The Orvis Guide to Beginning Fly Fishing Page 7

  Many fish break the tippet because of poor knots. When you break off a fish, carefully examine the part that returns to you: a curlicue in the end of the tippet means the knot used to tie on the fly was not tightened properly, and a missing tippet with a pigtail in the end of the leader means your tippet-to-leader knot was defective. If your tippet comes back with a clean break in the middle of it, you may have gotten a “wind knot” in the middle of it, an overhand knot that gets tied in your leader, usually due not to the wind but to poor casting technique. We call them wind knots to make ourselves feel better. Inspect your tippet often for these little overhand knots and replace your tippet if you see them, because plain overhand knots cut the strength of your tippet in half.

  To hook and hold large fish like this brown trout, the most important thing you can do is tie knots properly.

  Sometimes the tippet material you’ve chosen is too light for the fly and rod you’re using. Tying a 6X tippet to a size 6 streamer gives you problems because the fine tippet just won’t knot well against the much bigger diameter wire used on a size 6 streamer hook. And an 8-weight rod has so much mass and backbone compared to a 4-weight trout rod that you might break a 6X tippet when striking fish no matter how careful you are.

  PART V

  Flies

  45

  Should you use barbless hooks? Why do they come barbed?

  BARBLESS HOOKS ARE TERRIFIC FOR MANY REASONS. IF you hook yourself or another angler they slip out of your shirt or your anatomy without further damage. When you hook a fish with a barbless hook, backing it out of a fish’s tough jawbone with a pair of forceps or pliers is almost effortless, which allows you to release a fish without even touching it, and will save you flies because many flies are lost at the last moment when trying to work a barbed hook free—the tippet breaks and away swims your fly. Fish caught on barbless hooks seldom work free as you expect they might, and because a barb presents some resistance to penetration, a barbless hook actually penetrates better than a barbed one.

  Barbs are found on most fly hooks mainly because of tradition—not much has changed in hook design in the past fifty years, and some anglers still feel (needlessly) insecure without a barb on the hook. But don’t worry; it’s easy to remove the barb on any hook. With a pair of finenose pliers or forceps with flat jaws, crimp the barb flat.You can leave a small hump on the hook to act as a mini-barb if it makes you feel more comfortable, or you can flatten the barb all the way.

  It’s easy to make any fly barbless. Just crimp the barb flat with a pair of smoothjawed forceps or small pliers.

  46

  How do you know what size fly to use?

  WHETHER YOU’RE FISHING FOR TROUT OR TUNA, FLY SIZE is more important than color or pattern.When fish get selective about what they eat, the most obvious clue to the fraudulent nature of your fly will be that it’s much bigger or much smaller than what they’re eating. Shape is sometimes almost as important, but most experienced fly fishers feel that color is a distant third. Flies come in a wide range of sizes and you often have to experiment with different sizes before finding the right fly, but here are some tried-and-true guidelines.

  If you observe fish eating an insect or baitfish, try to capture a sample and place it alongside your fly. Minnows in the water and insects in the air often look far bigger than their true size.

  If you have to guess at the correct size, err on the smaller side. Fish are less suspicious of a fly that is smaller than what they are eating than one that is bigger. Common sense suggests that they’d want the bigger mouthful but empirical evidence suggests the opposite.

  If you don’t see fish eating anything, look in the water. Look for baitfish and crustaceans in lakes and saltwater estuaries, or turn over a few rocks in a stream and look for aquatic nymphs. (Even if you’ll be fishing dry flies, the insects will be hatching from nymphs of about the same size.) Pick a fly that is the same size as the most abundant prey you see.

  When fishing for big trout, bass, pike, or other species that ambush their food, try a small fly, something between one and two inches long, first. If that fails, try something twice as big. The same holds true when fishing for migratory species like salmon or steelhead that feed infrequently or not at all.

  The Rusty Spinner is a great dry fly, but you’ll need an assortment of sizes to match the natural insects you see.

  47

  How to keep a dry fly floating

  IF YOU WANT TO DO THE BEST JOB OF KEEPING YOUR DRY fly floating high, resign yourself to carrying two different kinds of fly dressing. Initially, you’ll want to treat your flies with some kind of waterproofing—the best is the liquid kind you apply the night before, because it really penetrates the fly with silicone and the coating lasts longer. But most of us never know what fly we’ll be using the next day, or just can’t be bothered thinking that far ahead.

  At streamside, you should first apply a standard fly floatant. It comes in a paste version that you rub into a fly or a liquid potion for dipping or spraying. All work well, but you should apply these dressings to a dry dry fly, in other words, one that has not touched the water yet. Otherwise they don’t coat the fly very well. Once a fly gets wet, or if you catch a fish and the fly is covered with fish slime, reapplying a standard floatant doesn’t work well. That’s the time to introduce your second type of floatant, a dry white powder made from ground silicates and other compounds. This second type actually draws water and slime out of a fly and applies a fine coating of water-repellent powder to the fly. If you’ve forgotten this second type of floatant, the next best thing to rejuvenate a drowned fly is to squeeze it into a cotton shirt or handkerchief—not as high-tech and not quite as effective, but it will do in a pinch.

