is even more important. It concentrates food and orients fish.

A few of Gary's suggestions for using the wind to your advantage:
1) Fish downwind from likely insect emergence areas -- weedbeds or rocky shoals. Fish will line up to feed on wind blown insects.
2) Find the wind lanes -- a ribbon of flatwater in an otherwise choppy lake, often with foam or scum in it. Food will concentrate here.
3) Go to the windward shore. All drifting food will eventually pile up against the windward shore. Fish will often concentrate there.

So the next time you happen on a wind-chopped lake, go to it. And remember, the wind is your friend . . .
For more on stillwater fishing, read Gary's Fly Fishing the Mountain Lakes.

APRIL 2002 TIP • Strike Softy, Land a Big Fish

One of a guide's most frustrating experiences is to find big fish, key into their feeding, put the client within easy casting range, and then, fish after fish, have the client blow the opportunity. One of my most frustrating days happened many years ago on the Missouri River near Craig, Montana.
The client (I'll call him Joe) and his wife were passing through from the midwest, had heard about those famous Missouri River trout, and on a whim decided to hire a guide to help him catch some. Joe was a classic laconic midwestern guy, never cracking a smile, quiet, hard to read. As it turned out, he was a recent convert to fly fishing, having spent most of his fishing life casting plugs with a short, stiff stick for bass and other warmwater critters. He was still getting the hang of casting a tiny fly. On this day, the tricos were out in force, zillions of size-20 spinners littering the water. And the fish were, for reasons unknown to me, uncharacteristically gullible in their frenzy to get them. Every little pause in the current would hold anywhere from 2 to a dozen porpoising fish. And Joe got his fly to them in decent fashion. Not bad for a neophyte. But things fell apart on the strike.
At the first fish that rose to his fly, this quiet soul convulsed into a boat-lurching strike, leaning back hard and ripping the rod over his head. Ping! He had a lap full of line with a flyless tippet. "Good presentation," I said (always looking for the positive in a situation). "Lighten up a little on the strike. These are big fish and that's a pretty light tippet." He glared at me. Turned out that was a bad sign.
Next fish, same result. I asked to see the rod. Reluctantly he handed it over. "These fish will hook themselves. Just lightly lift the rod tip." I demonstrated. He glared. So it went, all day long. He hooked well over a dozen large fish, and popped every one of them off at the strike. I checked his leaders, gave him heavier tippets, tried a bunch of different explanations . . . It didn't matter -- he broke 'em all. Longest day of my guiding career.
Fortunately most of us (especially the highly advanced denizens of this website) are more trainable than Joe. Nonetheless, most of us at some point will find ourselves, if we're lucky enough, facing big fish with small tippets. And most of us will snap some of those big guys off on the strike. Assuming that all the pieces of your system are in good shape (tippets not frayed or old, you're not using a tuna stick for tiny dry flies, a soft rod tip helps, and your hooks are sharp), it's usually a matter of moderating your response to reflect the light tippet. If you find yourself instinctively hauling back (Joe's problem), then concentrate on the strike and think "gentle lift." Practice it with a partner holding your fly to feel the resistance. With just a little practice, it won't be long before you break yourself of that tuna-haul strike. So just lighten up!

