Basically, fishing for trout is applied common sense.
There's no mystique to fishing with flies or with artificial lures, it's just a matter
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This is your host, Jay Warburton, inviting you to join me in another exciting episode
in the sportsman's workshop video library series.
In the world of sport fishing, it is hard to beat the excitement and challenge of fighting
a tail-dancing rainbow trout in a swift, crystal clear rocky mountain stream, or battling a
strong German brown in a slow-moving deep hole of a favored eastern river.
However, just like any other outdoor sport, the consistently successful trout fisherman
is the individual who has taken the time to learn the secrets for success.
We will travel to the gorgeous high country of California, where we will join my good
friend and trout fishing expert, Rex Gerlach.
Rex will show us how he has perfected the art of trout fishing.
Let's join Rex at Streamside and learn his secrets for success.
Trout need three things in order to survive in a stream or lake environment.
They need oxygen, of course, at a sufficient level for them to exist.
They need cover to protect themselves from the predators.
They need food.
The nymph that somewhat resembles that particular insect in the stream will, with a proper presentation,
catch trout.
I've got my friend Mike Mercer here, a professional guide that I have known for a number of years.
And since I haven't fished this particular river this time of year, I've asked him to
fish with me today and give me some insight into this classic free-stone water that we're
fishing here in late November.
Well, Rex, this piece of water does fall over there dramatically over a half-mile period,
as you said.
And as it drops, it tends to form little underwater tabletops on the way down the river.
That's where the fish choose to lie.
The earlier season, you'll find the fish in close to the banks because there's Pacific
hatches.
But right now, we'll be concentrating on the midstream lies and those little fish hotels
underneath the water.
What kind of aquatic life do you think we can expect to find out there, and what types
of flies will we use to represent it?
One of the best things to do, a good rule of thumb, of course, would just be to come
down the water's edge and sort through some of this grass and the logs and the rocks,
that sort of thing.
Give you a very good idea of what's available in this stream.
Usually, it's going to be separated into three categories, either the larger stone flies,
the caddis, or the mayfly.
But it's very often that one will be very prevalent, very predominant, and the fish
will key in on that.
So it's a good idea to come down and look and see which one is so.
I noticed a large black stonefly nip scurry under some of that detritus over there a few
moments ago.
We like this detritus here, all right.
We'll get in here.
Yep.
Here we go.
There's a good one.
Good big stoneflies.
Now, obviously, because of its size, the fish like these.
Look at the size of him.
Nice little T-bone steaks for him.
And that's the main food ingredient for the Trotinus river.
So we'll be obviously fishing with flies that represent the stonefly, the larger stoneflies.
Exactly.
And I noticed a little while ago on this large red stone here that there are some caddis cases.
Yes, there are some caddis here.
They're a smaller version of the little caddis we find a little later in the season, but
the fish eat them a lot.
They're a good little bug, and as they hatch out, you see some of the smaller adults here.
I noticed you caught a little sculpin a little while ago when you were fishing around under
the water.
Yeah, that was a lucky find.
There's a lot of the sculpins in this type of free stone water, and the fish eat them
at every opportunity.
They're quite a mouthful.
Sculpin is a little immature big fish.
Excellent trout food.
And the large trout particularly like those, as I recall.
Nice little piece of crab rig.
That's right.
How about upstream?
What do we have up there?
Well, as you look upstream, you see some portions of the water flatten out a little bit, not
quite such a dramatic fall.
And up there, we find a lot more mayflies and the smaller insects, and sometimes there
we can use smaller dry flies.
Oftentimes an angler will, in his eagerness to get on the water quickly, will pay more
attention to the lure he's using than he does actually to where he's fishing it.
The first thing you need to do is stop and look at the water for a while, and look at
those places where trout most likely will be.
Take a free stone stream where early in the morning you may find trout feeding actively
in the riffles, and all of a sudden the action seems to stop, but you notice in the pool
down below you there's a rise of fish going on, and you walk downstream, and lo and behold
a bunch of caddis are hatching under the overhanging brush and drifting down into the pool, and
the trout have suddenly shifted over to the caddis fly that's hatching.
So you have to be observant on flat water, they'll hide down in those weeds.
Riffle water, especially directly upstream from a big pool, oftentimes very large trout
because of a lack of oxygen in the pool, they'll move up into those oxygenated riffles not
too far.
Shade becomes very important.
Trout are basically secretive.
The trout will get on the shade side of a big rock in a pocket behind a rock, in a deep
pocket underneath an overhanging tree, and those are places that you might call were
almost classic holding spots for trout.
I'd like to make a couple of comments about the camouflage of the clothing that you wear
for a particular area that you may be fishing in.
You'll notice these beautiful oak trees around here.
I've selected a tan colored jacket, a neutral colored sweater, and with my brown waders
and olive colored vest, I pretty well blend in to this background scenery.
