So You Want To Catch... Trout (Fly Fishing)

So You Want To Catch.. Trout (Fly Fishing)

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The concept of fly fishing for trout involves casting a feathered fly that is too light to cast with its own weight. When fly fishing, you are actually casting the line and not the fly, which is why such a thick line is used. Also, contrary to what you might think, the waving back and forth of the line has nothing to do with 'fishing the fly'. Casting a fly line involves extending the amount of line in manageable amounts (several meters at a time) until the correct length is reached. Then the fly is settled on the water ready for that hungry trout!

Fly Rods

Fly rods are all graded with a number ranging usually from 0-12 (although companies like Sage make specialist rods in 000 to 16). This is the rod's 'weight'. Fly Lines are also graded with the same numbering system and the same weight fly line should be used on a fly rod that has the same number. For example, a 6wt fly line should be used on a 6wt fly rod.

A fly rod is designed to 'load' perfectly when a certain amount of Fly Line is being cast (usually around 20-30 feet). When a fly rod is pushed forward during a cast it flexes and then recovers (un-flexes if you like) like a bow, as the angler brings the cast forward. This is what propels the line forward and lands the fly where the angler is aiming.

A 6wt line on a 6wt rod will load the rod perfectly at around 20-30 feet. A 7wt Line (being heavier) cast on the same 6wt rod will require less line to load the rod (around 15-20 feet). In New Zealand a lot of our fishing is at close range, so some anglers purposely "over line" their rods to make short range casting easier. Unfortunately putting a lighter weight line on a rod won't usually make it cast further! Why? Because 20-30 feet is about as much line as most anglers can 'work' on a fly rod. Extra distance is achieved by 'shooting' extra line (usually stripped off the reel and lying loosely at the anglers feet) forward AFTER the rod has loaded with 20-30 feet. OK I'm getting way ahead of myself! We'll cover casting later.

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Rod Quality

This is the big one! As already mentioned, in concept a fly rod loads and unloads a little like a bow and arrow. The single most important factor for any fly rod is it's recovery speed. This is the speed that the rod recovers from being fully flexed to straight again (like pinging an aerial). The faster the rod recovers, the faster the line will travel through the air on the forward cast, generating distance, turning over the fly and cutting through any wind the angler may be trying to cast into.

Therefore a fast recovery is GOOD! This is what you pay for when you spend sixteen hundred hard earned dollars on a Sage, one of the top brands on the market today. There are a whole squad of other factors that determine how well you will cast but the big number 1 factor here is the speed of the rod recovery. Learning to cast on a SLOW rod is like learning to race a car in first gear!

What are the varying weights of rod used for? Generally speaking a zero or 0wt rod is used for extremely light line, tiny streams and tiny fish! It also casts shorter and lands very delicately on the water. A 12wt rod is used for very heavy line, big water (usually salt water) and big rampaging salt water beasts and Salmon! It produces big casts and turns over big flies. Most anglers use anything from a 5 to a 7wt rod for trout fishing with a 6wt Rod being by far the most popular and a good rod to start learning on.

Rod Materials

Fly rods have progressed through a range of different materials. The first rods were wood, and were pretty crude. Fly lines were braided horse hair, not very effective either! Eventually fly rods evolved to cane, then split cane, intricately designed casting tools. Works of art then and now.

The rods then progressed to fibreglass and then along came graphite (sometimes referred to as carbon fibre) and fly fishing was never the same again. With the older slower rods the angler did all the work. The only line speed being generated was from the anglers arm. Fast recovery graphite blanks have changed all that. If used correctly, a fast graphite fly rod does most of the work for you. All you have to do is apply the right technique.

Companies like Sage and Hardy are at the forefront of this technology. They are regularly coming out with faster, lighter and easier to use rods that continue to make fly fishing easier, more enjoyable and much more effective. They require a decent chunk of cash up front, but the pay-offs come back ten fold! Most also come with unconditional lifetime warranties, meaning once you buy into the system it becomes very cost effective to stay there!

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Fly Lines

This is one of the most important and mis-understood areas of fly fishing, so I want go into some detail here.

There are 3 main types of fly lines. Floating, intermediate and sinking. Well cover this later but for now what I want to talk about is the construction of the line. When you buy a fly line you will see the word WF or DT written in front of it. For example if you bought a 6wt floating line you would either see WF6F or DT6F. WF stands for 'Weight forward' and DT stands for 'Double Taper'. The F at the end (in case you hadn't already figured it out) stands for 'Floating'!

All fly lines these days have a main body and then taper down to a finer point that turns over and presents better.

A 'Double Taper', as it's name suggests, has a main body of line and a taper at both ends.

