A Very 101 Dry Fly Discussion, Part 1

           

Heavy caddis hatch on the Madison River

           Throughout my trout fishing adventure I've learned many things. Like anyone stepping into a new hobby, I wasn't sure how I would respond to the learning process. I was worried I would invest a good amount of time and money into something I would later end up not enjoying. I had the idea that I could always resort to my spinning reel if all else failed. The first few months into my fly fishing odyssey I had a lot of doubt. I was ever so frustrated and I didn't have the patience it seemed to require. Many aspects brought me down such as not catching as many fish, spending more time retying tangled leaders and learning to cast with so many variables. All of these barriers must be experienced before moving onto the next steps . I've got my casting down, I know the basic flies to use and I can read the water to find the fish. I succeeded in the basics without giving up. The days that the few flies I had would not work, would give me a feeling of loss, all the while I was making two hundred casts each day. Even though I may not have been catching the high numbers of fish I had anticipated, I was still getting a lot of important casting practice. It doesn't matter which fly you use if you cant put your line where you want it.

              Now that I have the hardest part behind me I can look forward to the great world that fly fishing is.  I spent so many hours focusing on the basics in that first year that I hadn't had time to remember all the vast possibilities that are out there; dry fly fishing is one of them. I was re-introduced to dry flies by a friend during the summer of '13, and this particular day we had a grand time. We stood in the East Gallatin around five o'clock pm.. The two of us had rigged the usual double nymph style set up and were ready to fish. We noticed a lot of bugs flying around and the fish were rising every so often. My trout stalking accomplice suggested its time to put on a dry fly, and with his many more years experience, I happily obliged. My first cast landed a twelve inch brownie. I positioned my elk hair caddis just along the inside of a small eddie. Within only five feet and in the blink of an eye the trout took my fly. My fishing partner tied on a #16 yellow stimulator and was catching them every third cast. The fish were turned on as a thunderstorm was off in the distance, swirling towards us. A few hours later my company left. I was having such a good time I stayed a couple hours more. I walked back down river and fished the whole section all over again and had great success. I can thank my friend and a tiny little fly called the elk hair caddis for the excellent fishing that day.

Caddisfly clinging near the Gallatin River

        The next few days I reminisced about the top water action I enjoyed so much. It felt like I had a child pulling at my pant leg each day, always on my mind. I was yearning for the dry fly bite again. I hooked into some good fish one evening and did again the next day on the same stretch. I had set myself up for some serious trial and error, learning along the way. I was avidly keeping mental notes on what and where would and wouldn't produce fish. I had probably caught anywhere between fifteen and twenty fish each day and lost twice as many. It seemed the fish were growing ever so aware of what I was throwing and I had to switch through half a dozen or so colors and patterns. The third day my fly of choice was a # 18 olive adams dry fly. I remember seeing a few mayflies on the surface being taken by trout. The caddis out numbered the mayflies 20:1 but fish were eagerly coming to the surface for my adams.

            You may have heard the phrase "matching the hatch" before. Well how important is it to match the hatch? Since this is a 101 article, I am going to keep it simple for now. When it comes to using dry flies, you need to know what insect it represents. Some flies imitate a broad range of flying bugs while others hone in on one specific insect. So besides the shape of the fly, the right color and the right size are also very important. There are a handful of dry fly patterns that will work well on any given day. Chances are, If you happen to have a few of these flies in your box, and the trout are rising, you wont be displeased.

                  Elk Hair Caddis #'s 20-14 dark/tan
                  Parachute Adams #'s 20-14 dark colors, olive, tan
                  Stimulator #20-16 orange
                  Blue Winged Olive #'s 22-18
                  Royal Wulff #'s 22-14
                  Griffiths Gnat #'s 22-14 dry fly/emerger

Adams dry fly, East Gallatin Cutbow

Elk hair caddis, East Gallatin

          As a beginner, like myself, its difficult to look at an insect and know exactly what species it is. There are so many species of flies that hatch and emerge at certain times of the day, it can be very important to understand what the trout are eating during that hour. Its not completely necessary to know, but this ability will give you more options when you're out on the water or the trout are being picky. My general knowledge of dry flies has taught me a few things. The five major insects groups that trout eat are midges, mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, and salmonflies. Each one has many different species which vary in size and color. It wouldnt hurt for a beginner fly fisherman to do some research on these five groups and be able to identify them while out in the water. This could mean the difference between putting on an elk hair caddis or a parachute adams. Once the you've found out whats flying around, you can start to look for a pattern that imitates not only the shape, but also the right size and color of whats on the menu. The reward will be worth it!