MARCH 2002 TIP • Wading, One Step at a Time

As I get longer in the tooth, various and sundry aches and pains remind me of youthful indiscretions. The other day, a finder on my left hand took up the chorus, bending only with annoying ache. But it spoke to me. "the Madison, July 1978", it said. Gary LaFontaine, Dan Abrams and I were chasing the tail end of the salmon fly hatch. After a couple of days floating, we decided to wade a stretch near South Madison campground. Predictably, Dan and Gary were taking fish right and left, while I was left to bask in the utter calm of a fishless morning, having put down everything within casting range.
Finally, after yet another whoop from Gary signaling a fish on, I couldn't stand it any more. I had to see what the hell he was doing that I wasn't. Working my way back towards shore, I turned upstream in shin deep water, striding out like I was on a sidewalk. Ten steps upriver, I hooked my right foot under a rock and did a face plant. I managed to fling my rod away from me and get my hands out in front of me to absorb most of the damage. That was the good part. The bad part was that, as I my hands made contact and I stiffened my arms to absorb the shock, I felt (maybe even heard) the distinctive "snap" of my index finger.
Gary, fifty yards away, was immensely entertained. Being young, full of testosterone, and not all that bright to start with, I taped it up and kept on fishing. You'd think that my sacrifice would have been repaid with better fishing. So much for karma. I continued to get my butt kicked.
All of this is by way of ruminating on the dumb things we can do wading, even when we know better. But I have come across a number of experienced anglers who never get comfortable wading. Usually, on examination, I find that it is because, without knowing better, they break a few basic rules that, if followed, would make their wading much more secure and enjoyable. Following are a few basic rules to keep you safe on the water.

Your first wading decision should occur before you ever get on the water. On familiar, shallow, gentle water, you will likely go in without a second thought. But on new, fast, deep, or turbulent water, look at the water you intend to wade. Find the easiest path to where you want to go, and identify your line of retreat should you get into problems. And maybe most important, look at what is downstream of the spot you intend to fish. What hazards await you should you lose your footing. If this little assessment makes you nervous, don't wade it. Trust your gut.
Once you start into the water, go into wading mode (as opposed to "strolling mode") the moment your foot breaks the water. Slow down, and make sure each foot is secure before you take the next step. Once you get above mid-calf, turn your body sideways to the current so one foot is upstream, and one foot is downstream. This gives you a more stable base. As the current and depth increase, you can widen your stance to increase your stability.
As current depth and speed increase, it becomes all the more important to plant each foot before you begin your next step. the most secure plant is not on top of a big rock. As much as possible, plant your foot at the base of whatever rocks your feet find on the bottom. Most of my swims have come from a slip off the top of a seemingly nice big rock.
Again, as current and depth increase, you may find that a stride in which you lead with the same foot every time feels most stable. I usually find that I feel most stable if I stride with my upstream foot and follow with the downstream foot. But preference varies on that one. But try it.
Finally, in deep or turbulent water, Plot a wading route that lets you move slightly with the current. Wading against a strong current is all to often a formula for disaster. When we wade against the current, we have to lean into it to make headway. That lean often loosens our feet and makes us vulnerable to losing our footing and swimming. Better to start your entry into your route from upstream of your destination. Likewise with plotting your escape. Plan an escape route that gives you ample space to wade out while angling downstream.

Well, that about covers the basic wade. In a later tip we'll talk about "the swim." Try to keep your hat up and your wading shoes down.

FEBRUARY 2002 TIP • Sneaky does it on Tail Waters and Spring Creeks

I wonder if this has ever happened to you. Coming up to the edge of a spring creek or tail water river, you see a pod of fish folding just beneath the surface and rising every few seconds, behaving like hogs at a trough of freshly served slop. They're within easy casting range, forty feet off the bank and in shallow water. It looks like a cake walk. You slowly, stealthily (so you think) edge into the water, getting ready to set up your cast. One step, two . . . one more step and you'll be in perfect position. You take that last step and, with a huge swirl and splash, the pod disappears. So much for stealth, twinkle toes. This hasn't happened to me. In the past week, anyway.
The smooth, rich waters of spring creeks and tail water fisheries, while by no means the only waters that work you over like this, seem best suited to this kind of humbling encounter. They have a ton of food, the fish are big, and the water is often smooth and relatively quiet. And fish, with great hearing, sight and sense of smell, have most of the advantage in these settings.
And what does your average well-educated, well-appointed fly angler have in contrast? Well, usually too much. Too much noise, too much visibility, too much smell, and not enough patience. Control these factors, and you significantly increase the odds of hooking one of those slurpers.
Take a page from the New Zealand guides when it comes to stealth. They fish achingly clear, often shallow waters, to a few gigantic fish. They value stalking skills as highly as casting skills. Gary LaFontaine captured most of those rules in his book, The Dry Fly, New Angles, in which he described "Ten Commandments of Stealth." Here they are:

1) Stop. At every likely spot, take a moment to look closely for trout. Polarized glasses and a small binoculars are a big help.
2) Don't wade unless necessary.
3) Step lightly. Trout are keenly sensitive to vibration.
4) If you have to Wade, don't push water. Wade like a heron, lifting the foot out of the water and stepping back in with a slightly pointed toe. To other anglers, you may look like a dork doing this. But who cares what they think? The fish don't.
5) Remove as much reflective material as you can. Shiny watches, jewelry, metallic eyeglass rims, for starters. Avoid shiny reels and rods if you can.
6) Lower your profile. Stoop, kneel, or lay flat to get out of the trout's line of sight. This is a big one.
7) Don't rip the line. Once your fly has gone over or through the fish, let it pass beyond the fish and do a roll cast pick up. This avoids the sudden rain of droplets that lifting your line directly into a backcast can cause, spooking the fish.
8) Control drag. Practice your mends, reach casts, pile casts, S-casts relentlessly. Slack is good.
9) Move Slowly.
10) Relax the Trout. Do everything in 1 through 9 above, and keep fishing over those rising fish. The fish can get used to you. Patience will win out.

The New Zealand guides would likely embellish these a little. In addition to avoiding flash, they might have you dress to blend with your background, use available cover, use shade as cover when you can, and concentrate.
Follow these basic rules of stealth on the "tough" waters, and you'll increase your success.

JANUARY 2002 TIP • Double the Flies, Double the Fun

When I first started fly fishing in the early '70s, conventional fly fishing wisdom, as expressed in the periodicals of the day, viewed multiple-fly rigs (or "casts" as they were sometimes called) as a quaint relic from the dim mists of fly fishing history. Every once in a while I'd run into some old geezer fishing three wet flies off an old cane or heavy glass rod. It looked sort of awkward to me, but some of those guys caught way more fish than I did. Nonetheless, I passed it off as an outdated method for old guys. I was too busy trying to master the mysteries of no-hackle dry flies and big, weighted nymphs.
Lucky for me, some of my peers weren't nearly so tunnel-visioned, and by the mid-1980s I began to see some of my fishing buddies tying a second fly on below a big dry fly. Sometimes it was another dry fly, sometimes it was a small nymph. And they caught fish! Sometimes two at once! As Gary LaFontaine would say, I may not be very bright, but I'm slow. Eventually it dawned on me to try it. Today I fish two flies more often than not.
Two-fly rigs give you the advantage of exploration when there isn't an obvious solution. A good start-of-the-day ploy is have a dry fly on top (the dropper) and a slightly weighted nymph on the bottom (the trailer). If you get into a hatch where you have fish taking emergers and duns, change the combination to a matching dry fly on the dropper and an emerger or floating nymph on the trailer.
On a multiple-hatch day, use two dry flies, one for each hatch. Thirty of the wildest seconds of my fishing career occurred when a client hooked two 14-inch-plus rainbows on an Elk Hair Caddis / Parachute Adams combination. Pandemonium reigned for those thirty seconds with fish jumping everywhere. Of course, the angler was helpless to do much more than watch. It didn't take long for one of those fish to come off.
One caution on two fly rigs is that you need to generate a lot of line speed on your casts. And your timing has to be impeccable. Two flies create a lot of wind resistance. Fortunately, with the fast-action rods now on the market, it's a lot easier to cast these bulky rigs than it was when glass was the state of the art.
Also, you'll inevitably score some rats-nest tangles with two flies, no matter how well you cast. Fly anglers being sort of tilted toward the anal retentive, we want to try and unravel that mess, pulling the bottom fly through microscopic openings in the nest. Unless it's just a one-looper, don't bother. That's what God made clippers for. Clip off that bottom fly before you start to untangle. It will go much faster. You'll thank me later. You can reduce some of the rats-nest effect if you tie the trailer onto the bend of the dropper (see January 2001 Tip of The Month for the easiest way to do this).
If you haven't tried it yet, go ahead and add a second fly onto your rig. You'll double your fun.