A 'Weight Forward' in concept is exactly the same in the front half as a 'Double Taper'. However 30-40 feet back the line suddenly becomes very thin. This is called the running section.

A lot of generalizations are made about these two tapers based on incorrect information. Most anglers will tell you that double tapers are more delicate, give better control, roll cast better, etc. In some cases this is true, but not always.

Delicacy and presentation is determined by the mass of the front part of the line. A line with a small diameter tip and a long taper has much less mass up front than a line with a thick tip and a short taper. Therefore a DT and a WF line with the same taper and tip diameter will deliver EXACTLY the same Almost all WF lines have a 'head' (that is the taper and the main line before the running line) that is 35-40 feet long. Add a 12 foot leader and the distance to the fly from the back end of the head is around 50 feet long. Up to this distance MOST DT and WF lines will cast EXACTLY the same. What this means for most of us is that with 90% of the casts we make, there is no difference between using a DT or a WF.

Most anglers will tell you that WF lines will cast better at long distance than DT lines. This is true, but the difference isn't as much as you might think. WF lines do shoot better, but only at distances from 50 feet and upward. The key when casting WF lines is to make sure the main body of the line is still in the tip while casting. It is impossible to cast if you get the thin running line in the tip. The idea is that when you let the thicker line go on the forward cast, the running line shoots through as soon as possible causing less friction than the main line.

DT lines will still shoot too beyond this point. Just not as well as a WF.

The BIG thing to remember here is that unless you are casting beyond 50 feet, it is the FRONT TAPER of the line that will affect your cast not DT versus WF. Having said that most of the lines designed with distance tapers are WF style lines.

If you want a line that casts well at short to medium range, make sure you have one with a SHORTER taper and a THICKER tip. More mass up front, remember? If you want a line that presents delicately then go for a LONGER taper and a THINNER tip.

For New Zealand conditions, especially on rivers, dealing with wind and larger flies are the main conditions that will determine your choice of line. Turning over the larger flies and defeating the wind means most anglers opt for lines with more mass up front. Look on the back of the box of most fly lines and there will be a diagram similar to the one above.

Below is a variety of WF tapers from various manufacturers:

Remember these diagrams are exaggerated and compressed over 90 feet. The differences between these lines wont be quite as extreme as you might think but they will make a difference on the water. Most of these tapers are designed for fast action fly rods.

First off is the 'bonefish' line form Scientific Anglers. This line is obviously designed to cast like a missile with big flies! Brilliant for casting crab patterns 80 feet across a sand flat in Christmas Island, but not so good for presenting a size 14 dry fly on a back country stream!

The next line is the Scientific Anglers Ultimate taper. A great line for turning over big dry flies and nymphs. Note however the short front taper. The trade off for that punchy cast is going to be a reasonably chunky presentation. In reality this line will probably present fine for 95% of trout situations in NZ and the turn over + castability will outweigh the slightly heavier presentation. A lot of anglers love this line!

Next up is the Rio Grand. Here we have the best of both worlds. A medium length front taper and a heavy body that drops back to the running line in two steps rather than a continuous taper like the SA line above it. A good design that gives you a nice presentation, and a powerful short/medium cast as well as a good long cast.

Last up we have the Cortland 444 precision trout. This is a line obviously designed for powerful short to medium river work, as the rear taper falls away quickly. Another good design for todays fast action rods, particularly if fishing small to medium size rivers.

Floating or sinking?

Floating lines are used for 90 percent of dry fly and nymph fishing, which accounts for most of the fishing we do here in New Zealand.

Sinking lines are used for wet lures or streamers that are retrieved to immitate a small fish. These are mainly used on lakes, but work equally well on larger rivers and particularly river mouths.

Most people will tell you a floating line is all you really need to start out with. However all my first trout on a fly were caught with sinking lines as it's a much easier technique and can be fished at night when trout are much dumber!!

I'll talk more about floating and sinking lines later but for now I would highly recommend both for the beginner. If you are really pressed just get a floater but you'll miss out on some of the easier fishing without a sinking line.

Dry Flies, Nymphs, and Wet Lures. Basic overview

Trout flies come in a staggering array of patterns and sizes. They are sized according to the hook they are tied on. The hooks are given a numbering system, with the bigger number referring to a smaller the hook. For example, a size 4 hook is much bigger than a size 18. Trout flies used in New Zealand typically range from a size 22, which is as tiny as you can imagine and used for things like 'midge pupa' and 'willow grubs' (which would fit on your little finger nail and still have room to move), to a size 2 which is usually used for big wet lures and fish imitations upwards of a few inches long. Most classic trout flies  are tied on hooks in the size 8-16 range.