        The more pressure I put on the fish, the harder they were to catch later. They would no longer come up to eat my peacock elk hair caddis like the first day. Many more days I returned for the hot action and it seemed that the fish had simply seen too many elk hair caddis flies. The general shape of the elk hair caddis is good for imitating all sorts of caddis species. The trout were smart and realized this was no longer meeting their requirements. They were more hesitant to take their time looking at the fly before wolfing it down. Not to say this stretch of heavily hit river will be void of all elk hair caddis action, but the older fish become more finicky and more specific patterns need to be presented. I will add that my friend and I were probably the first to heavily fish this section of river since early winter the previous year. The fish, like I said, were becoming more specific in their needs; This occurs day to day throughout the year. What worked one day wouldn't catch any fish the next, etc. The more flies a person can keep in their vest or bag will increase the odds if that person knows how to use them.

Beginner Tip of the Day

            A quick tip I learned half way through my experiences was using knots to my advantage. I use to hate knots! One knot in your 6lb test line can weaken the strength by 50%. So, with that one little stinker of a knot, that you may or may not be aware of, your line is only capable of 3 lb strength. So when you do manage a hog of a trout and he gives a few good tugs, that line will snap in a second where the knot was hiding. While learning to fly fish, and to this day still, I often have a bad run in with a couple of knots. Some so bad you just completely cut the leader and restart everything! And only God knows, but there are probably twenty trout you're going to miss because its going to take forever to re-tie everything.

            Wind knots are just plains stupid knots. They occur while fishing into the wind., or against the wind, or any direction the wind is in. They can make the ever so smooth cast of a dry fly turn into what looks like a string of Christmas lights. Knot after knot after knot. Sometimes they sneak up on you all at once. You think your doing fine because the 5x or 6x tippet is so thin and hard to see. When you go to get junk off of your fly you realize youve been stricken with eight pesky knots!

            Other knots occur for beginners in general. Learning the ability to feel the weight and force of the rod, and how to make subtle changes that result in smooth knot-free casts is something that comes with 1,000 casts. Others may pick up sooner, but with a weighted Girdle Bug, bead head nymph, split shot, and an indicator all on a line together, it can take some getting use to. I've noticed through my adventure that I sure don't get as many knots as I use to. They do exist here and there, but are so sutble, it hardly bothers me anymore. When it does happen bad, which isnt all that often, I do get upset and look like a would be golf champion throwing his irons into the pond and kicking at his golf bag and cussing up a storm. But I do get settled down, look at what I've got around me, and patiently re-tie.

          Sometimes its too much weight. Sometimes its the way you bring your loaded line back but not letting it go back all the way thus causing your inter-passing lines to sometimes form a perfect knot. Its absolutely insane how it happens, but it does happen. So enough talking about why knots are bad, Id like to talk about why they are, oh so wonderful!

           I learned this trick from a fishing magazine. I'm sure every fly fisherman knows about the use of knots and how to harness their power for good. My friend and, long-time experienced, ex-guide, fly fisher admits he doesn't use the knots for good. To my surprise the benefits out weigh the hassles of tying an extra knot. They do require an extra tie but sometimes this comes natural when one builds a leader with tippet. If you're rebuilding a short leader and have 3 or 4 sections of knots, place them in positions in which they will benefit you.  Say near the end of your tippet, you may want to use a knot to secure your weight, wherever your prefer it.

         
          Using the knot from one tippet to the other can securely hold split shot. Don't you hate when your split shot slides down your line all the way to the fly? Constantly re-clamping and destroying the weight each time until its nothing but a crushed can that could fall off at any minute. Ive put many hours in the water without knots for my weights, and I have gone through two times as many split shot because they kept getting destroyed by me squeezing them tight. Once again the lead is soft and finds its way on top of your fly. Well with a weight secured against the bulge that is the knot on the line, all you have to do is never think about it sliding down again. In the picture to the right, shows where to tie your blood knot or whichever knot you use. Its pretty much the distance you want the split shot to be from your first fly. This can also be used if you like to put your split shot between your lead and dropper fly. Its the same idea, this time adding two tippets, creating a knot between the two flies.

