Selecting The Best Fly

You stumble your way down a dirt path careful not to trip over exposed roots. You can hear the water below but the stream is not yet visible. When you found this spot e-scouting you had no idea what sort of conditions this trickle of water had cut over the eons of its flow but as you break the trees you can see a promising riffle with some exposed boulders forming perfect eddies. You computer couldn’t have painted this picture in ones and zeros. Only Mother Nature and Father Time hold such brushes. 

The assundry of flies most anglers have on their person at any given time is staggering. Just as in the world of mechanics or carpentry there is the correct tool for the job. Just like tools flies come in styles, patterns, and sizes. You, in time, will have “Go-to’s” and other flies that never see the water. There will be specific patterns for specific stretches of river or bodies of water. What always works is matching the hatch. This leads to the right tool for the right job. 

The saying, ‘if all you have is a hammer then everything is a nail’, is true in fishing as well. If you open your fly box convinced you’ll be fishing a dry fly such as an Adam’s, you’ll never catch the trout that could be sucking in Stone Flies near the bottom. 

By most opinions, the most fish are caught subsurface on a Nymph. Nymphing isn’t as fun as fishing a Dry or a Streamer, until they don’t produce and a Nymph does. When walking down the trail to the water, if you looked at my rod you would normally see a Nymph with an Indicator on my line. I will wait to see the water conditions to add shot if needed. I start with a Nymph because of its ability to cover water and that I believe Nymphs produce the most fish. Some of my favorite Nymphs are a Zebra Midge, Hare’s Ear, Bead Head Pheasant Tail, and a Stone Fly. Flip over some rocks and you’ll see nymphs clinging to them or in the area they just were. Find the fly you have that most closely imitates that size, shape and color.

Dry Flies shine a bit later in the season for the most part. If I know there is a hatch happening I will have a dry tied on to start. Remember hatches happen under certain time and weather conditions, so if you can base fishing times around them you will have a good reason to tie on a dry fly. I will also immediately use a dry fly if I have witnessed even one fish come to take a fly or any other insect off the surface. When you witness any sort of the dry fly triggers, again take note of the hatch or what the fish seem to be taking from the surface. Imitate that with your fly. If you look in my dry box you’d see a lot of sizes of a few flies. I use a lot of Parachute Adams, Blue Wing Olive, and my favorite Elk Hair Caddis. The latter will catch fish when stripped across a riffle like no other fly I have ever seen. Catching fish on a dry is a lot of fun so I take every opportunity to do so. 

I tied these Zebra Midges, this is a great general purpose fly and it’s one of the few I tie on to start the trip.

Streamers are the fly that go against my general rule of thumb in fly fishing: less is more. With Dry Flies and Nymphs I start small and then move up in size. When throwing a Streamer I start with a hardy size bait and then move smaller if need be. Because I am targeting fish feeding on minnows, worms, and leeches, with Streamers I will often throw a big size like #4 or #2 so that the meal seems substantial. When fishing pools with Prime Lies I will often have a streamer tied on. I want a big fly to get deep down near the bottom, to catch those big trout that love that sort of area. If the water is known to have Brown Trout I will also throw a Streamer before anything else as Browns are known to be veracious carnivores. Woolie Booger, Egg Sucking Leeches, Freshwater Clousers, Jig Buggers, and Muddler Minows make up the majority of my Streamer selection. Many anglers would argue the Woolie Booger is the most versatile fly that has ever been tied- I would have a tough time arguing otherwise. You can weight with shot or get some sink tip line to maximize your Streamer fishing abilities. Your fly box is incomplete without a fair number of Streamers. 

If you pick up a fly fishing magazine you will see the pages littered with photographs of fly boxes in the hand of the anglers and guides. The boxes will have a gratuitous number of flies and imitations bursting out of them. Some guides would sink if they fell in the water due to the weight of their fly boxes. This is fun, but not needed. If you want to be an effective fly angler, simply follow a list like this, fill your box with multiple sizes of a few select flies and go catch fish. Less is more and size matters more than color. No two bugs are exactly alike in nature, but if they are born of the same hatch they will vary less in physical size and shape than in hue. Hopefully this just saved you a few bucks and a lot of time and aggravation. 

Reading Water and Finding Fish

When you first looked at a river and the idea of learning to fly fish came to you, you were reading water. You were looking at the water and picturing your back cast coming forward and landing upstream of that friction-rounded boulder. You knew not that you had made a judgement of where a fish should be, just that it seemed right. 

When I think of reading water I do it like this. If I lived in a place where there were cheeseburgers flying through the air in a unidirectional manner where would I stand? That would change as my mood and level of interest changed. If I were hungry I would stand in one spot, if I were not I would stand in a different area altogether. Welcome to the world of reading a river. 

Tout will be in a lie. Lie is a fancy word for a spot. There are feeding lies, holding lies, shelter lies, and prime lies. Trout spend the most time in holding lies. These are breaks in current that offer some protection from predators where the fish can rest. Feeding lies are areas where a fish might be able to sit and grab a bunch of passing morsels that may get pinched down into a concentrated area. Shelter Lies seem obvious by the name, these lies are used to protect the fish from predators. They are normally used only if the fish is forced to abandon its holding or feeding lie. If a steady stream of food is added to a Shelter lie it is classified as a Prime Lie. 

Go to a river and look at it and picture yourself under the surface, where would you go if you wanted one of those cheeseburgers flying past?