Dry Flies

The classic dry fly, like it's name suggests, sits on top of the water. It mainly represents the adult form of most aquatic larvae and bugs. These water bugs, nymphs and larvae all rise to the surface to hatch into the adult 'fly'. Various insects have corresponding dry fly representation. Some of these are the classic 'Mayflies' with delicate upright wings. These drift in the current for a few minutes before leaving the water. At this stage they become very vulnerable to trout and trout feed heavily when a so called 'hatch' is on. This is the classic situation where you have rising trout sucking these insects from the surface. The dry fly is cast upstream on a floating fly line and allowed to drift back with the current like a natural insect drifting downstream. Trout become very 'zoned in' on the particular species of fly hatching (presumably to save energy investigating other objects that prove to be un-edible) and the angler generally must match the fly pattern exactly (or at least very close) with natural fly. This is typically called 'matching the hatch'.

Trout also feed on what are called 'terrestrial insects' (insects that live on land and the river surrounds). Grasshoppers, cicadas, crane flies, crickets, beetles and spiders all fall into this category. Generally, when fish are feeding on these free falling insects they are less selective than with 'hatching' flies. These flies are presented in the same way. Cast upstream, and allowed to drift naturally back with the current. Fish can still be selective with terrestrial insects but are generally not as picky as with hatching aquatic insects.

Nymphs

Nymphs are basically the larval forms of the dry flies. They are fished in exactly the same way in a river situation as a dry fly. They are cast upstream usually on a floating fly line and allowed to drift back naturally in the current, only this time beneath the surface. A sinking fly on a floating line might not make a lot of sense right now but we'll get into that later. Most nymphs have some weight incorporated in the body to help them sink quickly. How do you know when a fish takes a nymph? More on this later but usually a floating 'indicator' made from a highly buoyant material such as yarn or foam is tied above the nymph. When a fish takes the nymph the floating indicator will pull beneath the surface. At this stage the angler must react quickly and set the hook.

On a lake situation nymphs are fished the same way except crawled slowly back to the angler.

Wet Lures & Streamers

These flies are cast and retrieved on sinking lines to imitate small fish. That pretty much sums them up! This is a very effective way to catch trout at river mouths or fish that are holding deep in a lake. These flies can be trolled behind a boat on deep sinking lines with a lead core to get down to around 40 feet. This is called 'harling'.

Night time is also a great time to fish with wet lures and streamers. Large black flies retrieved across the bottom or even retrieved on the surface with a floating line accounts for many anglers first fish on a fly.

Leader Systems

You can't just tie the fly to the end of the fly line right??? RIGHT!

Between the end of the fly line and the fly is the 'leader'. This basically consists of a length of nylon anywhere from 5-18 feet long.

The leader is usually made up of two parts. The tapered leader and the tippet.

The Tapered Leader

The tapered leader is a piece of nylon that starts off almost as thick as the fly line and tapers down to slightly higher breaking strain than your tippet. This is so the energy travelling down your fly line on the forward cast progresses smoothly down to your thin tippet. If we simply tied the tippet on to the fly line the energy suddenly jumps off the fly line and doesn't progress down to the tippet smoothly. This creates a hinge when you cast usually resulting in tangled tippet landing in a heap. You can still fish like this with weighted flies but trying to turn over a dry fly into any breeze is almost impossible. The tapered leader is usually around 6-9 feet long.

The Tippet

The tippet goes from the fine end of your tapered leader to the fly. It is usually 5-7 feet in length.

The tippet is probably one of the most important things you can buy. What ultimately loses more fish than anything else? Cheap or old tippet. The tippet is the thing you place all your faith in when playing that big rampaging brown trout, up and down the river. The introduction of fluorocarbon (an ultra-low vis, low diameter and highly abrasion resistant material) means that we now fish slightly heavier tippets than we used to, but there is a limit. For most daytime trout fishing in clear conditions, 7lb is about as heavy as most anglers like to go. The reason for this is not so much that the trout sees the thicker tippet; it has more to do with the way thicker tippet impairs the way a fly moves, drifts and sinks. Thick tippet holds up sinking nymphs that will sink far quicker on lighter tippet. It doesn't allow the fly to drift naturally and it alters the way a retrieved fly swims. Trout often take a fly side on. The trout is far more likely to feel thicker tippet or even push the fly out of the way with thicker, stiffer stuff!

Can the trout see your tippet? You bet they can! But only in the right conditions. In this case it's my opinion that it's the shine or reflection that they pick up on. This is also called 'leader flash'. If the sun is angled right, your leader will reflect this light. It doesn't make a lot of difference whether it's 8lb or 4lb the reflectance will be almost the same! Fluorocarbon has reduced the 'shiny leader syndrome' a lot, but it's still a factor in some lights.

