Technique 'centric'?

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

How many of us decide BEFORE we get to the water, how we are going to fish?

There are lots of methods that are successful for catching trout from moving water. Do you concentrate on what you know ‘works’ in your waters, or do you try new things?

Is it the ‘correct’ thing to wait until you get on the stream and then ‘decide’ or ‘figure out’ what the ‘most productive’ method will be? Or do you ‘care’?

Do you fish the same way, your ‘favorite’ method, all the time because it’s what you enjoy?

Do you read about or hear about a ‘method’ or ‘technique’ and think ‘I want to learn to catch fish that way’, and then go do that?

Do you decide that today, I’ll fish only dries, because I need work on that skill?

How may of us ‘only’ fish upstream? Anyone only fish ‘down’?

Do you consdier it a measure of your angling ability to have at your command reasonable skill at many different ‘tehniques’.

Do you think it’s commendable to be very good at catching trout in only one specific way? Say an ‘expert’ nymph fisherman, or an especially skilled dry fly artist?

Are you ever intrigued by ‘new’ methods? Does learning the ‘Czech nymphing’ technique interest you? Does using ‘new’ techniques increase your enjoyment of the sport?

Have you ever tied or purchased a ‘new to you’ fly and promised yourself that you would ‘learn’ to catch fish with it?

Would you rather catch all the fish that you ‘can’ using methods well known to you, or would catching just a few with a ‘new’ technique be more rewarding?

Is ‘figuring out’ what ‘works’ on a given day something that gives you pleasure? Meeting and overcoming the ‘challenge’ of fooling the fish that day?

Are you someone that would prefer to fish a given ‘method’, and take fish ‘only’ in that fashion, knowing that sometimes it won’t be ‘the’ method for that day?

Do you find that you fish a certain way on one piece of water, and an altogether different way on another?

We are all different in what we want, what we expect from a fishing day, and how we define a ‘good day’.

How do you think that ‘how’ you fish, when you decide ‘how’ you fish, and how many ways you ‘do’ fish relate to how well you fish and how skilled of an angler you perceive yourself to be?

Just curious about your thoughts on all of this.

Buddy

Viva la ‘quotes’, RZs my hero.

2

I usually have a good idea what will work when I leave the house to fish local waters. I put several flies in an empty electrical tape box in a top front pocket and just fish those if I’m right. The other couple hundred flies I carry are for when I’m wrong. Uncooperative fish have left me with a very full fly patch and empty boxes after trying everything short of dynamite.

3

Buddy,

That was incredible!

I will reread that several times …and probably not respond to any one of those…other than to say…I want to experience it all :roll:

4

Hi Buddy,
As a for instance; If I’m going to fish the St. Joe in Idaho, I’ll take EHC, Adams, and Red Humpies, all in sizes 12-16. I’ll fish them up-stream and dead drift them in seams and behind rocks. I’ll swing them on the downstream end and slow strip them back in. If that doesn’t work, that’s when I start scratching my bald spot. I know if I put on a sink tip and and fish a wooly bugger through the holes, I’ll hook up with a pike minnow for sure. If I ask Jeff what he’s catching all his fish on, he’ll tell me “Oh, kind of an Adams looking thing.” I’m a creature of habit. Some good, some bad.

5

Lotta questions there Buddy…
If I’m headed to a stream that I know well, I pretty much know what to expect. I might have even chosen that stream because I might want to fish a certin hatch, or at another spot maybe lazily swing wet flies.
A local river that I often fish is a caddis stream. You might see some BWOs or even green drakes, but to fish anything other than a caddis emerger is pretty much a waste of time.
One local river has a fantastic Hendrickson hatch. Later in the season I’ll hit another local stream that has a good sulfur hatch. Still later in the season I like another spot that has a good hatch of tricos.
If I’m at an unfamiliar location normally I’ll put on a non discript wet fly fish it both up stream as a nymph or down stream on a swing, always looking for any excuse to put on a dry.

6

Yes yes yes yes no no no yes no yes no yes yes no yes yes/no yes yes, no. Whew! (Some are maybe’s whereas a few are I don’t really knows.)

7

It all depends on my mood at that time.

My answer to most all of those questions are sometimes.

It keeps things interesting by mixing them up. I love to fish but I can get quickly bored by it.

A a good day to me is one where I learn something new and come back home safely.

As far as being a skilled angler is concerned. I think a skilled angler can go to any body of water any day and catch a fish any way he wants to (legally I should say), wether it is right season, wrong season, the way of the day or not, fly gear or regular gear. I know it can be done and so it gives me a goal to accomplish.

I apparantly have a long way to go to become a skilled angler.[/i]

8

Buddy, Do you ever sleep? or do you THINK all day? :lol:

  1. I decide BEFORE I get to familiar water, HOW I’m going to start fishing.

  2. I fish my favorite method and only adjust if I have to.

  3. I fish upstream and downstream. It took a few yrs to get confident about fishing upstream. Fishing upstream is logical, but your casting better be on.

  4. I consider it a measure of my ability if I can do ONE method well.

  5. I think it is commendable to be very good at ONE method, but not if I was a Guide.

  6. I am intrigued by new methods but I stick to learning ON THE JOB with a Guide.

  7. I have many times purchased a NEW pattern. Whether the NEW pattern makes it into my stash is a question mark. If the new pattern succeeds in catching fish then I will try and copy it.