If I were going to be fishing in very bright sunny weather in an area that didn't have
high banks with a lot of deep color, perhaps I'd select something that matched the sky
color.
When selecting tackle and clothing to take on your trout fishing trip, remember there's
a good rule to follow, and that's to take what you need to fish in comfort and safety
but not a lot more than you need.
One of the most important pieces of equipment that we use when using chest waders is the
wading belt.
This is the life saver and in many cases has served to save the life of the angler when
he's decided to take a horizontal casting position in midstream.
This is put on around the waders like this, right around the waist, and cinched up tight
so that if you do fall in, the water won't fill up in your waders and pull you down into
a deep pool and cause you to drown.
If we run into unusual stream bottom conditions, including very slippery rock or boulders,
sometimes we need to have a gripping surface that's more efficient than that of the felt
sole.
So we'll use a bar type cleat made out of aluminum like this slip-on shoe, or we'll
use a stainless steel spike set into sandals like these, these are called corkers.
These will dig down through the algae on the smooth rock as will these bar cleats and give
you better purchase on the tricky wading surfaces.
The next item we take along when we're fishing the medium to large size trout streams is
the wading staff, that's also known as a sissy stick, but believe me it's a life saver.
The end of this particular oak staff is covered with an aluminum tube which allows you to
cut through the algae on the rocks and get a firm purchase to support yourself when you're
working in heavy current.
The staff of course is equipped with a leather handle for comfort, it has a snap on the end
of its attachment cord, we hook this on to the wading belt and when we're not using it
we either let it trail on the river downstream from us or toss it over the shoulder.
Here we have an ultralight spinning outfit, it's very cold out here right now so I'm using
a graphite component reel, the graphite in the reel is a thermal insulator so almost
the minute your fingers touch this the material itself warms right up to the touch.
The rod is a graphite rod, it's very sensitive, very light in the tip because I'll be fishing
single hook weighted feather jigs on this on two pound test monofilament line.
The fly rod is a nine foot fly rod designed for a five weight line, I'm using a line that
I can see very well because we'll be showing you a rather unusual technique of fly fishing
where we're not actually casting, it's called short line fishing or upstream nymphing and
it's very important since this is a sight type of fishing to be able to see the tip
of that line as we fish, more about that when we get on the water.
Let's go fishing.
Trout fishermen like all other kind of fishermen have to be opportunists, often times anglers
will express a fear of fly fishing and they say well it's too hard for me, I never could
learn how to cast, actually it's worth it to take the trouble to learn how to cast,
it's a lot easier than learning to swing a golf club, most anglers don't believe that,
it's kind of like learning to do the foxtrot, once you learn the box step everything else
follows after that.
The three basic casts that we need to fish most pieces of water, the first is the roll
cast, that's used to make a cast when you have no room for a back cast, it's also used
to lift line quietly off the water so that you can lift into a back cast without disturbing
the water and therefore frightening the fish.
The standard basic cast is an overhead vertical cast, that's the normal cast we use for most
fishing situations where an actual cast is made to present the fly.
The third cast is the power cast or double haul, that's used to extend long lengths of
line to shoot the line out to get a fly ahead of a moving fish or a cruising fish usually
or to make a long distance cast to reach a particular spot like a deep run over 50-75
feet.
Now the first thing about the roll cast is the hand and arm position, the basic cast
and I'll go through this very slowly so you can see the actual movement is a lifting of
the rod tip to the vertical position, the line is allowed to come behind the rod, the
hand is right about even with my ear, then the rod is smartly dropped and pushed down
with a thrust like this, notice I'm letting line slide through my fingers as I make each
subsequent roll cast and lift the line up, you can cast up to about 50-55 feet this way.
Now the roll cast lift, which allows us to pick the fly up very quietly from the water
is made by rolling high into the air like this and then snapping the line up in the
air like that, we'll do that again, we'll make a roll cast but we'll aim high with it
like that, lift the line up and make the cast.