The other issue worth noting here is the trout's lateral line. This is the line running from the head to the tip of the tail. This picks up every little vibration and change in water pressure in the trout's environment. Can trout feel the presence of a leader attached to the super tasty looking morsel they are about to eat? I don't think anyone can really answer this, but it could be a factor. The heaviest tippets I have successfully caught spooky daytime feeding trout on is around 8lbs. At night they'll happily hammer a big black rabbit fly retrieved on 20lb tippet, but remember this is a time when trout lose all their caution and feed aggressively.

I remember two fishing friends of mine spend a week fishing together. One was using 7lb and the other using 4lb tippets. They 'hooked' the same amount of fish. However the angler using 7lb got a lot more in the net! These were big back country fish, where super delicate presentations of tiny flies wasn't an issue, but it still proved a point! There are times when I have consistently seen light tippets out fish heavy ones so the argument continues, but as a starting point I would recommend 6lb tippet as a good place to begin.

Here is a general guideline:

Large Dry Flies (lakes & rivers) 6-7lb tippet

Large weighted Nymphs (rivers) 6-8lb tippet

Small Dry flies (lakes & rivers) 4-6lb tippet

All nymphs in lakes and small Nymphs in rivers. 4-6lb tippet

Wet lures and Streamers (day time) 6-8lb tippet

Wet lures and Streamers (night time) 8-12lb tippet

Very small sub surface emerges and midge patterns (lakes) 3-5lb tippet

Overall length of the leader system varies according to location. For big spooky backcountry trout leaders of 18 feet or more are often required. However a good rule of thumb for most fishing conditions is one and a half rod lengths with a 9 foot fly rod. This gives you about 13 feet of leader. When first learning to cast I'd recommend keeping to about 10 feet to start with.

Fly Reels

Theres a famous saying in fly fishing circles: 'The reel is purely there to hold the line'. What they mean by this is that with fly fishing, the rod does all the casting and the angler should play the fish using his hand to strip in line and release it. I say 'BOLLOCKS' to that!!!

This saying really came about from 'English chalk stream' fishing, where a fish over a pound in weight was a monster! Sure you can just hold the line in your hand and let the rod do the work for this kind of fishing. What it doesn't account for is New Zealand’s big rampaging 8 pounders stomping off down the rapid and around the corner before you can even say something that rhymes with 'trucking bell'.

Fly reels made one massive leap forward, around the year 2000. Materials became lighter, and the width of the reel and diameter of the spool increased dramatically to become known as 'large arbour'. Older style fly reels (the image on the left, above) had a very deep spool that started at about a centimetre, wide which meant two things. You had to put a lot of backing on the reel to bulk it up and the more line you had out the harder it became to get line back on the reel. This was because the line drop was so high that each time you turned the handle and got one full turn on the reel you were only getting cm's at a time.

Large Arbour reels are basically hollowed out centres with the base of the spool being at least several inches in diameter. The reels are bigger, but not as much as you might think because they also became wider across to make up for the lack of depth. With this system, even if you are down to your last few turns of backing, you still have a very high rate of retrieve. The other down side with 'small arbour' reels is that the line is being pulled off an ever decreasing diameter, which increased the pressure when you least wanted it. A big trout grabs the fly, screams out towards the backing and you could feel the increase in pressure as the diameter on the spool dropped and the reel was having to spin faster and faster to keep up. This resulted, more often than not, in broken tippet as the angler couldn't react in time and loosen the drag on the reel. Large arbour reels have eliminated this problem as well.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Remember how your line used to retain a memory and come off in little ringlets in the last 30 meters or so? With large arbour reels, some of the larger ones are almost as wide as the spools the line comes  on when you purchase it! This has meant a huge reduction in 'line memory' or coiling. Add this with todays modern 'low memory' lines and memory is almost eliminated all together.

As you can see there's a whole bunch of improvements with this system that, when added together, make large arbour reels superior in every way to the older small arbour reels.

Drag systems have also increased massively. Drags are a lot smoother and longer lasting than they used to be. A lot of high end reels are now fully waterproof having enclosed bearings and drag systems also. Now you can finally drop your rod butt and reel in the river while changing fly or taking the hook out of your latest catch.

Modern fly reels are works of art and an absolute pleasure to fish with. Not only are they silky smooth, super light weight and engineered to perfection they make a HUGE difference when you hook that 'fish of a lifetime'! The latest models from Sage and Lamson in particular are marvels of modern engineering, ultralight weight and produce silky smooth performance.

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