8.It gives me pleasure when PLAN A works.
I will try PLAN B also.
PLAN C isn’t likely.

9.To me ALL waters require different plans.

  1. My GOOD DAY is good weather, good hatches, good fish catching and it all adds up to relaxation, which is the ULTIMATE day.

  2. I believe it is MY responsibility to accumulate MAX INFO on any water I’m going to fish. This entails research by websites, feedback, Guides suggestions and my own logs. (FAOL)

  3. I also am a advocate of repetitive fishing. Go to the same water, yr after yr. I believe it relaxes me more and helps me make calmer decisions.
    Doug :smiley:

9

CONTINUED
13. I want to say the fishing has been split from Dry flyfishing rivers TO learning to float tube stillwater. Fishing stillwater has opened up another world of fishing for me, but it wasn’t easy.
Doug :smiley:

10

Doug,

I think all day. Sometimes can’t sleep, due to the deep thought crowding my cranium (man was THAT a load of cr…)

I’m an artist. I spend my day sitting on my backside making stuff out of glass. Much of it requires only my hands, not my mind (once you make the first fifty thousand flying pigs, the rest come pretty naturally), which tends to wander a bit.

Thus you guys get to sometimes see the convoluted concoctions that an unoccupied mind comes up with.

Thanks for the responses, there is a ‘reason’ I’m curious about all of this.

Buddy

11

I always go fishing with an Open Mind and adapt to the conditions whatever they are.

New techniques get my attention and I will try some of them for the fun of it and enjoy it when it all comes together.

But Mostly I fish “The Dry” and have Fun. Jax

12

There is a book entitled Please Understand Me by Keirsey and Bates that is one of many similar dealing with human personality. There are many different human personality types and each would answer your questions differently. I think how a person approaches all aspects of fly fishing is linked to how they approach most things in life. Some people when going to a new place, just go and take what comes. Others would study all aspects of the adventure until they had all bases thououghly covered. Which one of these is correct (and there are many more and all shades between) depends on which window you are looking out of. There is no correct way - only the way that you like best. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

13

Just to stir the pot (and these are general answers, not directed at anyone in particular)…

Me, usually. I generally know what ought to work well on the water I am fishing. If not, I know what should work well under similar conditions. Why start from scratch every time? I am occasionally wrong, but not usually.

I tend to stick with the techniques that have proven successful for me. I long ago gave up trying new things just to try new things. New is not necessarily better, IMO.

?Correct? has no place in the language of flyfishing, IMO. But if the conditions are drastically different than I was expecting, I have been known to reconsider my approach. Or go home.

I use many methods. I fish using the methods that I think will be the most productive, whatever they may be. I enjoy catching fish, not flailing the water not catching fish because I refuse to use the fly that worked yesterday.

I haven?t read about a technique or a fly or a method in years. I learned 90% of this on my own, and feel that I earned my skills, rather than had them given to me by paying for lessons, or from book learning. I do thank those who passed on tips, tho.

No. I could certainly improve some of my skills, but I don?t need to improve them all that fast. I will fish dries when I want to fish dries, because the fish are eating dries. And so on.

Not me, in either case. I put the fly in front of the fish, with whatever method works well in that situation. Artificially restricting my possible presentations seems silly to me.

Yes. I hope I have learned something in the past 30 years.

Calling yourself an ?expert? is a definite turn-off for me. I would much rather be able to fish many techniques effectively than be the best in the world at any particular one. I cannot consider someone to be a competent angler unless they can utilize more than one technique. I know guys who can hammer fish on one water, but can’t catch one to save themselves if they go somewhere else. Or figure out what to do if the hatch doesn’t come off…

No. I am not sure I know what you mean by learning to catch fish with a new fly, though. Just because it is a different fly, I should have to learn how to fish with it?? This ain’t rocket science.

I don?t have to catch every fish in the river, and there are times when I was happy to catch, say, the one fish that was rising in the pool. But I don?t have any desire to pat myself on the back for catching a few fish in some ?new? way. I generally prefer to catch more fish rather than fewer.

I ?figure out? what works every single day I fish. Each pool, each presentation. Sometimes I carry over the figuring out from the day before, or the same time last year? IMO fish are stupid, any anyone who takes pride in overcoming them in an intellectual contest is not someone to whom I would give sharp and pointy things.

Nope. I do what it takes to catch fish. See line above about artificial restrictions.

Yes. Some techniques work some places while others do not. Thinking one technique is the most effective way to catch fish EVERYWHERE is folly. A corollary to that is thinking one technique is “better” or more “proper” than another is arrogant.

I agree. To each his or her own. And don?t try to impose anyone else?s standards on me. I am not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to do it, just how I think of things.

I consider myself skilled because I can catch fish most of the time in most places, and using a variety of techniques. No one can always catch a lot of fish. If they tell you that, they are full of it. I also think that considering yourself a better angler than another because of HOW you fish is arrogant. You want to be a snob, fine, but stay away from me.

DG

I never claimed I could type, by the way.

14

I use the following method:

LOITIND = MF/WP

where

LOTID = Length of Trip in Days

MF = Months Fantasizing (visualizing the big hook jawed brown coming up to a BWO)

WP = Weeks Planning (researching hatch charts, tying lifecycles and developing a rock solid plan that can’t possibly fail.)

Then on the drive home, I kick myself for not checking spider webs, kicking over a few rocks, and paying closer attention to what was actually happening on the stream.

Feel free to use.

peregrines