Troutbitten

This episode is about wading a river. Good wading. Better wading. Confident wading. Because, for a river angler, nothing is more important. Good wading is not just walking from place to place, it's an almost constant, fluid motion, and fly fishing requires great footwork along the way.

I meet a lot of anglers who approach a river all wrong. They wade into a spot, set up, and then cast to every piece of water they can reach (at all angles) before picking up and wading again to repeat the process. But this is rarely the best approach.

Consider the variables: There’s a distance at which you are most accurate. There’s a light angle that is most advantageous. There’s a certain water type where trout are feeding more agreeably. So the best river anglers move, almost constantly, setting themselves up to best approach the next great piece of water.

As wading anglers, we must wade efficiently. It’s that simple. And good wading skills change the game like nothing else. When you are comfortable and confident in the water — when you can easily move to the other side just because the light angles are better, the river opens up in a whole new way.

The Troutbitten guys join me to walk through some of our best wading tips.

We Cover the Following

• Should anglers move while casting?
• Why does good wading make such a difference?
• Wading, not walking
• Constant motion
• Reading the water
• Body positioning
• Polarized lenses for good wading
• The best boots for wading
• Boot studs and traction
• The right wading staff setup
• . . . and more.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | It's Wading, Not Walking
READ: Troutbitten | We Wade
READ: Troutbitten | Tips for Better Wading and More Trout
READ: Troutbitten | VIDEO - The Only Way to Carry a Wading Staff

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What can we do when the rains come, when the snow melts, or when the floodgates open?

Rivers rise in many different ways. From quick and heavy summer thunderstorms, to the steady light rain that remains for days at a time. There’s the gradual release of melting snowpack and then heavy rains on that same snow that pushes high volumes of cold water into the rivers. Then too, there’s the generation of hydroelectric dams where the river might triple in flow, on a schedule.

In all of these ways, rivers rise. And the responses from trout can be different in each case. Yet, as anglers, there are some things about our approach to high water situations that always hold true.

Muddy water is miserable. But to us, dirty water is an invitation into some of our favorite tactics on a fly rod.

These conditions are an opportunity. Because a changing river system offers trout new opportunities. It breaks trout from their routines and can have them feeding fast. However, as anglers who are approaching high water conditions, we need to assess those changes and see the river anew.

High water can be a wonderful time to be out there. At flood stage? Or in the near-zero visibility of muddy water? Probably not. But there’s a wide range of conditions that exist between what most anglers see as perfect and then . . . blown out. And for many of us, we’d rather fish on the high side of things than the low side.

We Cover the Following

• What is muddy and what is dirty?
• Do trout feed more in high water?
• How does high water help the angler?
• How can we avoid high water?
• When is high water too high?
• How do we change tactics to approach high water?
• Is it better on the way up or the way down?
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Dirty Water -- Tight Targets
READ: Troutbitten | River and Rain
READ: Troutbitten | A List of Fisherman's Excuses
READ: Troutbitten | Fish It Anyway

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We have a fun conversation for this episode, about what’s more difficult — nymphs or dry flies. This is not a talk about which tactic is better. And this discussion isn’t even about which one we might like more.

What is more difficult? Nymphs or dries? This is a valuable exercise and an important discussion . . .

Just because nymphing might usually produce more trout, doesn’t mean it is easier. And how many trout we catch on each style is not the point. Try getting true, convincing dead drifts on a nymph. It is, quite simply, harder to achieve than a dry fly, because you can’t see success on the invisible flies underneath, and because the complexity of currents is far more intricate in three dimensions.

But many people just don’t take it that far with nymphing. They think their drifts are good enough, because they caught a few fish (maybe more than they did on dries.) But excellent nymphing requires excellent effort. And a lot more trout can be caught by acknowledging that kind of difficulty. The ceiling is high. And realizing that is the value of this discussion.

We Cover the Following

• The confusing boundaries of this conversation
• Why anglers are protective of what they like best
• How that holds an angler back
• Tight line complexities
• Dry fly complexities
• Where bias comes from
• A few streamer thoughts
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | The Nymph Angler is Sustainable
READ: Troutbitten | The George Harvey Leader Design
READ: Troutbitten | That's Not a Dead Drift
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Find Your Rabbit Hole

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This is the second episode of our two part discussion on angler pressure. Last time, we talked about how fishing pressure affects the fish — how they respond to more fishermen placing more casts and drifts in the waters around them — how trout change, both short term and long term.

And now, we’re building on those thoughts and offering some solutions. Because if trout are adapting their habits in response to us, then we must modify our own approach to stay one step ahead of the fish.

I used that phrase in the last podcast a couple of times too. And it’s a good way to think about it. Our fishing is based on fooling a trout. What are they looking to eat? How can we attract them to a fly and then convince them to eat it, right? And while you might have the methods and flies necessary to fool your local trout right now, it might not work just a few years from now. Because trout and the rivers they live in are always changing. So our approach must keep changing too. It’s just another aspect of trout fishing that makes it all so wonderfully complicated.

It’s also why we like to fish for wild trout . . .

We Cover the Following

• Water selection
• Finding fresh fish
• Wild vs Stocked response to angler pressure
• How long until a trout resets from angler pressure
• Genetically passing on the effects of angler pressure
• Presentations, convinced or curious?
• Patterns, natural or attractive?
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Front Ended -- Can We Stop Doing This to Each Other?
READ: Troutbitten | Natural vs Attractive Presentations
READ: Troutbitten | Why Everyone Fishes the Same Water and What to Do About It
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Rude On the River -- Front Ended and the Golden Rule

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Season 7 of the Troutbitten Podcast begins with a two-part discussion on angler pressure. This is a big one. It’s a topic that everyone in the fishing world loves to talk about. People complain about angler pressure, and they have theories about how it changes things.