Let’s add hydrodynamics into the mix, imagine the cheeseburgers have to follow the way water goes around objects. Now you can picture what the fish have going. Behind certain objects will be an eddy or a still spot in the water. Think of an eddy as a “free space”- the fish get food within reach and a good bit of break from the current. An eddy will make a greater or less than shape on the backside of the object. Whether it is greater or less is dependent on the direction of water flow. 

There are pools, deep open places in the water. Pools can have big boulders but normally a consistent hard bottom. Pools normally tail out into some sort of riffle. Riffles are generally not too deep- one to four feet with lots of smaller stones on the bottom. Riffles can quickly turn into runs as they get a bit deeper and wider. 

Essentially from here all the rest of the water on the river is referred to as flats. Flats generally don’t hold fish. A river can also make pools in its bends because the water is forced to turn so it digs that section deeper over time and so don’t mistake those for flats. Anywhere that looks “too fast” for a fish to swim probably is not a great spot, but just outside of that is. 

Remember you won't always want cheeseburgers. Other times you want two or three. My advice is try and look for the place that looks like the cheeseburgers would be the easiest to grab and cast to that first. Those will be the easiest fish to catch. Then continue on using the grabbing a cheeseburger method to break down the water. The hardest place to grab a cheeseburger often holds the biggest fish, but you decide what in your day of fishing will make you happiest. 

Fly Casting 101

Casting A Fly Rod 

As you lift your rod tip towards the clouds your line starts its progression of breaking water tension inch by inch. From low tip and total contact to a tip high waiting to feel the line splay out behind you. The rod will “load” as the line is parallel to the water, then with the back cast seemingly pulling at the very fly you want to place at distance in front of you, the forward stroke begins. If this half has gone perfectly the forward cast is all but done. Push the tip forward with a slightly stiff arm and break your wrist over as you feel the weight of the line pull in front of you. When done correctly, with timing and line control, your fly will land like a milkweed seed as it finds a final destination. When any part of this goes awry, chances are you’ll end up with a pile of neon line and tippet with a fly tangled in somewhere all in a ball in front of you. 

The how to cast a fly is basic in its simplest form. This is what we are about to cover. There are, for all intents and purposes, two casts that you need to know. One is the Overhead Cast and the other is the Roll Cast. There are many other casts but these two will get you through most of the situations you may encounter fly fishing. To practice these, the best way is to try and do them in an open place with still water, like a pond with not a lot of trees or cover around it. Lay the Line out on the water. Water tension on the fly line makes the rod easier to “load” which leads to less false casting. 

The Overhead Cast is explained as the basic cast everyone pictures. Assuming the rod is in your right hand pull line off of the reel with your left hand. Grip the rod on the handle with your fingers around the grip and your thumb pointed down the “spine” of the rod. As you bring the rod back behind you your line will follow the motion. You are casting the line not the fly. For a novice angler look at your rod tip. You should stop your “backcast” when your arm is at 90 degrees and your rod tip just past that. When you’re in this position watch for your line to straighten all the way out behind you. When this happens you should feel the total weight of the line in the rod. Understanding feeling this “load” will come with practice. When you want the line to go farther in front you have to repeat this process multiple times without the line touching the water again, pulling more line off the reel and feeding it up with your left hand gradually. That left hand will pull the line down as you back cast and feed line forward as you cast forward. When you are satisfied that there is enough line out to equal the distance you want your fly to go, only then do you break your arm over all the way pointing your thumb at the intended landing zone all while loosening your grip on the line with the left hand. Where your thumb points is where the fly should go. This process is slower than you would expect. The amount of your arm that should move is often explained as this: pretend there is a book gripped under your arm between the inside of your bicep/tricep and your ribs. Now perform a backcast and forward cast and do not drop the book. 

Big fish, flies and water is where the overhead cast shines. All of these conditions were present for this Steelhead.

The Roll Cast is arguably the most useful and underrated cast in fly fishing- master this cast. With the line in front of you on the water, lift your rod tip up towards the sky. As you do this motion the fly line will begin to make a bow or loop heading behind you. When the fly line crosses behind the vertical rod and makes a D with the straight part of the D being your rod and the line making up the curved part impart the same forward stroke you would during the overhead cast. The line will follow the loop and lay out in a straight presentation. It is a very simple cast but can be used in a lot of situations.

So that was the “How,” so now is the “Why”. You would use an Overhead cast for any sort of casting presentation that is at a distance greater than say twenty feet. This is the basic fly fishing cast. When you first pictured yourself fly fishing this is the cast you picture yourself doing. We used this to target cover, beaks or eddies. This cast is often used to present big flies like Streamers and very small flies like tiny Dry Flies because in either case putting yourself at a greater distance from the fish is beneficial. When in doubt you can most likely use an overhand cast to drop the fly where you want it. 

Small flies, small streams and precision are what the roll cast is all about. Like these size 16 Zebra Midges the author tied.

The Roll Cast is to fly fishing as the putter is to golf. Precise, accurate and repeatable. The Roll Cast is used to present Nymphs or Emergers quite a bit. It can be used very effectively at sub-twenty foot distances. Small streams can be picked apart with roll casts from one position. This form of casting is also great for repeating drifts. Remember that often when a trout is in a “Feeding Lie” if that fish moves, generally another will move into that same spot. So if you catch fish number one, number two might be a rinse and repeat away. Roll Casts are also very helpful when there are a lot of overhanging branches and the like around you. This cast happens almost entirely in front of the angler. 

Take your rod to some still water and give these a try. Once you feel like you get it right as much as you do it wrong, go find the streams in your area. Even we still end up with a ball of neon and tippet with a fly buried in there somewhere. 

The end goal of a lot of my fly fishing adventures. I enjoy taking a few home for the pan.