Back to Basics: What you need to know to catch fish on a dry fly on your first time fishing.

Recently I spent a couple days fishing with some first-time fly fishermen in the mountain streams south of Lake Tahoe in northern California. I reviewed the basics as quickly as possible, as I always think it is better to learn by doing than by listening. Here are a few things I mention quickly:

1) The fly line is what you cast (since the fly is pretty much weightless). If you don’t have enough fly line (at least 8 ft or so) out then you won’t be able to cast.

2) Casting is different from waving – put some muscle into your cast and snap your rod like a whip to get the fly to go where you want.

3) Make sure you can see your fly. Just toss your line out on some calm water right in front of you to get used to finding your fly on the water’s surface.

4) Always hold onto the fly line with your non-rod hand. Don’t use the reel unless you’re packing up – instead just pull the line with your hand to bring it in.

5) Cast your fly so it drifts along disturbances on the water (rifles, swirls) and under the water (rocks, changes in depth).

6) If your fly isn’t floating, cast again.

While everyone picked things up quite quickly, they had some questions I did not anticipate:

Q-1) Where should I stand?

A-1) Anywhere you like, but here are some pointers: Don’t get too close to a hole (on a small stream/hole you want to be at least 10 feet away, unless there are lots of disturbances like rocks, trees, etc. or really fast moving water). Look behind you – make sure you have enough room to back-cast. Make sure when you cast to a spot that there aren’t any disturbances right in front of you (casting over a log or rock or fast current makes it hard to get a nice drift).

Q-2) How long should I leave the fly out on the water?

A-2) As long as your fly is floating and not just sitting somewhere stagnant, keep it out there. Once it sinks under the surface, wait a couple more seconds, twitch your rod back a little bit (I catch a lot of fish this way – the couple seconds right after a dry fly sinks it is still very effective!), and then you should cast again.

Q-3) What am I trying to accomplish by having the fly drift down the river?

A-3) Most fish (at least in rivers/streams) stay in a holding pattern facing upstream in a gentle current and wait for food to drift down above and around them. You want your fly to look like a bug that has landed on the water and is just cruising downstream. Of course bugs also move around on top of and below the water’s surface, so if your fly moves a bit that isn’t a bad thing. You do not, however, want your fly to drag to one side of the current or do anything that a real bug wouldn’t do.

Q-4) How long should I keep fishing in the same spot?

A-4) In the smallest streams, I usually don’t cast more than four or five times in the same area. Fish get spooked easily and it’s better to move on. In larger streams and rivers your effectiveness won’t go down much by staying in the same spot, but I like to move on after ten casts or so anyway (unless the spot looks super good, in which case I might try a new fly pattern in the same spot). Covering a lot of water – sometimes I hike for miles – is more fun to me and I am always looking for better holes just around the next bend.

If you get a rise (where a fish “rises” to try to eat your fly) or see a fish come up to take a look at your fly, you should definitely keep casting to the same spot. If you can’t get them to take another look, you might even consider switching flies and casting to the same fish again. If you catch a fish, even in pretty sizeable water, all of the surrounding fish will be spooked when you bring the fish in, so it’s usually best to move on.

Hopefully this is useful information. We’ll be posting more articles on the basics – selecting equipment, selecting flies, etc – in the near future. Good luck!

Catch and Release – Am I doing it Right?

We all talk about catch and release and how great it is that we are returning the fish to the water and keeping the fish population strong – heck, we might even catch the same fish again another day. Yet it seems like every time I see a fly fishing video or photo, some happy angler is grabbing on to a fish for the obligatory photo op before releasing it back into the water.

I’ve always tried to keep fish in the water as much as possible, but i'm inconsistent (both the above photos are of me). In the interest of my future catch I decided to do a little research. Some of what I found is old news, and some of it was brand new to me. Here’s a summary*:

1) Nets are bad, especially knotted line nets. If you need to use a net, get a knotless version.
2) Always use barbless hooks. If you can’t land a fish without a barbed hook, you should work on your technique!
3) Don’t reach into a fish’s mouth – if a fly is caught inside, use some sort of forceps or needle-nosed pliers to extract it.
4) If the fly is way down in the fish, just cut the line. Digging way down into a fish to remove a fly can reduce their chance of survival to under 20%, while cutting your line gives the fish a 90% chance of survival (don’t worry – the fly will work its way out over time).

If you really need to pick the fish up out of the water:

5) The less time a fish is out of water the better. 20-30 seconds is the maximum (for when you really need to get that picture) but ideally the fish should never leave the water. The oxygen deprivation can have serious effects on a fish, even if they are able to swim away easily.
6) Never touch a fish with dry hands (or anything dry) as this will wipe away their slimy protective layer.
7) Never dangle a fish from your line. Instead, lift the fish out of the water horizontally.
8) Place the fish back in the water gently, horizontally, and move it side to side until it swims away.

Practicing these techniques can lead to a 97% survival rate of released fish. So next time you catch a whopper, don’t worry so much about the photo. Instead, take pride in knowing that by properly releasing it you can be 97% certain it’ll be there again next time.

* figures cited from Wikipedia.

DIY Flyfishing?

I was recently watching a special on Flyfishing in Yellowstone in the DIY network. First, since when did DIY (Do-It-Yourself) network start with the fishing shows? But beyond that, the show was just terrible. Don’t get me wrong – any show filmed in Yellowstone on a variety of trout rivers is enough to keep my attention. My problem is with the way that flyfishing is being presented to the American TV viewer.

