When I game plan with clients, we fine-tune our terminal tackle to match the situation, develop an approach, and I coach them into making the best possible cast the first time. We also look into the future and talk about how to set the hook and how to fight the fish. You always want to set the hook away from where the fish is facing.
Also think about your plan of action once the fish has been hooked. Look at all possible obstacles like rocks, trees, sticks, and places you may have to enter or exit the river. Look for good places where you might be able to net a fish, and try to envision what a big trout is most likely to do if hooked.
If the fish runs downriver, can you jump into the water to give chase? Or is it too deep? Too many fly fishers spend their money on the best waders, the best wading boots, and the latest and greatest rod and reel, but they overlook their flies and the hooks the flies are tied on. If you buy them from a fly shop, ask what company they get their flies from. If you are a tier yourself, spend the money on great hooks.
It will be a low point in your fishing career if you hook the fish of a lifetime, and lose it because the hook straightened out. This is particularly important when you are using 20 and smaller hooks.
We are humans, we make mistakes, and we often hold onto the line a split second too long when we should have been letting that fish run. Get the fish on the reel, and then use the reel to land the fish. The light drag keeps the fish from breaking off and allows the fish to run and exhaust itself. After the fish makes a couple of tiring runs, I turn the drag a little heavier.
I believe that big fish are most often lost in the first 10 seconds or the last 10 feet. If you can keep a big fish over 10 pounds on for the first 10 seconds there is a good chance you will land it. Then they try to rush things. Enjoy the fight, savor the adventure, pay attention to your line and reel, and remember to try and take one good shot at netting the fish. There is a line you can cross where you play the fish too long.
Take enough time to do things right and maximize your opportunity to catch a fish of a lifetime and release it safely. Next time you hit the water in search of a giant trout, remember to go slow and be patient. Have a plan for the day and also formulate a detailed game plan for every fish you target. You do everything you can, and let the trout do the rest! He lives in Ridgeway, Colorado with his wife Liz and guides on the Gunnison Gorge and on the Uncompahgre River, where his clients routinely catch wild trout weighing more than 10 pounds.
His best trout to date weighed Give a Gift Subscriber Services. See All Other Magazines. See All Special Interest Magazines. All Fly Fisherman subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content.
This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets. To get started, click the link below to visit mymagnow. Get Digital Access. Subscribe To The Magazine. More Articles From Beginners. Trout use their own camouflage against the stream bottom to avoid being seen.
Your camouflage should blend in with the streamside shrubs, trees, and rocks and allow you to get closer to the trout for shorter, more accurate casts and more effective hook-sets. Matt McCannel photo. March 19, By Matt McCannel. Sign Me Up. See All Videos. Many of them revolve around the tippet section. Try to use around three to four feet of tippet material on a foot leader.
This will give you plenty of length to tie on new flies, help with micro-drag in the water and also help with your presentation. From there multiple different pieces of gear that are used to the hundreds of different flies we all accumulate and then all of the different tips, tricks, knots, and other techniques, it can get hard to remember everything.
Did you crimp the barb? Is the point still there? Fly Every 20 casts, after landing a fish, after a snag Is it still floating?
Is it still intact? Are there weeds or other items stuck to it? Is it performing as it should? Tippet Every 20 casts or after landing a fish Are there any nicks that would weaken it?
Any wind-knots in it? Any abrasion that would weaken it? Knots Every 20 casts or after landing a fish Are they well-tied and smooth? Are they tight? Give them a tug to check they are holding still. Ferrules Every 50 casts Are they properly seated? Are they aligned correctly? Wading Position After changing positions Are you in a safe position? Can you get back to shore safely?
Is the water rising? Are there any obstacles you need to avoid? Be aware of your surroundings. Personal Health Hourly Are you drinking enough water? Do you have enough sunblock? Are you too weak to be wading in fast water? Be aware of your condition. Login Log In Username:.