In this episode, we discuss how angler pressure affects the fish. And for the next episode, the topic will be how angler pressure affects the fishing. One topic sets up a good conversation of the other.

Angler pressure probably isn’t going to trend the other way. For most of us, more casts are made to the waters we fish, by more anglers than ever before. Because there are more fishermen, just as there are more runners, golfers and bikers. Every sport these days has better access to information about techniques, about where and when to go, and there’s specialized gear that is easily available and fun to buy.

We Cover the Following

• Trout selectivity
• Feeding patterns
• Migration
• Growth rates
• Trout conditioning
• Grouping up or spreading out
• Mortality rates
• . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Front Ended -- Can We Stop Doing This to Each Other?
READ: Troutbitten | Natural vs Attractive Presentations
READ: Troutbitten | Why Everyone Fishes the Same Water and What to Do About It
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Rude On the River -- Front Ended and the Golden Rule

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Troutbitten is about the pursuit of fishing tactics. It’s about discovering new techniques and improving our skills. We don’t want to hope something will happen out there. We try to make it happen. And that element of fly fishing, where there’s always something new to try, is what is so attractive to those of us who dedicate much of our lives to the river.

But there’s another side to this love of pursuing trout. And I once wrote it down in an article this way:

"There are two sides to every fisherman: one that simply enjoys being on the water (hoping to catch a fish), and the other that desperately wants to know how to put more fish in the net. These two parts find an internal balance inside every long-term angler that I know."

Among the nearly one-thousand articles published on Troutbitten, I strive to reflect this balance. The Stories category of the website carries the heart and soul of this project. And if I were limited to writing stories or tactical pieces only, I would no doubt hold on to the stories. I love this kind of writing.

This episode is a reading of a story that I first published on February 23, 2022, titled, Fish It Anyway . . .


Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Fish It Anyway
READ: Troutbitten | Category | Stories


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Season Seven will begin on April 10th. But in between seasons, I want to catch you up on a few things that are going on with Troutbitten.

Just a few years ago, Troutbitten was the website only. I wrote and published articles three times a week. Now it’s a multi-media company with many branches — there’s the podcast, the videos, the online shop, hosted events and, of course, the guide business.

Here's what's going on in the Troutbitten world . . .

Resources

VIDEO: Troutbitten | Mono Rigs and Euro Leaders -- Micro Thin or Standard?
SHOP: Troutbitten | The Troutbitten Shop
PODCASTS: Troutbitten | Podcast Home

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Here we are at the end of Season 6 -- the Troutbitten Winter Skills Series. This is episode 8 of the series, and I’m here with a full crew of friends to wrap things up, to hear some stories and dig into a few more tips for fly fishing in the winter months.

This is a great conversation with my best fishing friends. And this discussion is a nice endcap on a full season dedicated to fly fishing in the winter months.

We Cover the Following

• More streamer tips
• Rigging
• Access issues
• Winter preparation
• More nymphing tips
• Dry fly expectations
• This winter vs other winters
•  . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Fly Fishing in the Winter
READ: Troutbitten | Winter Fly Fishing -- Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing in the Winter -- Ice In the Guides
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing in the Winter -- Something Is Always Gonna Hurt


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My good friend, Austin Dando, joins me to address many of the troubles with winter fishing. In this Winter Skills Series, we’ve been through the tactics, with dry flies, streamers and nymphs. We've talked about how to stay warm out there, and we’ve saved this topic for last.

There are a host of reasons that anglers stay home in the winter. Some are legitimate -- there's no good solution for the problem, and you learn to deal with it the best you can. We talk about some of those. But other perceived problems really aren’t much of any issue at all, if you have a plan and a solution. We address a few of those too.

We Cover the Following

• Ice in the guides
• Access
• Visibility
• Regulating heat
• Falling in
• Freezing reels
• Finding trout
• Staying versatile
•  . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Fly Fishing in the Winter
READ: Troutbitten | Winter Fly Fishing -- Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing in the Winter -- Ice In the Guides
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing in the Winter -- Something Is Always Gonna Hurt

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With this Troutbitten skills series on winter fishing. We’ve covered locations and expectations, where to find trout, and their wintertime habits. We did two full podcasts on staying warm from head to toe. We talked about fishing nymphs in these waters, streamers in these waters, and now we’re ready to talk about dry flies.

Specifically, this conversation is dedicated to what is different or unique about fishing dry flies in the winter, versus other times of the year.

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great conversation about the floaters. This is a fun one.

We Cover the Following

• Where to find rising trout
• Regional and geographical variations
• Expected hatches
• Spring waters, tailwaters, freestoners
• Water types for small flies
• Hatches and patterns to match
• Why local knowledge is supreme
• The dead drift is everything
• Presentation specifics
• Leader adjustments
• Fishing two dries
• Fishing dry dropper in the winter
•  . . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Fly Fishing in the Winter
READ: Troutbitten | The George Harvey Leader Design
READ: Troutbitten | Category | Dry Fly Fishing
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Hatches and Strategies, S3 Ep3
READ: Troutbitten | That's Not a Dead Drift

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