        Knots are also great for holding indicators up if they are sliding down. If you have a thick leader and your indicator is up there, you may not have a problem. But the thinner your leader gets, it will start to move after every cast. Just like the split shot knot, the same will work for any indicator. There are a few more advanced ways to use knots but I will get back to you all with that later.


                                                                              Fish On!

Streamers 101

               I was going to call this section "newbie corner" or something like that, but I myself was just a newbie fly guy a couple of months ago. I learned every time I fished, much like everyone else out there who is not a master angler, I learned lessons, took note and got better. For a guy like me stepping into the fly fishing world, I come up with weekly awakenings or revelations where things come into sight all of the sudden. I will be fishing and then out of nowhere I will yell with excitement, "WOO HOO I got it!", after I've mastered or succeeded with something like mending line, or tying properly tapered leaders with tippet, etc. It happens every so often where Ill take a good firm step forward and can throw a little bit more confidence in my bag. This has recently happened to me with fishing streamers.

        This 101 Id like to go over my recent trout fishing revelation. I've had such a hard time with streamers that is was driving me nutty. I had a background in swim baits and have had much success with spinning swim baits but not fly fishing streamers. The first problem I faced was getting that nine foot leader and fly line down to where it needed to be. If you are a newbie you may slap the appropriate weight on and toss into a pretty turbid, good looking hole hoping for a fat trout if the newbie knows they're in there. Alright, so the newbie hopes he's not getting snagged because he's just letting that  streamer swirl around in the deep hole. He cant feel a strike because he has barely any sensitivity in his rod while the line is swirling around without tension. If he strips or has a taught line, he can feel the lure but knows that the streamer isn't getting down deep enough. This may discourage someone just starting out. He makes another cast, right next to the bank where a tout awaits in a nice slow eddie behind a pool. Right when his streamer hits the water, he watches as his fly line, caught by current drag, sucks the streamer quickly away from the fish. Lets try this again. Another cast, this time right into the deeper pocket pool itself. So while he believes since the streamer has made it down to the bottom he might get lucky and maybe the fish will take it. He's trying to mend the line here and there to keep that streamer right in the hot zone. He still doesn't know what the lure is doing down there and this can be discouraging. Meanwhile while two trout have already nibbled and spit out his streamer in 1/10th of a second because there was no connection/sensitivity, too much slack line. This could go on and on until eventually, a trout big enough eats the streamer and hooks itself. The smaller fish are harder to feel on the heavy fly line, and so blindly bouncing it off the bottom is difficult.

            That was me for many days. Always frustrated at why I was unproductive with streamers when I heard how great they are. I was under the impression that streamers were a lot like the rapalas and spinners, this is true because both represent fish prey, but they have to be fished completely different. I felt there was a barrier between the fish and I when I used streamers. I've learned a few things the last few days that can help one beyond the hurdle of figuring out the initial first steps to becoming very productive with streamers.

           First, good casting is needed to succeed with streamers. Think bass fishing. In most of the river around here there are sections of river with slow moving water around bends and under banks. The slowest water is along the outside of either bank on straight runs or on the inner side of a bend. Because the water force is less here, the trout stack up right along the banks, these are the fish we are after. The number one predator of streamers are brown trout. Big browns especially, sit under brush and low hanging foliage which provides a resting area and a safe place from predators. These resting areas will often be in tight pockets between trees, near the bank, between log jams, and on the edges of slow moving bends where there will often be a deep bank. These are the areas to focus on. There are just as many of these pockets as there are runs, pools, and riffles. I've spent a lot of time fishing runs and pools with streamers but its hard to manage the line and to guess where your bait is unless there is slack water you can access.

            Now, you really need to adjust your rig away from a typical nymphing rig and more of a bass rig. Choose whichever streamers you like. I prefer the ones with a bit of weight in them. I use a 5 weight rod, so I will usually use a small weighted streamer with an additional split shot three inches above. This helps with action and control, that's right, there's actually some control and sensitivity now. Experiment with weight. You don't want something too heavy but it also needs to be heavy enough to get down to the fish and act realistically. I find myself pitching into very tight places where a big brown could be waiting and I would need to put that streamer right on his nose. The weight its a contributor to casting. The leader is the next important subject. You can take a 9 foot 5x tippet and cut it in half or less depending on how much weight you're throwing. The shorter leader allows for much more control and sensitivity to strikes. The control factor of having a 4 foot leader makes all the difference. If you cut off too much or are getting to the thick part of your leader, It's ok to add some 1x or 2x tippet. A sturdier/heavier line will act better with something like a big streamer.

