Three teas for Trout - Part 1

[JohnScott]

I originally wrote this last spring for the weekly edition and submitted it, but it was rejected. Hate to see it go to waste, so I'll post it here. Just another way to organize your approach to fishing for trout in moving water.

Well, best I know, trouts don?t drink tea. But for the fly angler, the three teas are fundamental to good results on the water. Since I fish moving water here in the Intermountain West, my references are to that experience. But I think the teas have universal application.

First, the teas, then some ideas about how to prepare them.

Timing - fish where they is, not where they ain?t.

Tackle - feed them off their menu, not yours.

Technique - serve them from a silver platter, not a TV tray.

Trouts prefer certain kinds of water within a stream system. Duh. Which accounts for a widely stated and apparently accepted fact that 10% of the water holds 90% of the fish. Understanding what kind of water they prefer and when they prefer it is the first priority of a fly angler on moving water. It is absolutely essential to successfully fishing new water the first time you are on it.

My first best and hardest lesson in this regard fortunately came very early in my fly angling experience. I had fished the Warm River above Warm River Springs in SE Idaho several times before I started catching fish with some regularity, and increasing frequency. I was starting to feel pretty good about things, catching maybe ten little rainbow and brook trouts over the course of several hours each time out. Along comes an acquaintance one day, on his way out just as I was getting started. ?How did you do?? I asked. ?About 25 in the last two hours or so.? He replied.

Guess I hadn?t been fishing where they was, but spending my time where they wasn?t. Realizing the potential of that little creek was a big step in figuring out what I was doing wrong, or at least not doing right. It took a while, but I did catch on. David Hughes? book ?Reading the Water? was a big help in that regard.


(continued)

[JohnScott]

Sometimes I think trout will eat anything that looks alive, is smaller than they are, and is slow enough for them to catch. What trout actually eat, when you think of it in terms of the flies that can be used to hook them, really is amazing. Especially given the comparatively small number of life forms available to them as food in the waters they occupy.

Personally, my experience is pretty limited. I have only run into ?selective? trout on occasion, and I don?t believe I have ever run across those Ph.D. trout some people refer to. I?ve been on water that supposedly holds Ph.D. trouts but I guess I was too dumb to realize that?s what they were. I mean, I just fed them like the other trouts I?ve caught and they ate that stuff. Didn?t take an improved this or a special that to get them ? just a fly that looked and acted like what they regularly eat.

For the longest time, or so it seems, I relied on flies that I saw in books, read about on websites, or heard about from other anglers. Well, I still use some of those flies some of the time. Several years ago I was fishing on the Big Lost River, the tailwater below Mackay Reservoir in Idaho?s Central Mountains. Trouts rising regularly. I put one, two, three book learned and expert recommended flies in front of a whole passel of those trouts and they didn?t want to eat any of them. So I waded out into the middle of where they were feeding and started scooping their food items out of the creek with an aquarium net. Went home, tied up some of those little critters, went back and caught a bunch of the local trouts with those flies. Turned out the fly has worked just about everywhere I have fished it. Thread on a hook. It can be just that easy. Or harder, if you need to make it so.

Using an aquarium net or seine or turning over rocks in the creek or catching and closely observing bugs around the creek you are on are the real keys to feeding fish off their menu. And it can be a lot of fun, when you are dressed appropriately for the task. A decent waterproof camera to take good quality close-up pictures of what you find can be a real asset. Coming up with your own s.e.d.g.e. ( simple, effective, durable, good enough ) flies based on your own observation of what?s on the fishies? menu is very satisfying.

Among fly anglers, a lot is made of casting. Properly so. Or not. Casting is not the silver bullet, and not the silver platter, for catching trouts in moving water. Technique, which I would call presentation, but presentation doesn?t start with a tea, is more about what the fly does after it lands on the water than while it is being cast to the water.

