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04/07/05 - Thanks for stopping in to read the Thursday Review. I appreciate you stopping by. The Thursday Review is a winter project and now that fishing season is here it is time to switch to summer projects like the Friday Update. So please continue to visit weekly but on Fridays instead of Thursdays. You can find the Friday Update at http://www.maineflyfishing.com/Friday.htm. Weekly (sometimes more often) I post the river conditions, what's hatching, what's being caught and just general information about fishing here in Maine. I hope you enjoy some of the postings. 03/31/05 - Often people ask what type of line should I buy, floating, sinking or sink-tip. My regular response is if you are only getting one line get a floating line. And that is indeed what most people do. However, after fishing awhile many of those people come back and want to buy another spool and get a second line – a sinking line. That when the confusion starts. Deciding what to buy for a second line can be hard as picking out a new car. Questions like full sinking vs. sink-tip fast sink vs. slow sink, intermediate vs. Type II sink get tossed around and the result often is confusion. So in an effort to cut through some of the confusion – here’s my take on a second line. Buy a sink-tip line for your second line. There – simple forget all the other stuff. Just get a sink-tip. Now, some of you will take that advice and get a sinking line and go fishing – good. Others will debate and decide I’m wrong and get something else and go fishing – also good. Others – will want to know why I feel that way and for those who wonder here are my reasons for suggesting a sink-tip. Sink-tip lines are versatile. Sink-tip lines fish well in moving water – better than full-sink lines if for no other reason than sink-tip lines allow mending of the floating section. Mending can be used to adjust the speed and sink rate of your fly, it can take the belly out of a fly line allowing you a better straight-line connection to your fly. Mending can and does allow you better control of your presentation. Mending is also non-existent when fishing a full sinking line. Save maybe one type of mend – a reach cast - where you essentially mend in the air before the line hits the water. A reach cast will help prevent a belly from forming in your line but a reach cast doesn’t help you once the line sinks below the water – from that point on you are at the mercy of the river currents. Sink-tip lines also fish well in still water. They effectively get your fly down and if you don’t retrieve your fly so rapidly that it is pulled quickly back to the surface they will keep your fly down. With a 15’ sink-tip I feel I can effectively fish still water depths of 8 to 10’ as well as being able to fish the shallows. Sink-tips are especially effective when fishing out from shore. Full sink fly lines often hang up in the shallows just beyond your rod tip. The floating portion of a sink-tip line prevents that. Feeling as strongly as I do about sink-tips being the best choice of a second line I often tell people the real question isn’t should I buy a sink-tip but which sink-tip should I buy. There is no pat answer to that question so my answer is usually a series of questions about how that person fishes. If a person fishes mostly moving water with just an occasional still water episode and the moving water they fish is generally wading water I suggest a short 4 to 6’ sink-tip. If a person fishes mostly ponds with an occasional moving water episode I suggest a longer 10 to 15’ sink-tip. Why the different lengths? Well, for moving water I like the short sink-tips because I’m often in riffles and working the areas where the riffles dump into deeper water. The short sink-tips are easier to control in that type of water and I don’t spend so much time hooked up to real estate. When I get into deeper runs the short sink tip is still effective and able to get my fly to the correct depth because I can determine the depth the line sinks to by changing the upstream angle of my cast. If I cast sharply upstream and allow a long sinking drift before I start working my fly I can fish surprising deep even in moving water. If I cast almost straight across current and immediately start working my fly I can go right back to working shallow water with ease. In still water situations if I’m working drop-offs or fishing a deeper pond I often feel the need for more depth than a short sink-tip gives me. That, of course, is when the longer sink-tip comes into play. I know that many feel the longer sink-tips don’t get deep enough but it works for me. I worry about full sink; fast sinking lines getting to deep to fast. If I can’t have my fly at the perfect depth I’d rather have my fly above the fish rather than below the fish. Right or wrong most people agree that fish look up more often than they look down so up is where I want to be. So, my
advise to you when you are looking for that second fly line is don’t worry
yourself a lot thinking about the question of full sink vs. sink-tip.