  A couple of short, crisp false casts, of course, always help to flick moisture off your fly. And if all else fails, use a fly made from closed-cell foam. They’ll float all day without a speck of fly dressing.

  A bottle of white desiccant powder is your best friend when fishing dry flies.

  48

  How to pick flies out in a shop

  ALL FLIES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL, EVEN THE SAME pattern in the same bin in a fly shop. Flies are still made by hand, one at a time, and since you’ll be paying upward of two bucks for each one it’s worthwhile to be picky when selecting them. The first thing to look for is symmetry. Nearly everything fish eat has bilateral symmetry and a fly that is lumpy on one side does not look natural to the fish. And a streamer fly or saltwater fly that is not symmetrical will not swim properly in the water and may even put twists in your tippet.

  Next, look at the eye of the hook. It should be free of material or cement; otherwise you’ll have trouble tying it on once you hit the water. Heads on flies should be neat and shiny, showing that enough head cement or epoxy has been used to seal the final wraps of fly-tying thread. On streamers, bass flies, and saltwater flies, yank on the wing and tails of the fly. If they pull out you obviously don’t want that fly.Also hope that the fly shop owner does not have a “you break it, you buy it” philosophy (I’ve never met one that does). Hackles on dry flies should be uniform, stiff, and shiny. If the hackles on a fly are of uneven length or if they look dull, the fly will not float well.

  For flies made out of deer hair or other bulky materials, or those made with dumbbell eyes like Clouser Minnows, the biggest test of a superior fly is to grab the fly by the bend of the hook and twist the fly. A perfectly tied fly will not twist around the hook shank, but one that does will fall apart easily and will also twist during casting, putting the fly off balance and almost certainly turning off the fish.

  When picking out flies in a shop, look for symmetry, which indicates a well-tied fly.

  49

  How to sharpen a hook

  FLY-TYING HOOKS ARE MADE FROM GOOD STEEL AND ARE coated to resist rust, but they still rust if put away wet, and delicate hook points can get out of alignment like the blade on a knife. Check your point often, especially when fishing around rocks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve missed several fish in a row, blaming the fish or my reflexes until I happened to check the point of my hook and found it was bent. The best way to check a hook point is to drag it across your thumbnail—if it sticks or scratches, the point is fine, but if the point just slides across the nail, you’ll miss the next big fish that strikes.

  A diamond file works best for bigger hooks and saltwater flies, while a fine diamond file, Arkansas whetstone, or fine ceramic will put a fine point on a small trout fly. Begin on the bottom of the hook point, stroking the fly against the sharpening surface, with the point angling just slightly into the stone. Next take a couple of licks against each side of the point. Test the hook on your nail and if it doesn’t stick, repeat the process.

  A good hook sharpener is cheap and fits easily in your pocket or tackle bag. It can save you hundreds of dollars a year in rescued flies, but I’d be willing to bet not one in five anglers carries a hook hone when fishing.

  This rusty hook won’t penetrate very well, but a few strokes with a hook hone against the point will get it back into shape.

  50

  How to thread a fly if you have poor eyesight

  WHEN YOU HIT THE MAGIC AGE OF FORTY IT’S ALMOST preordained that the eyes of flies seem to get smaller. And even young eyes have trouble threading a 7X tippet to a size 22 in failing light. Sooner or later you’ll need some optical assistance, and the keys to keeping your sanity are light and magnification. Anyone who plans to fish later than 6:00 p.m. should always carry a headlamp or similar tiny flashlight that can be secured to a pocket or hat to direct light in front of you while keeping your hands free. If you somehow find yourself in fading light without a flashlight, try holding the fly up against the light of the sky.

  But magnification is the real key for older eyes, and you’ll probably find that those 1.5X bifocal adjustments you have on your regular glasses just don’t cut it for tying on a small fly, even in bright sunlight. For fly fishing, you really need 3X or 4X magnifiers, and although these powers are not easily found in drugstore readers, fly shops sell many different styles. One is a loupe device that clips to eyeglasses, making you look like Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes, but it gets the job done. Another clips to the brim of a hat and flips down when you need it. If you choose to wear a more conventional style of reading glasses, make sure you have them attached to a lanyard around your neck or you’ll donate several to the stream bottom before you wise up.

  These three are all young guides and don’t need close-up glasses to tie on the last fly of the day. You may not be as lucky.

  Another tip is to make sure that the end of the tippet you are trying to thread is cut straight and clean.An end that is not cut with sharp snips is duller and wider, and a curled tippet is much harder to thread than a straight one. If repeated tries to thread a fly fail, it helps to run the point of another hook inside the eye of the fly in case there is something blocking the eye. (Many fly fishers’ snips also incorporate a small needle just for this purpose.)

  Finally, if you’re into gadgets, there are many clever products designed to help thread a fly. Most work very well and it’s just a matter of finding one that you’re comfortable with. Try to test drive a couple at your local fly shop before buying.

