The Orvis Guide to Beginning Fly Fishing, page 12
Prepare for the shot. Teach your fishing buddy or your guide how to use your camera before you start fishing. Make sure the camera is set on auto-focus and program or full-auto mode if someone unfamiliar with the camera is using it. And have them get the camera out well before you land the fish, discussing how you want the shot and planning the angle of the shot in relation to the sun and background as you are playing the fish.
You’ll get more interesting pictures and release fish in a safer manner if you take photos of fish close to the water.
Set the zoom, if you have one, to as wide as possible so that you make sure to get the whole fish and yourself (if you want to be in the picture) in the frame. You can crop away unwanted background easily, but you can’t create image data where it’s missing without some serious Photoshop work. Besides, with your zoom set on wide angle, your depth of field will be deeper, ensuring that if the camera does not focus perfectly most everything in the image will still be sharp.
Fish are about as cooperative as four-year-old boys during photo sessions, and you’ll need to freeze the action by using a fast shutter speed or flash. If your camera has manual settings or program shift, set it to a shutter speed of at least 1/250th of a second with natural light, or force the camera to flash by setting the flash to fire regardless of light conditions. Fill flash tends to make better fish pictures, even in bright light, because it freezes action and fills in shadows you may not notice in the excitement.
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Spotting fish in the water
TROUT WON’T ALWAYS COOPERATE BY RISING AND bonefish won’t always stick their fins or tails above the surface. In clear, shallow water, however, fly fishing to sighted fish is one of the most fascinating ways to catch them. Bright light and elevation always help in spotting fish. You usually can’t do much about the amount of sunlight, and when fishing from a boat you already have some elevation, but you can often get just an incremental increase in height when wading or fishing from shore by backing up a bit, staying shallower than you might normally wade.
In bright sunlight, your best approach is to look for a fish’s shadow. Fish are well camouflaged and reflect their background, but they present a solid block to sunlight and will cast a shadow that is nearly always more visible than the fish themselves. Also look for movement. Bonefish, striped bass, and redfish in shallow water are always moving, so if you are wading slowly and you think you’ve spotted a fish, stop for a moment, as it’s more difficult to perceive movement in other objects when you are moving.
If you’re fortunate, you’ll see bonefish tailing in shallow water, where they are much easier to spot.
You will probably spot just a piece of a fish first and your brain will have to fill in the rest of the fish from memory.This is why people with more experience spotting fish are always better than those with less experience, even if the novice has sharper eyesight. A bonefish guide may only see the tail or a single fin of a bonefish, but the thousands of hours he’s spent looking into the water help his brain make the connection quickly.You’ll also learn to look for the unique colors of various fish, so you can automatically eliminate objects that don’t fit into the right color scheme: bonefish are light gray/green, striped bass are gray/blue, redfish are a coppery color, brown trout are pale yellow/brown, and rainbow trout are blue/green.
Finally, polarized glasses are not just snake oil invented by a marketer. They truly remove glare from the water’s surface, and those with an amber tint also enhance contrast in shallow water. Combined with a long-brimmed hat that keeps flare away from your sunglasses, polarized glasses won’t make up for a lack of experience but they sure give you a jump start.
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How to catch trout in the summer when the water is low and clear
TROUT ARE MORE DIFFICULT TO CATCH DURING LOW, clear summer flows, but this type of water can offer the most interesting fishing of the season. Fish will be spooky. Keep your profile low and your movements slow. Stay in the shade if possible, especially if you can keep your profile close to streamside brush, where your movements will be less noticeable. Wear drab olive or even camouflage clothing—lightweight cotton shirts made for dove hunting are perfect.
Summer means water temperatures that may reach the upper avoidance level for trout because warm water holds less of the life-giving oxygen they need than colder water. Look for fish in fast riffles or boulder-lined pocket water where the water gets more oxygen exchange, or fish below small tributary streams or close to springs trickling off rocky banks. Trout will be more active in the morning than in the evening, because a trout stream is coldest just after dawn.