You?re on water known to hold bunches of fish, you?ve got a boxful of flies known to regularly entice those fishies to bite a hook and hold on, you?ve cast beautifully to good holding water ?. and you ain?t caught a thing. Presentation is about good technique in the area of line control.

Probably of all the things you can learn from others and by reading about fly angling and successfully chasing trouts, line control isn?t one of them. It is one thing you can only learn by doing, and doing, and doing. Just so many changing conditions even in a short stretch of water to deal with. Until line control techniques become second nature, fly angling will mostly be a conscious effort to catch fish rather than the in-the-moment experience that accomplished fly anglers have every time out. Or a lot of the time, anyway.

And sometimes no matter how well you have prepared your tea, you have to drink the kool-aid. When things just aren?t working, when you have been properly presenting good flies to good lies and you are getting skunked, sometimes the best thing to do is just turn around. Go from an up and across dead drift presentation of a dry fly to a down and across wet fly swing with the same fly. Could be the technique that saves your outing. The very last fish I caught on the South Fork of the Snake before I moved to Montana was a beautiful cutthroat trout that took a Harrop?s Henry?s Fork Caddis fished on a down and across swing after that fly had been fished dry unsuccessfully to several trout in the same riffle moments earlier. Go figure.

There is one other fundamental to successful fly angling. The fish are always right. If they are there and you aren?t catching them, it ain?t their fault and it ain?t their problem. They are telling you what?s wrong with the tea you chose. Listen to them.

John

[WarrenP]

John,

I really enjoyed your article and "how true" it is. Thanks so much for sharing it plus I want to thank you again for sharing your PSC. The PSC is a "go to" for me and has never let me down.

Thanks

[jimsnarocks]

John, I enjoyed your article. Thank you. Jim

[JohnScott]

John,

I really enjoyed your article and "how true" it is. Thanks so much for sharing it plus I want to thank you again for sharing your PSC. The PSC is a "go to" for me and has never let me down.

Thanks

Warren -

As pointed out in the FOTW article, the PSC was basically a result of my lack of fly tying skills at the time. However, it is a really good example of a Simple, Efffective, Durable Good Enough fly that has proven a real winner for lots of folks.

John

P.S. Thanks back to you and Jim for the appreciative comments.

Interestingly, for whatever reasons this article wasn't accepted for a weekly edition last spring, there was an article in one of the national fly fishing magazines ( think it was Fly Fisherman ) that followed almost the identical format and covered the same concepts. Better written and a more comprehensive treatment of the subject matter by one writer I really respect - David Hughes.

[lastchance]

Very true. Thanks, John.

[crook33]

Hey, i almost missed this !

Thanks John, "sedge" works for your article as well.

Rich

[herefishy]

Great article, I will file the 3 t's with my few other pieces of sage wisdom.

[Cliff955]

Thanks for the great article John!

Cliff

[JohnScott]

... a couple weeks ago, and for several weeks before that, this stretch of water was completely iced over. Above it were patches of open water, but there was serious anchor ice in most places. Today, after a few days of warm weather ...



... this guy was the second fish hooked and first one landed out of that spot ...



... out of a dozen plus hooked and seven or so in hand.

This spot, several hundred yards upstream, was also all but completely frozen over and studded with anchor ice for some time ...



... and today gave up this guy ...



... and two more nice fishies, including another 17" bow.

In between the above two spots, was a riffle that slowed just a bit ( not nearly so slow as the ice that choked it a couple weeks ago ) and had an extra foot of depth and gave up four more trouts today, three mid-teen" bows and a smaller brown.

On a quarter mile of recently all but completely frozen water, between shelf ice, anchor ice, and surface ice cover, I hooked over 20 resident trouts ( one brown, a half dozen plus cutts, and well over a dozen bows ) and landed around fourteen.

John

P.S. Did I mention that getting the fly down was, on and off, rather difficult because of all the slush ice in the creek ??

Note - a similar version of this post was posted on another thread. In case it looks familiar.