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French-speaking Atlantic-salmon fishers in Canada's
Quebec province use a wonderful phrase, . Roughly translated this means fishing
for rocks. It describes the situation where one has
just spent several hours casting over a salmon pool
in which there are no salmon. It suits stillwaters
equally well. Regardless of the quality of your
equipment or the perfection of your technique, it's
axiomatic that you can't catch fish where there are none.
To avoid requires knowledge of
four factors: fish-holding or fish-attracting structure,
wind, available or prevalent food-forms, and temperature.
Structure, wind, and food-forms have individual chapters.
However, sad to say, even finding fish and having the right
tackle and imitative flies is no guarantee of success.
Overlooked in every book I have read, including some
otherwise excellent treatises on trout biology, is that
fish sleep. Perhaps not sleep exactly as they have no
eyelids to close, but quiescent or resting periods.
Sometimes fish take these time-outs on the bottom but
they are also known to do so suspended in a zone of
comfortable temperature and oxygen levels. At such times
they ignore all offerings. Although impossible to prove,
I believe I have witnessed such activity (or lack thereof)
on a small lake that is extremely rich in food. The
depth-finder marked a large group of untemptable
suspended rainbows, but others out on the prowl around
the lake were catchable. Were the suspended trout sleeping
off the last big meal just like you or I might do?
At least in my experience, the reverse of these quiescent
periods, otherwise known as the bite, is the most pronounced
when dealing with brook trout. Excluding the predictable
morning and evening rise, my diaries reveal that on sunny
spring days, not being on brook trout water between 10 AM
and 2 PM is a big mistake. Once this bite ends, the
stillwater will seem as bereft of trout as the Love Canal.
Water Temperature
In modern parlance, water temperature can be a non-negotiable
deal-breaker - trout will not stay where they encounter lethal
temperatures. However, while temperature effects are extremely
important they need little separate explanation. Such effects
include critical currents created by density differences
(Chapter 6, Wind and Other Currents) and when aquatic insects
hatch (Chapter 7, Food-forms). Always have a thermometer of
some description in your kit. Trout are relatively comfortable
between 40 and 72 deg F (4 - 22 deg C). Cold-water lovers like
brook and lake trout strongly prefer the lower half of the range,
whereas browns and rainbows are most active between 50 and 65 deg
F (10 - 18 deg C). When the water is generally cold at either end
of the season, look for areas with the warmest water. For example,
in the northern hemisphere, search out dark-bottomed shallows at
the northwestern end of a lake. However, excluding special
circumstances discussed elsewhere, at the start of the season
most trout species will be found frequenting deeper water as
the bulk of the food is benthic. In midsummer, when water
temperatures are high, search out cooler water. While this
may seem insultingly obvious, one must combine such generalities
with knowledge of the other three factors to be consistently
successful.
I didn't have far to look for a cogent example of these
temperature effects. In a National Park not far from my
home are two study lakes. One is shallow and thus productive
of aquatic critters; the other deep enough to develop a
thermocline but with a limited littoral zone. The two are
connected by a short section of narrows. In the cooler
seasons brook trout feed regularly in the first, however,
when its water temperature exceeds their comfort zone they
retreat to the second.
Air Temperature
Air temperature influences wind effects, however I know
from bitter experience that it impacts angler comfort far
more than trout location. Also, I didn't include the general
term weather or its surrogate, barometric pressure history,
in my four factors for three reasons: first because one of
its components, wind, is discussed separately; second,
because while settled weather stimulates the entire
stillwater community, knowledge of a fluctuating barometer
only tells us that fishing will probably be tough, not where
the few feeders will be found; and third, because, like air
temperature, the general weather may influence your location
more than that of the fish. Regardless, in terms of ease of
locating and catching trout, a mild, overcast day with a light
wind is in my experience unbeatable (the occasional light shower
often perks up the topside action), most especially if these
conditions have persisted for several days.
Birds
Birds are often the angler's best friend, be it at sea or
above an inland stillwater. Particularly on rich lakes,
flocks of swallows working hard are an almost sure sign
of a chironomid or other hatch. However, don't necessarily
head for the first flock you see. On prolific waters like
Chew Valley Reservoir, in the Bristol area of southwest
England, the birds may be concentrated in perhaps a dozen
areas of the lake simultaneously. Chironomids hatch from
a variety of depths and it's better to fish in relatively
shallow bays rather than over the deeps. On a blustery May
day we bypassed the fifty swallows swooping over the middle
of the lake and headed for a cove near the top of the reservoir
with its own quota of birds. A superior decision as short drifts
produced several weighty rainbows for both our boat and the
half-dozen others who also made the trek.
Other feathered friends include ducks. If they are working
the shoreline reeds, stretching up to pick off insects, it's
a tip-off that something is (or was not long ago) migrating
shoreward to hatch. Obviously a visit to the reeds is in order
to find out what's happening. Also, gulls or terns will feed
on a heavy mayfly hatch. So if you see an active-looking flock
on the water, check out the area.
Records
Each time one finds fish in a stillwater, the odds of future
success there improve. At least they do if you remember what
you learned. Trusting this valuable information to memory is
risky. When we fish as a team in competition everyone has a
map of the water. During the practice and competition days
the maps are updated with where, how, and on what every trout
was caught; then we hope for stable conditions. Writing this
much detail on a map is clearly impractical over the long haul;
better just to write a date code keyed to your diary. Moreover,
our competition map is a short-term project; those taking a
longer view will also want to record weather and water
temperature data. Once upon a time on large and medium
stillwaters, one needed to take bearings to pinpoint a
location or drift. Today's solution is an inexpensive GPS.
Unless badly memory-challenged, recording position in a
notebook while on the water is sufficient to recall the
events of a single session when making a diary entry a
few hours later. At least for me, maps and GPS readings
are overkill for ponds and small lakes - my diary entries
suffice. ~ PCM
Credits: This article is an excerpt from Canadian
author Paul C. Marriner's Stillwater Fly Fishing, Tools & Tactics,
published by Gale's End Press, Mahone Bay, NS, Canada.
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