The basic overhand cast is a flipping of the rod tip up to a one o'clock position about
here, the rod will flip the line into a loop up to about this position, then as the loop
extends behind me I'll let my hand drift back, the rod drop a little bit and then to make
the forward cast I'll turn that loop over, by using my elbow as a fulcrum I'll push with
my thumb and flip the line forward like that, I'll go through this actual whole sequence
of movements, the lift and the forward cast, lift, forward cast, I can dry my fly out keeping
the line in the air doing the same thing, if I'm fishing dry flies I'll frequently dry
them out between casts like that and then finally release the fly, if we want to extend
the cast, now we have to add a little speed to the line when we get out to certain distances
and we put that speed on with the left hand, making little pulls on the line called a double
haul, I pull as I lift up and go back and pull as I come forward and down, if I really
want to extend the cast out I pull a little harder, load the rod and then I shoot the
line like that and I've extended my cast about 60-70 feet, I'll do that one again, the pulls
and part velocity of the line and the rod of course directs the cast and stores the
energy allows us to achieve momentum and the cast shoots out about 60 feet, there we go
there's another long cast out into the river, ultralight spinning tackle like this I'm holding
is one of the most versatile types of tackle for fishing for trout, ultralight tackle itself
for trout fishing is generally that spinning tackle that's used with lines ranging from
six pound test on down to less than a pound test, using this type of ultralight rod and
reel I can fish live or organic baits, I can fish spinners like I have tied on the end
of my line right here, I can fish wobbling spoons and using another type of rig with
a plastic bubble that is attached to the line with a longer leader I can actually fish flies,
both floating flies and nymphs, the basic cast used to cast lures like this is called
an overhead or snap cast, it's accomplished like this, just a flip of the rod tip using
the weight of the lure to load the rod, allow the spinner to sink rather deeply and keep
the lure moving just fast enough so that the blades revolve like that, the second method
I'd like to show you on using ultralight spinning tackle it makes this particular type of tackle
very versatile because with it you can fish soft baits and artificial flies very effectively,
it's called the spinning bubble, it's a weighted casting bubble that floats, on this particular
one I have a small dry fly attached so I'll be fishing this dry fly using the spinning
bubble, now when using the spinning bubble rather than make the snap cast we rather lob
the cast out, much the way you would a soft bait on a regular bait rig that you would
be fishing on the bottom of the lake or river, that's to keep from throwing off the bait
in this particular case so I don't hook myself with the fly, that's made like this, lob
it out, stop it where I want it and follow the course of the bubble watching the surface
in this case since I'm fishing an artificial fly for a telltale sign of a fish grabbing
my artificial, I don't like the way the current is working that so I'll pull it in a little
bit this way and I see a fish working down below me, maybe I can run this right down
on him, nice thing about it you can adjust, in fact I'm going to adjust it and run it
in close to shore because there's a good fish working right in close to shore right below
me, let's see if we can get him to take that, there we go, nice fish, he's a small trout
but he's a very respectable keeper, keep his head up, we'll just lead him right over to
shore here where there's a nice smooth spot, he's a little bigger than I thought he was.
Actually you can work the artificial fly a little more effectively with the fly rod than
you can with the spinning bubble, if you're going to be an all around trout fisherman
it's a good idea to be able to master both methods, both the spinning tackle and the
fly, it allows you to fish situations that you otherwise wouldn't be able to fish and
take advantage of opportunities that come up that you don't expect.
Fishing a spinning bubble you want to cast far enough upstream in the still water situation
so that the bubble, the splash of the bubble landing in the water doesn't frighten the
fish.
There are some disadvantages of fishing upstream in still water and the main disadvantage is
casting in such a way that the fly line or the spinning line lands right on top of where
the trout is holding, that can cause him to spook.
Fishing downstream you don't have to worry about that, if you're going to fish in a downstream
direction on still waters you want to stay farther away from the fish, longer casts,
more delicate presentations.
Right out in front of me, right out on here are several trout, I'm kneeling down so I
can keep my profile down so that I don't spook these fish by moving my body within their
cone of vision, they're cruising around in there and they're picking up these betus
mayflies that are floating down in large numbers right down on that current edge, there's two
fish rows right there.
There are certain ways of tying flies for flat water and other ways that you tie them
so that they're visible to trout in more turbulent stream waters.
Most of the time in flat water situations the dry flies are tied so that they ride high
on the surface film and that just the tips of the hackles poke through the surface film
and the tips of the tails, they're tied out of very buoyant materials so that they look
as close as possible to the naturals that happen to be on or just under the water.
That's true also of nymphs that we tie to fish under the surface in the flat water situations,
we take a little more care to make the legs wiggle good, whereas in fast water we would
tie them with a little stiffer hackle materials so that they aren't compressed back against
the body of the actual artificial itself.
The serious trout fisherman needs to be keenly aware of the differences in the way the artificial
fly is tied for the still surface or quiet surface waters versus those that are turbulent
and broken.
This is the type of large black leech fly that we use up in the pocket water and sometimes
on sinking lines when we fish on a fly down through the pools on a sinking line.
This is a very effective fly, it's tied with a lot of lead in the body to make it sink
quickly.
This is a Montana nymph, which has rubber feelers and rubber tails on it that are very
active and mobile on the water, it's ideal pocket water type of fly.
This particular fly is a spuddler minnow, this represents the sculpin, like the one
that we looked at in the shallow riffle fishing earlier in the film.
Sculpin are found in areas like this as well.
Here's another variation on the Montana nymph, the Montana nymph generally speaking is supposed
to represent one of the various stone flies found throughout these rocky western streams
as well as in the eastern waters, where generally speaking the nymphs are a little bit smaller.