In the low-water conditions of summer and early fall, keep a low profile and wear drab clothing.
Unless grasshoppers are abundant, summer means tiny flies and light tippets. Most of the insects that hatch in the summer are small, and even the ants and beetles that fall into the water are seldom larger than a size 18, so stick with smaller flies and 6X or 7X tippets because not only will they look less suspicious, but tiny flies on light tippets land with less of a splash and won’t spook wary trout.You may have to scale down on your fly rod as well. That 5- or 6-weight line that worked fine in June could make too much commotion in July and August.
Low and Clear
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How to fish dry flies when nothing is rising
YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR A HATCH TO FISH WITH dry flies. Although trout won’t come to the surface under all conditions, there are certain times when you can fish a dry fly in a fishy-looking place even if you have not seen a fish rise all day. The fly pattern you use is not as critical as during a hatch, as long it is close in size and shape to something the fish eat on a regular basis. So if you see size-14 caddisflies clinging to brush along the riverbank, or if meadows surrounding a stream are full of grasshoppers, you have a pretty good idea of what fly pattern to use.
Riffled water is the best place to fish dry flies when nothing is rising.
The conditions that favor “blind fishing” a dry fly include:
Water temperatures when trout are most active, between 55 and 65 degrees.
Water less than two feet deep. Trout are reluctant to come to the surface when lying in deep water. Dry flies are deadly in small streams nearly all the time because the fish are never in deep water.
Flow of one foot per second or less, about the speed of a slow walk. Trout have a tough time coming to the surface in fast current, but don’t overlook pocket water with lots of rocks, because although the water looks fast, it holds many small eddies with slower current.
Water with a slight chop. Gentle riffles are always better than flat water for blind fishing because the fish are less selective about what they eat and don’t get as good an inspection of your fly.
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How can you get started in fly tying?
IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN TYING YOUR OWN FLIES, IT DOES require a commitment of time but little else.You don’t have to have patience. (I’ve been tying flies for forty-five years and patience is not my strong suit.) You don’t have to have tiny, nimble fingers. (The best tier of small dry flies I’ve ever known has fingers the size of bratwurst and drives an earth mover for a living.) You don’t need superb eyesight. (Get plenty of light and a pair of 4X reading glasses and you’ll do just fine.)
Begin by taking fly-tying classes if possible. Most fly shops offer them, and there is no substitute for someone looking over your shoulder as you tie. If you can’t attend a class, buy a good basic fly-tying kit, one with a detailed book or manual. Make sure all the materials in the kit are labeled, as there is nothing more frustrating than reading instructions telling you to “tie in a six-inch piece of yellow chenille” when you don’t know chenille from hackle. A good kit will include a decent vise and materials. There is nothing more frustrating than a vise that won’t hold a hook or a pair of scissors that doesn’t cut cleanly. You can also get some great help from free videos on the Web, or from basic fly-tying DVDs. If you can’t watch over someone’s shoulder, a close-up video is the next best thing.
Fly Tying Legacy
Start by tying Woolly Buggers and tie a dozen of them before moving on to something else. A Woolly Bugger teaches you many of the basic fly-tying skills—including applying a feather tail or wing, winding hackle, winding a body material, and whip finishing—in addition to the basic thread manipulation procedures. Besides, you can catch nearly any fish that swims on a Woolly Bugger, so your first efforts will begin to fill your fly box with an effective pattern.
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Can you catch trout on a fly during the winter?
