Troutbitten

We spend a lot of time thinking about tactics and working on techniques. We devote our energies toward finding fly patterns, tying up our confidence flies and testing new flies. We research new waters and explore unfinished sections in familiar waters. We spend a lot of time doing fishy things. This is a life on the water.

The guys and I have been talking a lot about reading water. It’s one of the biggest deficiencies we see while guiding — just choosing the right piece of a river for your next cast. It's about understanding what water should receive the most attention and what water gets gets a pass.

As an angler, reading the water really comes down to understanding what a trout needs. We read water for depth, speed and structure, in reference to what a trout prefers. And when we talk about reading water, we’re thinking about it all from an angler’s perspective. If you’re kayaking down a river for recreation, then how you read water will be pretty different.

Everyone can pick out hydraulics and learn to read current seams. Those are the elementary building blocks of reading trout water. Then we take that knowledge and combine it with what a trout needs. And we eventually have a truly specific, knowledgeable approach to reading a river. Day to day, across the world, wherever trout live in rivers, creeks and streams, their needs are the same.

My friends, Matt Grobe, Bill Dell, Dr. Trevor Smith and Austin Dando join me for a great discussion.

Resources

VIDEO: Troutbitten | Reading Water in Levels, Lanes and Seams
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Reading Water, and Cherry Picking vs Full Coverage S1, Ep6
READ: Troutbitten | Reading Water - Finding the Invisible Potholes

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Here's  a topic that starts with an interesting question: What puts more trout in the net? Is it knowing your water or knowing your tactics?

Of course, the easy answer is . . . both. Refine your skills and learn your rivers. Then put all of that together, and you have a great formula, not only for catching trout but for having a lot of fun.

The truth is, as frequent anglers we’re always involved in improving. It goes way beyond filling the fly box with new patterns. We know our deficiencies, and we’re working to fix them. We also know you can only really tackle one thing at a time. So if you’re out there fishing, or maybe even on the way to your next fishing trip, what are you working on? Really, what will put more fish in the net? Is it better to focus on the tactics and techniques, or is it better to learn the river itself? Basically, that means reading water better and finding fish.

So we’re looking forward to this discussion. It’s a good concept, and we all have some opinions.

My friends, Matt Grobe, Bill Dell and Austin Dando join me for a great discussion.

Resources

PODCAST: Troutbitten | How Woodsmanship Catches Fish - S11, Ep6
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Reading Water in Levels, Lanes and Seams
READ: Troutbitten | Read Trout Water
READ: Troutbitten | Fish Familiar Waters

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Here are twelve tips for delivering a fly into waters that are heavily canopied, with greedy branches, ready to grab your fly and make life difficult. The best small stream fishing happens in these places. We call it brush fishing.

Learning to cast a fly on small streams forces an angler into proper form. There is no forgiveness, and every error comes with consequences.

But the reward is there. Small streams demand real accuracy. We learn to punch the fly under limbs and around tree stumps. And we learn to finish the cast with intentional placement of the leader, most often with slack, sometimes laying the line over a log, rock or gravel bar.

Small stream trout are often forgiving, but the environments are not. The brush demands our full attention and excellent form.

Here's the VIDEO version of this podcast:
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Riverside -- Twelve Small Stream Fly Casting Tips

Here's the ARTICLE:

READ: Troutbitten | Twelve Small Stream Fly Casting Tips

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Across the country, there are rivers, creeks and streams stocked by the state,  often referred to as put and take (they put trout in, you take them out). And especially early in the season, opportunities for stocked trout can be a solid choice. Other places stock fish under catch and release regs or delayed harvest. Also, some rivers, for various reasons, cannot support wild trout populations and they are entirely reliant on hatchery trout. In other places, it’s a mix of wild and stocked.

Troutbitten has always been primarily focused on fishing for wild trout. Because most anglers would more often choose a wild or natural experience over a manufactured one. So I use the word, experience, because not only are stocked fish produced or raised in a hatchery, once they’re in the river, the experience of fishing for stockies is usually pretty different than fishing for wild trout. And that . . . is what we want to talk about in this conversation.

In other podcasts, we’ve already talked a lot about the value differences between wild vs stocked trout. We’ve gone through the hierarchy of river trout, as we put it.

So upon that foundation, in continuation of those discussions, let’s talk about how our approach changes when the trout are stocked and not wild. Let’s think about water selection, patterns, strategies, and the other things that make fishing for stocked trout more successful. What changes and what is different compared to targeting wild trout?

My friends, Matt Grobe, Bill Dell and Trevor Smith, join me for a great discussion.

Resources

PODCAST: Troutbitten | Wild vs Stocked - The Hierarchy of River Trout
READ: Troutbitten | When Fishing For Stocked Trout, It May Not Pay to Be Ambitious
READ: Troutbitten | Natural vs Attractive Presentations - Convinced or Curious

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What's your favorite fly rod? This most frequently asked question now has its answer in the Troutbitten Riverside Series. Riverside is a place for sharing and presenting stories and articles from the Troutbitten website. And one of the most popular articles at Troutbitten has been about the qualities to look for in a rod well suited for the Mono Rig.

This past winter, I wrote the manuscript for my upcoming book, Fly Fishing the Mono Rig. And I adapted the fly rod article into a full chapter for the book. And as I was finishing that chapter, I knew I wanted to present this as a Riverside video.