Streamers with weight provide better control in my opinion

          Ok, you've got a better setup for streamer fishing an now you need to know how to fish them. I find it most productive to target the areas I mentioned before such as slack water next to moving water, the slower water next to banks, and between jams and brush piles. Wade in to the water depending on how clear the water is. If its real muddy I get as close as I can to pitch a white streamer next to the bank. Often the water will explode as the trout that you knew was there pounded your streamer. This is probably the funnest part of this kind of fishing. Its amazing how many trout sit next to the bank. The secret is casting the streamer within inches of the bank, and give it all you can to let that thing sit there until it starts drifting on its on. If you haven't had a strike by then, just strip and twitch your rod until you're out of the strike zone. The strike zone is literally a foot or less sometimes and controlling the fly line is something to practice. The current will want to pull your streamer back into the middle and not allow the streamer to stay in that spot long enough. If you can get your bait to stay in that zone for, oh, three seconds or more, you'll be getting fish. Cast and move cast and move. The day can yield a high number of fish by doing this when the barometer is falling especially.

          Streamer fishing takes some getting used to. The least a beginner can do is set themselves up for success. It took me a little over a year to build up the confidence I have for them now. I cannot wait to get back out there and put on a streamer. Thanks for reading today and check back for updates or reports!

Starting the year off right...

         I've spent many many hours wading these beautiful streams and rivers here in big sky country. Only being here for one year, and a few hundred fish later, I consider myself a fair trout fisherman. I started off chasing trout by using the skills I learned from the warm waters of the Midwest, and have since transitioned into fly fishing.  Trout fishing was something I was very thrilled to immerse myself into. I was amazed to find out about the wonders of trout, they are nothing like the warm water species back home. There is a special allure to trout that only unveils itself the longer you are out there pursuing them.
           I started off buying my eighty dollar non-residential fishing license (must be a MT resident for 6 months). It was hard to stomach paying that much for less than a year of fishing but we are talking Blue Ribbon fisheries here. I was anxious to fish the deep, swirling pools, of crystal clear water that flowed through the canyons. Waterfalls, class IV and V rapids, to long running riffles paralleled by amber fields and high canyon walls were something to look forward to. Not only was I standing in the middle of a river in  a beautiful place, I was also catching fish.
           I have been living in the "last best place" since May of 2012, and hit the waters within the first few days of  my U-Haul return. The weather was always changing and unpredictable.You don't change your plans by what the forecast says, you just prepare for it. My exploring days began around July of '12. The weather by then had gotten very hot and dry. I often went to the river with my ultra-light, 4 lb test, a box of spinners, rapalas, and spoons, and just slay them! I would have days where I would catch fifteen or more. The fish were too easy and I would come home bragging!  The spinners and crank baits sure did kill them on some days, and I felt pretty confident with them. They didnt always work but I might as well have been fishing with live bait because my success rate was high. Who would have thought that six months later my theory on trout didn't improve at all. I just couldn't find a pattern on weather fronts, barometric pressure, changing temps, and how it effects the fish; this bothered me.
         I finally bought a fly rod and started the grueling process of relearning how to do something I've done all my life, fish. I felt I was getting away with murder, usually out fishing my fly fishing partners with spinning gear. I wanted a challenge, this was one major reason I made the switch. Let me tell you its A LOT harder than it looks! The wind, knots, and trees, are three things that can ruin your day, and until I learned how to improve my fishing with these factors, I could spend more time fishing and less time tying.
           It was probably somewhere around early September that I caught my first trout on a fly rod. I had just purchased a cheap nine foot rod and five-weight reel and a handful of flies. Very anxious, and unfortunately not knowing what I was getting myself into, headed to where dreams were made, the Gallatin River. My third or fourth cast into a beautiful hole resulted in a fourteen inch rainbow trout! Let me tell you the feeling of fighting a strong, cold water fish, on a nine foot rod and 3 lb tapered leader, incredible! The feeling after have landed my first trout on my first day with a fly rod was awesome. I myself had been hooked, ha!
          So I will share with all who are willing to accept, my trout fishing journey in Montana. My experience has taught me a few things about trout themselves, and also the trout have taught me. Spending hours and hours a day along a gently flowing stream, with hundreds of trout silently below the water, has showed me many things. Its not at all about catching the fish, its about immersing oneself in their world.