Instead consider the type of water you will fish most frequently and decide
which sink-tip length is going to work best for you as a second fly line.
03/24/05 - I'll take mine sunny side up. But when it’s cold like this there is a good chance that fish aren’t too concerned about eating. Those trout are lolling about, living off stored up body fat and wishing it would warm up just like we are. And that is a key to one location I really like to fish in the spring – the bank. Yep, the banks often hold early season trout. Not the perfect bank lies you look for later in the season. Not the bank that abruptly drops to a depth of 2-3’ deep providing shelter. Not the bank that has a modest current to bring food. Not the bank that has the small shelter providing rocks or branches that give a rest from holding in the current. Nope, in the spring I like my banks like I like my eggs – SUNNY SIDE UP. That’s right, I want a bank with lazy current and bright sun. I know trout are supposed to dislike bright sun – something about them having no eyelids, and the rods and cones in their eyes gather too much light when it’s bright – and after it warms up that holds fairly true. But when that water reads 33 degrees on your stream thermometer that sunny bank is the closest thing to a wood stove a trout has got. Monday I went fishing at Shawmut. There was guy on the other side of the river and Tuesday I found out who he was. He was a Unity College senior named Nate who loves to fish. Loves it. He stopped into the store Tuesday and we compared notes. He said he had fished quite a bit to no avail. Didn’t even see any fish – until he stopped fishing and started chipping ice away from a favorite entry spot. He figured chipping would warm him up and if he got the shelf ice to break off he could use that pathway. After chipping awhile he paused for a break and just watched the river. Looking slightly downstream he saw something move and when he keyed in on it he realized it was Brown Trout. A Brown Trout on shore, in about 2-3’ of water soaking up the sun. All it lacked was sunglasses and a lounge chair. That’s what I’m talking about – fishing for sun-bathers. Those trout are spooky though. It doesn’t take them long to warm some and their responses warm up right along with their body temperature. Nate said he thought the trout must have “felt” Nate's gaze, as for no apparent reason, it just flicked it’s tail and disappeared out into the main current. That was the only fish he saw. When I go looking for these fish I take into consideration how spooky they are. I use long casts and long leaders and I try to cast UPSTREAM. I don’t normally fish my streamers upstream but in the spring it seems to get me more fish. I try to locate a pocket on the bank that is lazy, bright water. Hopefully there is a casting spot that puts me below and out towards the middle of the stream. I cast quartering upstream with a 10 to 12' leader and a size 8 or 10 slim streamer like a Black Nose Dace. The fly being a slim pattern and not weighted hits the water fairly gently and sinks fairly easily because there isn’t any tension from current pulling on the fly line. I let the fly drift towards the pocket I figure the trout is sunning in and just take up the slack as the fly comes back towards me. When that fly enters the pocket I give it a series of quick short strips. My goal is to make the fly seem like a small baitfish that has the same desire to sun itself - that is until it sees the big trout. Then it become the fleeing bait fish and I hope my rapid strips will trigger an instinctive strike. It just seems to me that a fat, lazy and sun-warmed trout would like a snack delivered to its resting spot – I know I would. So if you hit the water sometime soon and it’s still cold – look to the banks. Look to the bank and remember the trout like the banks SUNNY SIDE UP. Be sure and visit the Forum and share your thoughts on the subject.
