Non-fishing

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

The fishing regulations for Idaho define fishing, among other things, and list things that are illegal when on and about places where fish may be.

Playing tag, as I have called it a number of times in the past, is not fishing and is not illegal as those terms and conditions are listed in the Idaho fishing regs. I did discuss this method of enjoying time on the water several years ago with the fellow who is presently the director of Idaho Fish and Game. He did not disagree with me that playing tag as I described it would not require one to hold a fishing license in Idaho.

Yesterday I “played tag” on a northern Idaho freestone creek ( not saying whether I presently hold an Idaho license or not ) and had a really unusual experience. Several times, three or four, I had three fishies hit a hookless FEB Salmonfly on a single cast. A fish would hit it, I would pull the fly away, another fish would hit it, I would pull it away again, and a third fish would hit it.

On another four or five casts, I had two fishies hit the fly before I fully retrieved it for another cast.

On a bunch of other casts over the course of about 45 minutes, I had an additional fifteen or so fishies hit the fly.

Talk about fast and furious action on a 30-40 yard stretch of water. No way to actually hook, “fight”, land and release that many fishies in that short a time.

John

The fish are always right - even when playing tag.

2

I don’t know if I’d want to argue with a warden about your game of “tag”. He/she might take a different view of the game.

3

Two points to consider.

First, if possible in your particular jurisdiction, it would be well to seek out the “warden” or other regulation enforcement person and discuss the regulations for the place you are fishing before you start “non-fishing” aka playing tag.

Second, I do carry and would encourage others to carry copies of the local regulations to discuss with any “warden” or other regulation enforcement person to demonstrate a good faith effort to do the right thing.

In a “by the way” - in 2016 during a road trip to British Columbia, I visited with a long time local fishing guide tucked away in the backcountry out of Fernie. In the course of conversation, he volunteered, brought up out of the clear blue, that using flies without hooks could be done in B. C. without a license, which at that time was, and probably still is, very expensive. Can’t say that that is still the way things are done up there, but if it is you can have a lot of fun playing tag and avoid the license fees.

John

The fish are always right.

4

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john betts used to “play tag” with double eyed hooks

5

I fished with a guide on the White River who had a lady fisherwoman come and book a couple of days with him every year and she fished with flies that had the hook cut off a short distance behind the barb. She was happy to feel or see the take and set the hook, feel the fish, then give a professional long distance release. I also have given many fish a “LDR” but not on purpose.

6

For a good number of years I’ve been using the long distance release technique of cutting off the hook just behind the barb, as did the lady fisherwoman referred to in your post, Vic. With that technique it is possible to occasionally land a fish, but that is most unlikely. Most fish come free at some distance, but those that don’t almost always come off when they get to your feet ( or knees, if wading ). I think that has to do with how the hook leverages free when you get the fish close in. Maybe something else ??

For playing tag, I cut off the hook just as it starts to bend down at the end of the shank. Occasionally a fish holds on to the hookless fly for a matter of seconds, but only once have I actually landed a fish with a hookless fly, and that was when the shank became lodged in the fish’s jaws, top to bottom.

John

The fish are always right.

7

Norm, I can’t figure out how one would use the eye at the curved end of hook to tie a fly or how one would fish a fly using that eye to tie the fly to the leader / tippet ??

Using the eye at the straight end of the shank would result in a fly with a hook without the sharp barb, and would probably result in the same thing as cutting the fly off just behind the barb, as described in the above reply to Vic’s comments. This would be quite different than “playing tag” as I practice it and have tried to describe it above.

John

Thr fish are always right.

8

John Betts, the renowned fly tier and angling scholar, not only thought of the question before I did, he thought of the answer. Disturbed by the small but inevitable percentage of trout injured while being released, Betts began to fish with flies from which the hook bends had been cut. Trout would rise to these hookless flies three, four, even half a dozen times.
Damage to the fish was zero, but Betts was disappointed. “Missing was the adrenaline surge that came from the anticipation, take, and initial runs and jumps,” he wrote in American Angler, a journal devoted to flyfishing and fly-tying. Still needing some connection with the fish, albeit brief, Betts started to tie “tag” hooks, standing for “touch and go.” They have a ringed eye at both ends. The business end can’t penetrate the fish’s mouth but will hold the fish long enough for the angler to feel it on the end of his or her line, see it jump, maybe even get a run or two out of it.
“My need to touch whatever I’ve caught,” Betts reflected, “originated in lessons learned millions of years ago for reasons other than sport. Touching is one of the last vestiges of our past and may now seem our only way to keep in contact with it. It also provides a sense of validity for ourselves at the moment and later, when we tell others about what we’ve done. My need to touch is now tempered by the realization that resources are limited and that what I touch is becomingly increasingly scarce.”