  51

  Should you wear a fishing vest or an alternative?

  SOONER OR LATER YOU’LL NEED A PLACE TO CARRY YOUR fly boxes, extra reel spools, fly floatants, strike indicators, flashlight, lunch, raincoat, water bottles, and all the other paraphernalia that fly fishers accumulate. The traditional way to carry all that stuff is a fishing vest, and although when filled up they are sometimes constricting, vests work well enough if you don’t plan on hiking up and down canyon walls. However, more active fly fishers favor alternatives to vests. One is a waist pack, which is fine for small streams and wading shallow saltwater flats, but not much use when wading deep. A chest pack is a stripped-down version of a vest and typically has more storage in the back, which keeps out of the way gear to which you don’t need frequent access. Some chest packs incorporate full backpacks, so if you’re hiking a long way and don’t want to wear your waders on the trail you can stow them until you reach the water. One of the best alternatives for the minimalist is a sling pack that you can swivel in front to grab a fly box, then push back out of the way while fishing.

  Not only is a chest pack less bulky than a vest when wading, it’s also easier to use on a boat.

  PART VI

  Trout

  52

  Do you have to match a hatch to catch trout?

  UNLIKE HUMANS, TROUT DO NOT LIKE VARIETY IN THEIR diets. Feeding exposes them to predators, and eating something novel that may or may not provide useful calories could be a waste of energy. So they eat what is safe, which means familiar or abundant prey. Of course they do experiment or they’d never find a new source of food, but if a recognizable morsel is available they’ll invariably choose it.

  So when a particular species of insect is hatching in great numbers, trout may pay attention only to something that is similar in size, shape, and color, ignoring everything else. In that case you will do best trying to match the hatch. However, during the course of most days trout feed on a number of species of insects, crustaceans, and baitfish, and in that case they’ll strike a wide variety of flies as long as the flies are within a range of what they’ve eaten recently. For example, several weeks after a killing frost has retired all the grasshoppers for the season, I’ve been able to tempt trout with a grasshopper imitation. From my experience I’ve found that trout keep the memory of a prey item as “safe” for about three weeks.

  Sometimes there may be several insects hatching at the same time and trout may be picking off all of them. In that case, chances are if you fish a fly that looks at least close to one of the bugs you see on the water and your presentation is realistic, you’ll do okay. So unless trout are feeding heavily and there appears to be only one insect present, you may not have to worry about matching the hatch.

  There are times when your fly has to be close to the natural as this Sparkle Dun is to the natural mayfly. But many times it’s not as critical, especially when a number of different insects are on the water.

  53

  Do you need to change the way you fish for different trout species?

  THERE’S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION THAT BROWN trout are more likely to feed on the surface than other species of trout, but I have never found that to be true. All the common species of trout—brook, brown, rainbow, and cutthroat—feed on the surface enthusiastically when hatching insects are abundant or when land insects like ants or grasshoppers fall into the water. However, brown trout larger than sixteen inches are far more likely to eat bigger prey like minnows and crayfish, and are more likely to become nocturnal feeders than the other species.A very large brown trout may only feed on insect hatches once a month, lying low in tangled roots or submerged rocks, ambushing a big piece of meat only a few times each week, most likely after dark.

  Rainbow trout often delight us because they are more efficient than any other species in converting food energy to body weight, and thus are more likely to feed all day long, sampling every likely tidbit that floats by. Rainbows will suspend in fast water and snack even when insect hatches are sparse, while brown trout may only respond to an insect hatch when food is truly abundant—thus the old saw that rainbow trout “like” fast water more than other species. They don’t like it better; they’re just able to feed efficiently in water that would exhaust other species.

  Brook and cutthroat trout are often considered “dumber” that browns and rainbows because they appear to be easier to fool. Both of these species originated in ecosystems that are not as rich in food as the coastal streams that rainbows evolved in, or the rich European lakes and meadow streams where the introduced brown trout originally came from. So the flies originally used for these species were bright and gaudy. But a big cutthroat in a rich tailwater or a brook trout in a productive spring creek can be every bit as “smart” and selective as a brown trout, and will ignore gaudy flies.

  The character of a river and its food supply are far more important than what species are present in determining what fishing techniques you should employ. However, over the years I have found a few maxims that seem to hold true:

  Rainbow trout will inhabit faster water than brown, brooks, or cutthroats.

  Brook trout are more sensitive than other species to high water temperatures; thus, when river temperatures get above 65 degrees Fahrenheit they will be found close to springs or in headwater streams where the water stays colder.

  Big cutthroat trout take a dry fly very slowly, and if you’re used to fishing for other species you may pull the fly away from them if you don’t slow down on your strike.

  Brown trout are very deliberate when taking a fly, and if you “miss” one, chances are it refused your fly at the last moment.

  Brown trout are more likely to feed heavily between dusk and dawn than other species.

  Brown trout, especially big ones, are more likely to take a streamer fly than other species.

  Rainbow trout often feed in “pods,” so if you catch one chances are good that more are nearby.