03/10/05 Can you hit your hat with a cast fly at 20 feet? Can you mend a fly line back upstream when a belly starts to form? Can you cast your backcast high enough to clear the streamside brush that’s always just behind you? If you can’t do these things here’s a tip for you – practice – practice – practice. Practice LINE CONTROL it is an essential skill. Line control is a skill you have to master if you are going to make the leap from an occasional hook-up to consistent hook-ups. Try hitting a target like your hat at 20 to 30 feet the next time you go out and cast. Being able to hit a target at 25’ will catch you more fish than being able to cast 80’. There are a couple of things to remember if you have a hard time hitting a target. The most important keep your eye on the target – not just at the delivery part of your stroke. Keep your eye on the target during your whole stroke. Be looking at that target when you lift the line – keep looking at that target as your backcast unfurls and when you start that forward stroke and follow through don’t relax your concentration – focus on that target. It won’t be long before your practice pays off. Mending line is another must have line control skill. If you cast a fly out and across the current and start following the drift of the fly with your rod tip you will notice that often the line seems to move faster than the fly. When you feel the line is leading the fly downstream flip the line back upstream. Easy, right? It is until you try to do it without moving the fly. That’s a little harder but if you PRACTICE the mending stroke you can get to a level of control that allows you to mend line without noticeably dragging the fly. The mending stroke often involves feeding some line out as you make the mend and so demands that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing but with some practice it all comes together. If you do practice this technique try mending line 1/3 of the way to the fly, then on the same section of water recast and try mending the line 2/3s of the way to the fly. Mending gradually further and further out towards the fly is the best way I’ve found to get comfortable with this technique. Once you get comfortable doing this upstream mend try mending downstream. Mending downstream has perhaps less application than an upstream mend but a downstream mend is often a key to swimming a wet fly through the current at the right speed. Keeping your backcast up, or better yet – having your backcast go where you want it to go is another line control skill that will kick your hook-ups higher. If for no other reason simply because you will spend more time fishing and less time getting your fly down from some tree limb. There is a key to that just like the other two line control skills. That key is knowing that the line goes in the direction the rod tip is moving in when your casting stroke stops. Holding your rod out it front of you with the tip low to the water pick your line up off the water and make a back stroke that stops with the rod tip point straight up. Not back at two o’clock like the books say but right straight up and down I guarantee you your line will go into a high backcast. Do the same thing again but stroke further back into the arc and let the rod tip go past vertical and start to arc down in back of you by bending your wrist and your rod tip will be traveling down when you stop your backcast. And down is where your line will go. Your backcast will hit the dirt or water behind you every time. The line has to go in the direction the tip is traveling when you stop your casting stroke – it can’t go anywhere else – it really doesn’t have a mind of it’s own. Try
these line control techniques. The will help you get and keep your fly in
the strike zone and more time in the strike zone will net you more fish.
02/24/05 I have one and love it. If I want to go to a pond I use DeLorme’s Topo USA program and call that pond up on my computer screen. I mark the center of it as my destination and cruise the woods roads in the area seeking the closest point. What I fear about GPS units is that someday someone is going to start posting that closest point right here on the web. Then someone else is going to take it one step further and map the route in and out. THEN someone is going to find a spring hole and post the Lat and Long and then, well then – the cat’s out of the bag. Or is it? How is that different from buying a copy of Al Raychard’s, book Remote Trout Ponds in Maine complete with route maps, seasonal fishing locations, campsites and a hatch guide to boot? Your GPS won’t tell you which fly to use. If not a book how about having a coworker tell you which point on Lang Pond to stay about “14’ out it front of.” I’m not sure how I feel about it. Al’s book, the DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer and USGS Topo maps have been around for a long time any boy scout should be able to walk in and back out with a compass. Does the information being available really send more people to a remote pond or does it boil down to a lot of people like to read and daydream about remote ponds but a lot fewer actually ever walk in to a pond? Either way here are some uses I have for