9

I don’t know what kinds of trouts Betts was fishing for, but when I fished in South East Idaho most of the time it was for browns and rainbows, and it was not uncommon to have one them guys hit a fly on consecutive casts. I had the habit of always immediately casting back to a rising fish that missed the fly, and it was not unusual to hook up that fish on the second or third cast.

My experience in Northern Idaho is very different. About the only kind of fish in the places I fish are west slope cutthroat trout. These fishies, at least where I fish, virtually never come back for a second look or hit after missing the first one. Just to clarify my original post - when I mentioned moving the fly after a first hit by one fish or a second hit by a second fish, I was moving the fly 6-8-10 feet at a time, not just inching it away from the first fish. And the second or third fish to hit the fly on a single cast hit it quite quickly after the fly stopped moving.

Everyone has their own reasons for fishing and how they go about it. I’m in it for the hunt, and hunting with fly patterns that I have designed based on my observations regarding the natural food available to the trout in the streams and rivers I fish. I’ve been way past a want or need to play fish, land fish, and touch fish for quite some time now. Just being out there, enjoying the acts of casting and controlling the drift, and seeing a trout hit a fly that I designed are all I need or want.

John

The fish are always right.

10

John, I recall a time , as a novice fly fisher, on the Owens River in Eastern California. I tied on a fly and cast it into a likely spot. I got a few hits but nothing stuck. Several casts and several hit and miss later, I checked the fly. The hook was broken off at the bend. I don’t know how I missed it. I guess I was being taught to play “TAG” with the fishies. Jim

11

We often do that with the bass in some of the farm ponds around here with top-water. Interesting getting one to grab 5 times and watching the take go from normal to “damn, I missed it and here it comes AGAIN so now I’m gonna STOMP it and KILL it for sure” on the third pass to “ehhh, I don’t think so, but we’ll just touch it this time to be sure” on the fifth pass by him. Or her?
…lee s.

12

Beyond the fishing license question, there are other reasons to “play tag” with hookless flies. I encountered one situation yesterday on a northern Idaho freestone creek that illustrates one such benefit.

For a good number of years, there was one spot that was easily accessible and provided really productive fishing with two different sets of conditions - one was out in midstream with a lot of mixed currents that really challenged controlling a drag free drift of any length, and one was a bankside slot about 30 yards long of some depth and very slow current.

Well, several years ago there were a couple really large forest fires on or near the banks of this creek. With spring runoff after a couple near record winter snowpacks, a lot of burned timber found its way into the creek, and piled up into significant log piles at heights up to max streamflow levels.

At the spot I non-fished yesterday, the timber pile has completely eliminated access to the only place one used to be able to fish the midstream section of the river, and made the approach to the quiet, deep water slot rather dangerous, unless you are a spry young person who relishes the idea of falling 8-10 feet off an unstable log pile into some deep and cold early runoff water.

So yesterday, risking life and limb ( not really ), I carefully balanced on the log pile to non-fish a small section of the bankside slot. With heavy tree cover behind me, I could only cover maybe twenty feet up stream and ten to fifteen feet out from the bank. Using a regular fly with a hook, catching some branch or stick on the back cast would have resulted in a lost fly, and catching a fish would have necessitated lifting it ten feet plus over the creek’s surface and then tossing it back in from that height.

So I non-fished, best I could, a place that was not at all fishing friendly, with my hookless FEB Salmonfly - and had six fishies hit the fly in a matter of minutes, like maybe ten or less.

Just fishing that spot for a short period of time brought back memories of some really challenging situations and really rewarding fishing results in the years before the major forest fires changed the access, probably for many years to come.

Long live non-fishing, aka playing tag, for a variety of reasons.

John

The fish are always right.