Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Fly Fishing Secrets For Catching Fish

Know your quarry and understand how to catch or hunt it....seems simply enough.....so casting a fly to a trophy fish should be just as simple, right ?  Well, it can be if you understand your quarry.    The cast gets the fly (usually into the water).  But technique takes over as soon as the cast has completed its task. This series of fly fishing secrets includes tips and techniques to improve your fly fishing & catching experience.

7 Lb. doe rainbow trout.  Simple technique of keeping the fly in the correct depth of the water column (note strike indicator withing a few feet of the fly) where the fish are hanging out  and even eating.
Brown Trout Habitat

Sweet Trophy Buck Brown Trout taken during the day time in heavy cover.


Water column is one of the most important considerations in fly fishing...Browns sit in deep dark pools and feed heavily at night or under tree branches and downed trees full of snaps...Big brown trout is one of the toughest trout species to catch due to their nature of night feeding and lying in tangles that eat up flies faster than you can tie, or for that matter buy them.

Brook Trout Like Heavy Cover With Close Access To Food

Brook Ttout like to hide in undercuts of the bank, in shade behind bolders anywhere but in direct sunlight (too easy for birds of prey to spot from the air and scoop down for a quick bite).  Brooks can be coaxed out from the undercuts as well as from behind the boulders just about anytime of the day.  

Tiger Trout Like  It Both Ways

Big Buck Tiger Trout in full spawning colorss taken on a fall day.


A cross between a male brown trout & female brook takes on the traits of the heavy cover nature of the brown but also have the day time preditor instincts of the brook trout.  Plus they are big and fun to catch.  Even though they are sterile, they do develop as either a male or female....in other words the hormones are active (thats why they take on spawning traits) but no reproductive organs to complete the spawning process.  But they do through a complete "false spawn".

Rainbow Trout, Water Column Is The Key To Success

Summer Buck Rainbow (scales by berkley are lip gripper, they do not have a point, do not break the jaw but hold the trout by it's own weight.....my trout are always safely released)


The water surface is the top of the column and the river, creek, lake bed is the bottom of the column.  Rainbows are known as a "mid column" fish. They like deep water mostly below them ( no deeper than 20', food shortage any deeper).  They usually stay close to the surface but have the ability to dive, dive, dive to avoid danger.  For this simple reason Rainbows are the love of the Mountain angler ....pretty easy to catch....sometimes !

 Now we understand the basic nature of these species we will address the seasonal diet and what your trophies are looking for.....Proper fly selection is my next article.



Don't forget your camera !