I had caught several fish already. Fishing was good. A size 16 pheasant tail with a zebra midge dropper. Most of the takes were on the midge. It renewed my confidence in this confidence fly, and in the idea that my fly mattered far less than the rest of it. My casts were landing softly. My drifts were sliding smoothly. The fly line flowed evenly with the indicator and my hooksets were effective. It all felt right. I was in the groove.
I knew in the time I walked the ten feet from my dorm room stairwell in Sijan Hall to his blue Land Rover that my day on the river would be cold.
Carp fishing and permit fishing are extremely similar. If you had told me this before speaking with Justin, I would never have believed you. After talking with him, I am convinced. Of course it is not exactly the same, but if your living far from the ocean, chasing carp may scratch the itch. Justin's enthusiasm is contagious and this episode is one of the deepest dives we have had on the Wadeoutthere Podcast into all the intricate details that can bring success while fly fishing for any species.
How much time on the water are we wasting being snagged? It may happen less frequently as our casting, accuracy, and most importantly, our situational awareness improves, but if we are fishing fearlessly to the parts of the river that trout love to inhabit, we are bound to encounter sticks, rocks, grasses and branches. The answer is not to fish more cautiously. We need to cast to the tight spots and ensure our nymphs are getting deep enough if we want our flies to have a chance of catching fish. Improving our casting accuracy and building awareness on the river can help limit how often we get snagged, but it cannot eliminate it. Learning how to unsnag our flies as efficiently as possible is required if we are to continue to progress as fly fishers.
Podcast
Podcast 66 | Southeast Wyoming, Fishing with Family and Winter Tips with Phillip Chamberlain.
My journey to home waters has left me staring cold, difficult winter fly fishing in the face and it makes perfect sense. It seems the things in my life that have brought the greatest joy, reveal themselves on the backside of the greatest struggles. Our move to Utah was not easy. Now that we have finally unpacked, cleaned, re-modeled and settled into our new home, I have the opportunity to fish trout streams more often and attempt to answer the question: what makes winter fly fishing special?
I am constantly surprised by the river.
We were teenagers when we found the fly rods in the lodge at the bottom of the hill next to the Stillwater River. The lodge sat across from the small trapper’s cabin. Both remnants of generations gone, when the ranch we worked as children, brought men on horseback, hunting elk into the Beartooth Mountains. The lodge held the treasures of that time. Looking through the drab green packs and canvas tents and dusty boxes we found a tin fly box that brought life to the rods. In it were the large, fluffy, feathered flies that became all we had, so they were all we fished.
The cutbank of a river is a storied location in the realm of fly fishing. Flies are broken off on gnarled root balls, thick grasses, and precarious branches. Anglers are often left stumbling, slipping, and snagged. The evidence of their efforts can be seen in the tangled tippet and lost flies that look back at those of us who imagine brute-like brown trout lurking in the tight close seams below a hard to reach cutbank. Particularly difficult to reach cutbanks may seem like more trouble than they are worth but armed with some tactics for penetrating these tight spots, cutbanks can bring many a memorable trout to the net. Here are three I use when the opportunity presents itself.