Here it is . . .

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | The Best Fly Rods for the Mono Rig, Tight Line and Euro Nymphing — My Favorite Rods

VIDEO: Troutbitten | RIVERSIDE: The Best Fly Rods for the Mono Rig

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This season has been all about options for moving the streamer. Our focus has been on the animations available to attract and then sell the trout on the streamer presentation. In this season finale, we talk about river scenarios and share some tips and strategies that help tie all of the previous episodes together.

We discuss the following:

• How different fly designs suggest fishing them different ways
• Should all streamers have flash?
• How to adapt to big rivers
• Discipline in approach and following through
• Are trout attracted by randomness in the presentation or turned off by it?
• How to adapt when we know big trout are in the area
• Does matching the baitfish type matter?
• Blending presentation styles
• How to convert trout that won't commit

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great discussion.

Thanks to everyone out there who supports the Troutbitten Project. Your enthusiasm for this endeavor and your kindness are always appreciated.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamers
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Cross Current Strip
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations - Quick of Smooth
READ: Troutbitten | Cover Water, Catch Trout

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The tight line dance is another collection of movements to the streamer loosely grouped together into a system or framework for covering many water types and gaining reactions from the trout. It's all about taking the advantages of a tight line, Mono Rig system to the streamer game and using contact to control every aspect of the streamer's course through the river.

We use a visible streamer for the tight line dance. We watch the streamer dip and swoon around rocks, tree parts and the river bank. Wherever there's good structure, that's the next target. The concept of the tight line dance allows us to hold the streamer around structure for longer, animating the streamer in every way imaginable to convince the trout.

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great discussion.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamers
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Tight Line Dance
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations - The Super Pause

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With episode seven of this Troutbitten Skills Series, we’ve finally come to the point where we’ve covered all the different ways to move a streamer and give it some animation. Now it’s time to put all of that together.

This whole series has been about what motions might sell the presentation. Because how we move the streamer fools the next trout. And there’s such a wealth of options that it can be very helpful to break things down into individual parts.

So we talked about jerk strips, glides, slides, speed leads, lane changes, jigs and head flips. We’ve talked a lot about the position or orientation of the fly in the water. Is it drifting with the current, crossing currents or swinging against them? Is the streamer near the surface or is it deep? And within all these animations, are we moving the fly quick or smooth, and are the motions long or short?

Now, for the last three episodes of this streamer presentations skills series, we’re ready to talk about putting a group of these animations into a system, a mindset, or a framework for fishing your streamer.

In this episode, we introduce the concept of the Crossover Technique, which is all about getting the streamer low in the strike zone and then animating it within a narrow range, being careful not to move the fly out of the strike zone or move it too far. It’s a really fun presentation style, if you can get your brain around the small, often minor animations necessary. The Crossover is also extremely effective, and it results in a much lower refusal percentage than most streamer tactics.

So, we can go out and choose only to swing flies or to strip them cross current — or to slow slide, jerk strip or jig. The point is, each of the presentations we talked about in the previous episodes stands alone as a great way to show the streamer to a trout.

But we also like to spend time combining these presentations — because it’s fun. Because fishing streamers like this is a creative, fluid process of working with what the river gives you and adapting to new situations, moment after moment.

So the real trick with something like the Crossover is to be disciplined enough to stay within your framework while also using your creativity.

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great discussion.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamers
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Crossover Technique
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Fish and Film -- Crossover Shifts
READ: Troutbitten | How Big of an Ask?

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Speed leads happen mostly in one lane, and they go faster than their parent current. Lane changes are exactly what they sound like — the fly is traveling in one lane, and then we deliberately bring the fly over to a nearby lane and travel down that one.

The speed lead is a term coined by our friend, Josh Stewart. Way back in 2017, I published a few articles about low-riding streamer presentations, with streamers tied on lead ball jigs. I’d gotten the idea from Rich Strolis, and it was a bit of an underground thing at the time. I remember that Stewey got in touch after reading my article, and we started sharing ideas and presentation styles with some of these flies. When I described leading low but faster than the current, Josh said he called it a speed lead, and it was one of his best tactics for stirring up big trout.

The Speed Lead is a big part of what we do with streamers. It's another animation to mix in while reading and working the water, searching for the best way to present the streamer. Lane changes are the perfect compliment for a speed lead. 

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great discussion.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamers
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Speed Lead
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- The Endless Retrieve
READ: Troutbitten | Troutbitten Fly Box -- The Jig Streamers

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We've covered many animations in these series. We’ve talked about the streamer head position and its direction, about cross current movement vs holding one lane. We've covered jerk strips, glides, slides, fast, slow, quick or smooth, we talked about drop rates and a lot more.

And now, we're here to talk about one of the most basic movements performed on any fly, lure or bait — jigging.

Moving the fly up and then letting it drop — it’s such a simple motion that it might seem silly to spend much time on the topic. But like so many other good things in fishing, jigging is a world of its own. And there are, in fact, a multitude of variables to consider and to play with.

In this episode, we talk about angle, depth and speed of the jig, cross current or one current jigs, free falls or pendulum drops, and more.

My friend, Austin Dando, joins me for a great discussion.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Category | Streamers
READ: Troutbitten | Streamer Presentations -- Jigging the Streamer
READ: Troutbitten | Troutbitten Fly Box -- The Jig Streamers

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