my GPS. To get to our camp Linda and I have a six-mile boat ride, often at night. Most nights I can make out the ridge lines, the tower light at the Millinocket airport and other reference points. But one day we got so fogged in that in full daylight we couldn’t see the front of the boat – literally. We made it using the compass but a lot of it was guesswork and dead reckoning. Today, I’ve got the route in my GPS and getting there without going in circles is easy even in the fog. One afternoon Tom King and I went looking for a new spot. We just drove woods roads on the upper end of West Grand Lake and went sniffing around. We were looking for access to a stream pond – one of those spots where a stream flows into a boggy area and shows as a wide place on a topo map. We stopped at one place and I told Tommy to wait and I’d just walk down hill a way through the woods to have a look see. Well, it was overcast and I had no reference to get back to the truck other than to head back uphill and I was only going a short way. When I got to the bottom of the hill and things started to flatten out I searched a little and couldn’t locate the stream so I turned to go back uphill towards the truck. Every direction was uphill – I was in a big bowl depression, the cover was thick and I was lost. Only 50 yards or so lost, but didn’t I wish I had my GPS with me and that I had taken a second to mark the truck location. Obviously I found my way back, and believe me I didn’t tell Tommy but I was lost. I had my compass but they don’t do you much good if you don’t know where you are or which general direction to take to get back. Locating ponds I already mentioned but I also use my GPS to get me to rapids on rivers and streams. I’ll take the AMC River Guide and read about a section of Class II rapids 3 miles from point A. I fire up the PC start the DeLorme Topo Maps program and locate the Lat/Long of the rapids and I’m good to go. One thing I do when looking for a spot using my GPS is check the heading back to my truck fairly often. If I’ve been walking awhile and I’ve only got a general idea as to the way back I’ll stop for a minute and hit the GOTO button and select my truck as the GOTO point. Up pops the compass reading back to my truck. I tuck that away in my memory and if my GPS fails I’ve got a compass reading to use to get me back. And I always carry my compass along with my GPS. So there are some of
the things I use a GPS for – do you have one – if you do how does it help
you?
02/17/05 Well, Linda and I are back, the store is open and Thursday Reviews are back until the Friday Update starts in April. This week I thought I'd review fly line backing. Backing is a seldom talked about item. Many people don’t even use it. I’ve had a number of people come into the shop to purchase a new line and when I stripped the old line off their reel I’ve found the line tied directly to the arbor. I usually try to talk them into putting some backing on but often the reply is “I’ve never caught a fish that took me to the backing – what do I need it for?” Which is a good question – what do you need backing for? Of course there’s the obvious reason – you might catch a big fish that does take you to the backing and if the fly line is tied directly to the arbor THAT FISH IS GONE. But what else does it do for you? The answer is not much. However, I wouldn’t use a reel without it, especially a standard or traditional style reel. Why? In a word – Coiling. Yep, what backing does for me is build the arbor of the reel out and make it larger so those annoying little coils that form in your fly line aren’t so little. The smaller the coils are the harder it is to get rid of them and the more apt they are to knot and snub up a beautiful cast. Most trout reels are designed to hold 100 yards of 20lb. test backing. Most Atlantic Salmon and tarpon reels are designed to hold 200 yards of 30lb. or heavier backing. Do you need all that? Well in the case of the trout reel – no, in the case of the salmon reel – maybe and in the case of the tarpon reel – yes. The only no there is the trout reel so if you don’t need 100 yards how much do you need? Well, like most fly-fishing questions, there isn’t a pat answer. I’m comfortable in most waters fishing with 50 yards of backing even waters with 20” trout. Unless there is a lot of current or the fish are just plain HOT, I don’t worry much. Even in fast water with HOT fish I seldom get run out to 50 yards and I’ve never been spooled. Given that how much backing in on my Battenkill, standard arbor reel - One hundred yards of 20lb. test. Why – coil prevention – not for any other reason. And so, I’m very comfortable here in Shawmut, out in Montana and anywhere in between. It’s always been enough and the day it isn’t won’t I have a story. Getting back to the question how much is enough; my standard answer is as much as your reel will hold. I think extra backing is good insurance. The flip side of that question is the better question. How little can you get away with? That’s a tough one. Personally, I’ve set the minimum at 50 yards, 75 yards is comfortable and 100 yards is more than enough. Be sure and visit the Forum and share your thoughts on the subject.
