Most fly fishers will tell you that presentation is more important in catching fish than fly selection. I tend to agree with this concept, but Cade makes a good point that brings the concepts of presentation and fly selection closer together than we may sometimes consider. Fly selection is more than just the kind of bug you are presenting the fish. Flies can change how we present the fly as well.
There comes a time when it feels like you've tried everything. We had fished fast and slow water. Skinny runs and deep pools. Off the banks and in the middle. Dries and wet flies, both big and small. Nymphs, emergers, dry droppers, hopper droppers, two flies, one fly, weighted flies, with and without split shot. Swinging, stripping, tightlining, dead drifting. Up and down, left to right, and all over that water, you name it, we’d fished it!
Fly fishing doesn't always reward you when or how you want, but keep at it long enough, and you’ll begin to see the missed fish, lost flies, tangles and flat out skunks, were all part of what fly fishing really is. We all have seasons in fly fishing when it seems like nothing will work. Something will…
Keep on moving. Because the good things out there don’t always come to us. Alejandro Feliciano knows this from his time walking the beaches of Puerto Rico, where the fish are always there, you just have to go find them. Whether we’re searching for a fish to tighten our line or a new river to explore, it seems nature provides, so long as we go searching.
Podcast
Podcast Ep. 126: Dry Fly Hatches and Presentation on the Bitterroot River with Andrew Hettick
If you only have a few fish out of a dozen that want to eat on top, your just trying to cover as many fish as you possibly can to create a larger opportunity for yourself -Andrew Hettick
A lot of little things add up to big things in the fly fishing world. - Pat Dorsey
Dissecting the water not just laterally, but also vertically, helps us analyze and understand the full area of a trout’s habitat. Reading water should be a combination of that lateral and vertical plane because trout can move up, down and side to side within every dimension of the river.
We drove along the Provo River looking for a good spot to stop and fish. From the passenger seat I caught glimpses of the water over the guard rail between the curves in the highway.