Keep me signed in. Log In. Register Lost Password. Although this leader can be used at close range, the primary advantage is presenting nymphs from a distance with greater stealth. This creates less disturbance. This is my go-to nymphing leader during low-water periods. I use Maxima Chameleon for building long leader butt sections, and 0X Orvis Tactical monofilament for the sighter. The larger diameter of this sighter floats better and is easier to see than most standard sighters, which are often 2X.
I leave the tags on the sighter blood knots as kind of "rabbit ears" on the water to telegraph vibrations. One trade-off is the extra wind resistance of the tags, but I find the added visibility of the tags outweighs the negatives. Cortland's opaque white mono sighter material is excellent against dark backgrounds. RIO and Orvis produce multicolor sighter materials that provide more points of contrast and color options for fishing in various lighting conditions.
Another quality I like about both the RIO and Orvis sighter materials is their limpness, which transmits strikes better than a super-stiff material. You'll see a nervous twitch as the rig drifts, and that twitching stops the moment the nymphs grab bottom or is eaten by a trout. When you're dredging with a giant articulated streamer or popping a compact conehead into a plunge pool, your leader is less complicated and requires fewer steps than other leaders, but it's no less important.
Your streamer leader should be shorter and heavier to turn over these flies, and you'll need the thicker diameters for both abrasion resistance and to absorb the blows from aggressive strikes. The good news is that trout seem to toss caution to the wind when they are attempting to scare, injure, or eat a baitfish.
Someone once suggested that I use a level section of pound-test leader to connect my streamer directly to the fly line. While certainly a simple solution, there is a great deal of hinging that takes place because there's no thick butt section to help turn over the fly. More important, when I got the fly stuck in a tree or on bottom, I lost the whole leader or broke the tip of the fly line due to the heavy pound-test line. After five or six break-offs, I was starting to lose the front end taper of my fly line.
All-Purpose Streamer Option. To prevent losing my whole leader, I use a short 6. Then I add 24" of 3X fluorocarbon as a tippet. This creates a breaking point as well as an easy recovery point. When streamer fishing, I prefer the snap swivel over a tippet ring because some fly designs have a tendency to twist the leader during casting and retrieving. Swivels greatly reduce this twisting and keep your flies swimming the way they were designed.
Admittedly, leader designs like the French Slow Taper or GD's Stiff Euro leader are complex affairs and specially suited to do just one job, and to do it well. If you plan on using many different techniques over the course of the day, it's better to have one leader to do it all.
My All-Purpose Leader has worked great for me over the last three years. While it's not the best for nymphing, dry-fly, or streamer tactics, it's more than functional in getting the job done for all three. The advantage is the leader base remains the same — the only difference is the tippet section tied to the tippet ring. When I know I'll be fishing the All-Purpose Leader, I pre-rig all my potential dry-fly, nymphing, and streamer rigs and have them ready to transport.
Rigging at home allows me to spend more time fishing, and when I'm well prepared, I can switch from a dry-fly rig to nymphing in under a minute. Pre-tied dropper rigs save time on the water but only if you have a functional storage system that keeps the flies and tippet neatly organized and prevents tangling.
I've tried many boxes and systems to carry these pre-tied tippets with flies, but always find myself coming back to the Orvis Dropper Rig Fly Box. Each box has five foam cartridges with tabs running down both sides of each cartridge. You stick the fly or flies in the foam, and wrap the tippet around the cartridge. Tuck the end of the tippet in one of the many slots on the outside edge of the cartridge, and you're ready to go.
There are countless materials and designs out there to build leaders for any fly-fishing situation. The leaders I've outlined here are just the ones I've found myself using most frequently whether I'm guiding, or floating a river with my family.
Take these designs as suggestions only, and use them as foundations to refine your own leader designs. Experimenting is part of the fun — at least trout have a shorter-term memory than humans, so if you do make a bad first impression.
He owns and operates the company Livin on the Fly and presents schools, seminars, and private lessons around the country. Give a Gift Subscriber Services. See All Other Magazines. See All Special Interest Magazines.
All Fly Fisherman subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content. This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets. To get started, click the link below to visit mymagnow. Get Digital Access. Subscribe To The Magazine. More Articles From Beginners. By George Daniel.
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