01/13/05
Rod Building: I don’t encourage people to build their own glass or graphite rods. I use to build quite a few but that was back in the days when rods off the rack had too few guides and often those guides were not even aligned with the spline of the rod blank. If a rod doesn’t have enough eyes a lot of the energy generated by casting is wasted making the rod harder to cast. If the eyes on a rod aren’t aligned with the spline it is less accurate. Combine those two faults and the rod isn’t fun to fish with. It will do the job but poorly. Manufactures would put one or two fewer guides on a rod just to save the cost and time of putting them on. They wouldn’t try to find the spline they would just start wrapping eyes without checking – again to save some manufacturing time. If you took the same blank and put the extra guides on and found the spline the resulting rod would outcast the manufacture’s rod off the rack. Those two things were what caused me to build (or better said wrap) my own rod blanks. The resulting rod just cast better. Most of today’s rod manufactures do a wonderful job of building a rod. The eyes are properly spaced and the spline has been identified. When that started happening I lost interest in building rods. I really didn’t like to wrap rods. I found it tedious. However, I still did it for a while because I felt I could save some money. Well today I don’t build rods anymore and it wasn’t the eyes or the spline that stopped me – it was the guarantee that manufactures started putting on their rods. The money I saved by wrapping my own rods was little – the cost of good blanks and good components approaches the cost of a finished rod. With rod performance and money eliminated as incentives to build your own rod and no guarantee on a rod that you build yourself I figured I’d start buying my rods and have ever since. And, having broken a couple of rods it has paid off. So when someone comes in and says they want to build a rod I take them to the Clearwater Rod rack and explain what I’ve just written to them. Often they agree and just buy a GUARANTEED rod for $150.00 or so and in my opinion are much better off. Of course I'm always happy to sell them a GUARANTEED rod for more than that but they do start at that price. But if they have their heart set on building a rod I get out the catalogs and we go over the blanks and select a blank that will fit their needs. When they select components I encourage them to buy good chrome eyes and tiptops. Add to that a decent cork grip and reel seat and you’ve got a start. I loan them a rod wrapping jig and rod turner for applying finish and some time later they usually produce a good casting rod. A few don’t finish but most do. The one thing I encourage them all to do is not use the normal two-part epoxy finish on their rod wraps. I suggest the U-40 Urethane Rod Finish that doesn’t require mixing. You use it straight from the bottle. I have often had problems with two-part epoxy finish not hardening. There is nothing worse than having all that work and effort sitting in your rod turner for a full day and finding the finish hasn’t hardened, with U-40 that doesn’t happen. Well, gotta go shovel.
01/06/05 - Happy New Year. Be sure and visit the Forum and share your thoughts on the subject. 12/30/04 - Here are a few notes on the topic of 4-piece vs. 2-piece rods. Let me start this off by saying I still buy 2-piece rods most of the time. I own a bunch of rods but only 2 of them are multi-piece. I don't have anything against 4-piece rods it just that when I think about fly rods a 2-piece rod is what I picture. However, that is counter to the trend in rods today. Many manufactures, including Orvis, have shot right past the 4-piece and gone to 5 or 7 pieces so you can put a - good casting - rod right in your briefcase. That said here are some pros and cons for 2 and 4-piece rods. Ferrules today are so well designed that they are no longer a weak point in the rod and they cause no perceptible change in the rods casting action. However strong a ferrule is today it cannot stand up to casting rigors if it has worked loose. And there is one of the rubs with multi-piece rods. If a ferrule isn't properly seated and it works loose while you are casting it's apt to break. More ferrules equal more chances to make a mistake seating rod pieces together and it only takes one mistake. If I could only offer one piece of advise to people buying multi-piece rods it would be this "Seat your ferrules well - don't hurry the assembly - the fish will still be there if you take an extra minute to assemble your rod." So the opportunity to improperly