Here's a black rubber leg, this is one of my favorite flies.
See if I can give you a little better view of it against the back of my hand, it has
six black rubber legs and black rubber tails and black rubber feelers.
It's a deadly fly fish through the pocket water.
The fly I'm fishing with right now is a representation of the stone fly nymph, that dark black one
that we looked at when we talked about the insect life.
The short line nymph technique is ideal for suggesting that these are dislodged from their
grip on the rocks, casting upstream at about a 45 degree angle keeping the fluorescent
part of the leader out of the water so I can see a hesitation.
When the fish grabs that nymph that's the only indication of a strike that I'll get,
it's just a little hesitation.
That fluorescent piece of monofilament, we call it a strike indicator, in poor light
like this it shows that very quickly indicates that any hesitation of the fly as it drifts
along the bottom and rolls along the bottom.
Keep the rod hand high, the rod at about a 45 degree angle.
Reaction time has to be very quick to the hesitation of the leader, have a little take
right there.
A nice little rainbow and what I'll do here is get this fish on the reel, if he decides
to take off and run then I'll be able to play him, right now he's just dogging in the current.
Now I've seen him, now I know where to put a little more pressure on him, I'm fishing
fairly light tippet here so I don't want to put so much pressure on or break the tippet.
Now when he gets tired I can skate him up across the surface like this you see, isn't
that a beautiful fish.
Try and release him unharmed without even handling him.
There we go, he's off to swim another day.
If you're ready to catch big trout this is the kind of water that you start looking for
them in, long deep pools topped off by long rapids filled with large boulders in which
there are deep pockets on the downstream side of the boulders.
Fly fishermen like to call that type of water pocket water.
All the boulders in that stretch are covered with thick green algae and you would definitely
want to use a wading staff.
Pays to fish very slowly in this type of water with a short line nymph technique with a strike
indicator using large flies drifting them down through those short pockets, popping
that fly on the short leader into each pocket time after time until you're sure that you've
exhausted all the possibilities of that particular spot and then moving upstream to the next
pocket behind the next boulder.
There's several types of strike indicators for short line nymphing.
One is simply made by using a piece of fluorescent electrical wire covering like this that I
simply pull the electrical wire out of and then slide it on the butt section of my leader
which I tie about four or five inches long and then tie directly to the line.
Another type that's very effective for those people who see green well or fluorescent green
well is a short piece of fluorescent green monofilament that's tied directly to the line
and then to that is knotted the butt section of the leader.
Other anglers like the round type strike indicator or the flag type, one type the round was made
out of a buoyant bobber material.
It's like a little mini bobber with a peg type toothpick in it and the toothpick is taken
out and the butt section of the leader is inserted right straight through the strike
indicator then it's pegged to keep it sliding from sliding down the leader.
They all serve the same purpose, they let you quickly detect the sudden hesitation of
the course of the fly as it drifts downstream back toward you from where you've cast it.
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If you're gonna spend time fishing or hunting off deep in the woods, I wouldn't put keys
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Cause my Chevy is built for the highways and built for the back country.
It'll get you out on the byways and home is easy as one, two, three.
If you're gonna tame the wild frontier, your four just may not do.
You need a Chevy to get you out there and to bring you home when you're through.
The heartbeat of America, today's truck is Chevrolet.
Right down through that current edge between the fast water and where it meets the slow water.
Fishermen call those holding spots for trout edges.
And as you look at any trout stream, no matter whether it's fast moving and heavy like this one
or slow like some of the other water that we've looked at in this particular film,
those current edges are almost always places where fish will lie and wait.
Usually on the slower edge rather than the faster edge.
Trout generally in streams like this are not as spooky as they are in the flat meadow stretches.
They're a little more aggressive and the reason they are of course is they don't have an opportunity
in that fast water to wait a long time before deciding whether to take your lure or fly.
It's coming by fast, they have to decide right now whether they're gonna take it or not.
And so generally the strikes that you'll get on a fly rod and a spinning out pit too in here
will be hard pounding strikes and there won't be any doubt about whether there's a fish there or not.
I think one of the reasons I enjoy this kind of fishing is that it requires total concentration.
The environment that it's done in of course has a lot to do with it.
I like the sound of this type of riffle water, pocket welder, has a language all of its own.
Gives you a chance to concentrate totally on something that's fun.
So many times in today's hectic way of living you really concentrate only on those things which are not so much fun.
Just the very act of fly fishing and fly casting can be pleasurable
and it gives you something to do when the fish aren't biting.
There's always the promise at the end of the next cast that your effort's gonna be rewarded
by either a loud splashing rise and take on a dry fly or a sharp tug in a deep underwater battle with a sunken fly.
That's what makes us come back and back again and again for the next time around.
Music
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