IT’S LEGAL TO FISH MANY TROUT STREAMS TWELVE months a year. Thus if you get addicted to fly fishing, there is no reason to suffer withdrawal or cabin fever just because it’s January instead of June. Most of the best winter fishing is found in “tailwater” rivers or those influenced by stable releases from large dams. These rivers stay closer to optimum trout temperatures than runoff-influenced streams because most flow out of dams at about the temperature of ground water regardless of air temperature. Some of the best winter fisheries are in southern tailwaters like the Chattahoochee outside of Atlanta, the White and Red rivers in Arkansas, and the San Juan River in northern New Mexico. However, if you can wade through the snow to get to the river, all of the Rocky Mountain states have tailwater rivers with excellent winter fishing, such as the Bighorn and Madison rivers in Montana or the South Platte and Frying Pan in Colorado.
With the right tackle and a little sun to warm the water, you can catch trout even in the dead of winter.
Winter fly fishing is mostly nymph fishing and dry-fly fishing with tiny midge imitations. Few mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies hatch during the winter, but midges will hatch on warmer days, especially during heavy cloud cover. Fish eating below the surface won’t move far for a fly during the winter, either, so most of the fishing (save for the lucky circumstance of a midge hatch) is with a nymph, weight on the leader, and a strike indicator. Midge nymphs are the best flies in most rivers because midges are the only active aquatic insect.
Fish will usually be found in deeper, slower water, often in the middle of large pools. They seem to “pod up” in groups—I hesitate to use the word “school” because that implies a bunch of fish milling around in circles, while winter fish stayed glued to the bottom in most rivers. So if you catch one trout, chances are you’ll find more of them close at hand.
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A dozen fly-fishing books you should not be without
THE FOLLOWING DOZEN ARE THOSE FLY-FISHING technique reference books I would not be without. In addition, if you want if you enjoy the more literary side of fly fishing, read anything related to fly fishing by Jim Babb, Bill Barich, John Gierach, Jim Harrison, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, or Tom McGuane.
Brown, Dick. Fly Fishing for Bonefish. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 1993. Bonefishing techniques from a master, with emphasis on Florida Keys and Bahamas techniques.
Weathered In
Caucci, Al, and Bob Nastasi. Hatches II. New York : The Lyons Press, 1986. There are hundreds of books on fishing hatches, but I keep coming back to this one for solid information.
Combs, Trey. Steelhead Fly Fishing. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 1991. The bible of western steelhead fly fishers, from the sport’s colorful history to tackle, fly selection, and fly presentation.
Deck, Tom. The Orvis Fly-Casting Guide. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2003. Based on the methods used by the Orvis Fly-Fishing Schools, the oldest and most comprehensive fly-fishing schools in the world.
Humphreys, Joe. Joe Humphreys’s Trout Tactics. Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1989. Great insight on small stream fishing and nymphing by a master of fly presentation.
Kaufmann, Randall. Bonefishing with a Fly. Oregon: Frank Amato Publications, 1992. A great overview of bonefishing, with excellent diagrams and text on the life cycle of the bonefish and life on the flats.
Kreh, Lefty and Mark Sosin. Practical Fishing Knots. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 1991. Pretty much the bible on knots for fly fishing as well as conventional fishing knots.
Krieger, Mel. The Essence of Fly Casting. San Francisco: Club Pacific, 1987. A complete guide to learning to cast, improving your cast, and identifying problems, by one of the most talented and generous mentors in fly casting.
LaFontaine, Gary. Caddisflies. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 1994. Caddisflies are more important than mayflies in many rivers, and if you want to learn more about their habits, this is the bible.
Rosenbauer, Tom. Prospecting for Trout. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2000. You don’t always see hatches on a trout stream, and this book helps you understand the techniques used to catch trout when they aren’t rising.
Supinski, Matt. Steelhead Dreams. Oregon: Frank Amato Publications, 2001. Great Lakes steelhead biology and life cycles, fishing all four seasons, fly selection, playing and landing fish, and much more from one of the most experienced Great Lakes steelhead guides.
Tapply, Bill. The Orvis Pocket Guide to Fly Fishing for Bass. Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2003. Fly-rod bass fishing is not that technical, and this complete little pocket guide tells you all you need to know.
Tom Rosenbauer, The Orvis Guide to Beginning Fly Fishing