seat a ferrule is the first thing in my list of pros and cons for multi-piece rods. And, it's actually my only "con" item on multi-piece rods. Alignment used to be one of the cons I would list but the use of alignment dots or "witness marks" has made alignment a non-issue. So here are some of the pro items pertaining to 4-piece rods. They are easy to pack and travel with. Packing them in suitcase is a snap and being able to put them under a seat in you car or truck - out of sight from prying eyes - is a big plus. Another good thing is that 4-piece rods separate into 2 equal length pieces if you separate them at the middle ferrule. That for all intents and purposes make them a 2-piece rod for day to day use. If I'm fishing locally (in state - no commercial travel involved) I normally carry my rods in a reel on travel case designed to hold a two piece rod. When I separate my 4-piece at the middle ferrule it slides right in as two equal length sections and I sometimes forget I'm fishing a 4-piece. That' a convenience 3, 5 and 7-piece rods don't offer. No other big pros or cons come to mind on the subject - except maybe one more slightly negative item and that is maintenance. There is some maintenance involved with any 2 or 4-piece rod when it comes to the ferrule system. They should be waxed once or twice a season with a light coat of beeswax and they should be inspected each time you assemble the rod. Look for dirt specks or grains of sand. It doesn't take much contamination in a tight fit like a ferrule to do damage. If you are checking for dirt or applying beeswax it does take a second or two longer with a multi-piece rod but it takes so little time it is hardly worth mentioning. So there are my thoughts on 2-piece vs. 4-piece. Be sure and visit the Forum and share your thoughts on the subject.
12/23/04 - This weeks review targets
a strong favorite of mine CDC flies. Here's some of my thoughts on them
and why I'm using them more and more.
These hairs are the secret to the
floatability of the fly. The hairs get matted down if you apply paste
or oily floatant Patterns tied with this
material come in all sizes and shapes but in my opinion it lends itself best
to emergers and low floating dries.
Another good CDC pattern is
Rosenbauer's Rabbits Foot Emerger - it combines CDC with my
If you follow this link it will take you to a page I started (sorry it still isn't finished) that talks about the color scheme format of my fly boxes. Even thought the article isn't complete the first couple of paragraphs do explain the thought process behind my fly selections. One of the things keeping me from finishing the article is that I keep finding flies that do a better job than the ones I now have and the new patterns keep pushing the old ones out. I already have a fair amount of rabbit's foot patterns in my boxes and the next material to demand room is this CDC. You should try some CDC patterns you may get to liking them. Please visit our Forum and share your thoughts and comments about CDC.
12/16/04 - OK, OK you're right I was supposed to start the Thursday Review last week and didn't do it. I've got a million excuses - the holidays, Linda had eye surgery (which went well), I've got a brother in the hospital (also doing well) and I could go on but the long and short of it is I just didn't get it done. :-) However, I did get around to doing a fly tying page that I promised a while ago. On our Forum there have been several discussions about Caddis Flies. One pattern for Caddis that got a lot of mention is the Davy's Caddis. Many of us think it works well but locating tying instructions proved to be a problem. The only place I could find instructions was in Tom Rosenbauer's pattern book and they weren't very clear. So I did the next best thing to finding a step by step guide - I cut up a perfectly good fly. Yep, I took a good one and cut the thread at the head of the fly and started unwrapping - the end result can be seen by clicking on the title Davy's Caddis seen on the left. If you really want to see how a pattern is tied this is a good way to do it. The only problem is if you take pictures of each step as you dissect the fly some of them look a little funny because the materials have been trimmed after they were tied in and there is no way to allow for that. So in some of the pictures you have to use a little imagination to see the material as it was when they tied it in. Anyway, this is a good fly and it has accounted for a lot of fish to the net. Add it to your box and you'll be well prepared for some of next season's caddis hatches. |
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