To be blunt, watching that show would make any non-flyfisher think that the sport is painfully boring. The guide/host talked gleefully about how he will often change flies 20 times over the course of a couple hours just to try to get one fish to rise. Now I can appreciate that idea from the perspective of challenging yourself to outwit a fish in any circumstances, but from the perspective of a new flyfisher, the prospect of spending a couple hours knee-deep in cold water changing flies over and over again sounds pretty terrible.

It was pretty much the same story with another flyfishing video I recently watched. Either these hosts are trying to scare people away from flyfishing (so that their favorite spots don’t get too crowded) or they simply have no idea how to make flyfishing seem appealing in a video format. Personally, while I don’t like crowded rivers either, I think flyfishing is a great sport that encourages learning about and conserving our greatest natural wonders. And I think it’s tons of fun. Why can’t these videos convey that?

Anyway. These are my thoughts. I think I need to create a series of videos that will show off the sport of flyfishing the way I see it. More on this later…

Time To Plan Those Fishing Trips...

Well, it's time to start planning my summer fishing trips. I'm planning on doing a bit of filming this year - I think my dad is going to help me out. He lives in Oregon and I live in California, so we'll probably stay in the West somewhere. I always like the Sun Valley area. My wife will probably be along as well - she's never seen the Tetons so maybe I'll try to cruise around the Jackson/Yellowstone area as well.

Any other recommendations? Specific spots to go in the above regions? Stories? Photos? The more the merrier. Thanks!

Out Of My League

Over this past weekend I was eating some delicious Monchong... What's Monchong you ask? Well, it's a fish, of course (this ain't no land-animal blog...). A deepwater Hawaiian fish, to be exact. I'd had it a few times in Kauai when my beloved Opakapaka is out of season and recently I've found it at the 'Bowl, my favorite local grocery store, flown in fresh.

It was so fantastic that I decided to wikipedia it. Well, Monchong doesn't appear to be too popular (or maybe there aren't too many Wikipeople in Hawaii) - wikipedia came up blank. Google didn't do much better, but I did find some fish charts from some Hawaiian site. Geez - I hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag here about this great fish. I guess it's good that I don't have zillions of readers. (yet)

Turns out "deepwater" means DEEPwater. (True, for a dry fly fisherman anything deeper than about 3 feet is of little interest.) Monchong are routinely caught at depths over 250 fathoms. [...back to google... 'fathom'... Ahh... so much for that Berkeley education...] Over 1500 feet deep! Crazy. Something about a fairly small fish - up to 2 feet - being down so deep really struck me. Imagine a poor trout swimming around lost down there, in what must be almost complete darkness. Poor little guy.

Anyway - sorry, this post wasn't really about dry fly fishing. Hey, it's January, and my mountain streams are covered in ice. I guess I've got Hawaii on the mind...

Fish Schedules

Conventional wisdom says that the first and last hours of daylight are the best time for fishing. Bugs are most abundant during those times. The sun is gone or at a very low angle, covering most of the water in shadow (fish don’t like being exposed in direct sunlight). In other words, dawn and dusk are ideal for fishing.

Unfortunately dawn and dusk are not ideal for me. I never could quite get motivated to rouse myself before dawn to get out on the river in the early morning cold. And in the later evening hours I’m probably a) hungry and b) having a difficult time seeing my fly on the ever-darker water. The best time for me to fish is in the mid-afternoon.

Perhaps it is just convenient for my laziness, but I think the idea that “early bird gets the fish” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Am I really that lazy? Am I a black sheep in a world of fly fishing purists for whom sleep and hunger mean nothing? Might I just as well have a lawn chair, a six-pack, and a tub of ‘crawlers?

I don’t think so. Sure there are more bugs at dawn and dusk, but I don’t think that fish are only feeding when there are tons of bugs on the water. Fish might be looking up at the surface more during a hatch, but that also means that there are lots of bugs for the fish to choose from, with my fly getting lost in the crowd. I like attractor patterns anyway, and I like to think that even in the midst of their afternoon siesta most fish still have one eye out for something attractive.

I also think that the idea of direct sunlight on the water isn’t a big deal, especially for mountain rivers and streams. First, mountains and trees block a lot of the light. Second, I rarely fish in flat, slow water, so I rely on riffles and swirls and the like to provide the cover that fish require.

Am I just rationalizing here? I’ve been fishing for a lot of years and I’ve caught a lot of fish in the mid-afternoon. So, go ahead and call me a lightweight or a fair-weather fly fisherman. But next time your alarm clock rings at 5:30 and you groggily slip on your wading boots, think of me. I’m still getting my beauty sleep.

So, Why Just Dry Flies?

Most places I travel I hear the same thing. "Well you could try dry flies, but you probably won't get much..." or "We had a guy come through here last week asking about dry flies..." It turns out a lot of people just don't know much about flyfishing with dry flies. Most people grow up fishing with bait and then switch to using lures. Wet flies are an easy transition. While more serious flyfishermen would scoff at using a "lure", they are happy to use a weighted, shiny wet fly that travels underwater and attracts fish.

Dry flies are more fun to fish with because you can see the action as it's happening. You can see exactly where your fly is on the water. You can often see the fish come up and take a look at your fly. And you can definitely see the fish break the surface of the water trying to swallow your fly, sometimes even completely leaving the water. On occasion a fish will even take your fly out of the air, before it ever hits the water. With wet flies, you're left watching an indicator or waiting to feel a tug.

Thus, "Dry Fly Stories" the blog. This blog will be a home for original writings, tips, reviews, photos, videos, and discussion of fly fishing with dry flies (in all of its glory). More to come!