The Fishing Gene

What Trout Want

October 7, 2025

I have been fly fishing for over 50 years, but I would have to admit to being a bit of a slow starter. For much of my “career” I have been a one man band, not necessarily out of choice but because in my youth I didn’t have anyone to confer with. I read everything that was available to me in the local library. But didn’t really have any “fishing buddies” or “mentors” who knew anything more about fly fishing than I did. I certainly didn’t have access to a dedicated flyshop, or a plethora of fly tying materials.

These weren’t the days of YouTube video instruction or websites, podcasts and such, you either knew someone who was better at things than you and was prepared to take you out on the water or you didn’t. Pretty much I didn’t, and so I made my own choices, my own experiments and more to the point, in spades, my own mistakes.

If there is a mistake you can make in terms of fly fishing then I assure you I have made it. I have tied poor knots, cast badly, used tippet far too heavy, flies too large, waded poorly and rushed when I should have been more circumspect. Worst of all I have spent far too much time focusing on looking for more realistic fly patterns, mostly because all the evidence about me suggested that this was what was required.

However out of experimentation and error is born conviction. When I suggest that in my opinion this is a better way of doing something, it isn’t out of ego, or blind faith. It is born out of the crucible of failure, of mistakes, of foolish adherence to the rules of the time, basically naivety.

Take fly casting as a case in point. I grew up with the standard UK stiff upper lip and stiffer wrist school, promulgated in EVERY library book I read, and I read all of them. The ‘ol’ Ten O’clock to Two O’clock rubbish which I still hear and see on a regular basis. It is garbage of course and has held back far too many anglers from reaching anything like their potential, but still today there are supposed tutors who use this as a casting style, or at least purport to. Even now, in some circles, you take your life in your hands should you suggest “The Clock System” is rubbish, only to become branded as a heretic and outcast from angling society, labelled as a trouble maker. See A Load of ‘ol Clock on this blog.

Perhaps the issue has been that, from the outset, fly fishing has been dictated from on high with specific rules and conventions which stifle innovation. “The Masters of the Art” dictated from their lofty perches, all manner of foolish convention, from regulation that one should only cast a dry fly upstream to a rising trout, to specific measurements of wing or hackle size on a fly. There is no real basis for any of these “rules” but they have been universally accepted and passed down through generations to the point that they have taken on the apparent authenticity of fact.

***These “Standard” dry fly proportions only really work to try to make a particular style of dry fly float correctly. In reality they have nothing to do with imitation.***

All of that means that it is extremely difficult to avoid such notions and to genuinely “think outside of the box”.

Much as this applies to issues such as fly casting it equally, and perhaps more pervasively, applies to fly tying and fly design. Even apparent innovations tend to stay within the lines of commonly held belief.

***Even today the vast majority of dry flies are tied in the traditional “Catskill” or “Halfordian” style, despite ample evidence that they are not the most effective.***

I didn’t really notice it to start with, but my fly tying was limited, not by lack of enthusiasm, or manual dexterity, but simply by materials. I grew up in rural South West England with limited access to fly shops or fly tying retailers and even more limited funds. Such that the flies that I tied were manufactured out of materials from my mother’s sewing kit. Until my late twenties I hadn’t heard of a “Genetic Hackle” and when I did it finally opened up the reason why my dry flies didn’t look like those in the books.

That bothered me, and continued to bother me for decades. My flies never looked like the perfect Catskill ties in the tomes from the local library. They didn’t seem to float the way described in the angling literature which I was still absorbing like a sponge.

Over time, changes in circumstances and additional financial freedom meant that I could manage (Just) to include some premium materials, genetic hackles and such into my fly tying. I was happier with the patterns, they looked more like those featured in books, articles and now YouTube videos.

I became caught up in the “Match the Hatch”, “Close copy” rhetoric of the time. Briefly, enamored with Goddard and Clarke’s USD paradun, because it seemed to be eminently sensible to remove the bend of the hook from the equation, what insight! What inventiveness! What rubbish. (To be fair, Goddard and Clarke’s book “The Trout and the Fly, a New Approach” was highly advanced for its time, but again the authors, as did so many of us, fell down the rabbit hole of imagining that one could make more and more imitative patterns and thus become more and more successful.)

Fly tying has been filled with “fools errands” for generations, Dunne fiddled with mixed coloured silk swatches, determined that the colour was the big issue. Halford and Gordon pontificated over split wings, cock hackle fibres, and an entirely imaginary dry fly floating on “hackle points” well above the surface. (Something that is all but impossible to achieve, and certainly impossible to recreate cast for cast).

Don’t get me wrong, this is part of fly fishing history, Halford, Gordon, Skues, Dunne were all innovators of their time and innovation generally leads to as much failure as it does success. The point really is that one should be able to move on. It is likely, as I write this, that in the future someone, somewhere, will come up with better understanding and new and improved concepts in terms of fly design. That is progress.

***The majority of the flies I tie and use these days are about as simple as I can make them.***

Effectively my fly tying has gone full circle, from scruffy patterns forced upon me for lack of materials or even a decent vice. To scruffy patterns specifically designed to be scruffy. Unkempt straggly flies that don’t in all fairness look very much like anything. It has taken five decades to turn full circle, to recognise that much as it might be fun, (and it still is fun), to lovingly manufacture close (in our eyes) copies of specific insects, the reality is that you don’t need to and more than likely are limiting yourself if you do. Tying and fishing flies which allow for the fish to see what they want to see, rather than imposing my views of what should be a more imitative pattern, seems to work exceptionally well. See Fly Tying and the Man on the Moon on this blog.

So it was with great interest that I came across Bob Wyatt’s book “What trout want” – The educated Trout and other myths. (Stackpole Books ISBN 9780811711791). I am not entirely sure how this tome eluded me for a long as it did. It was originally published in 2013 so I have been a bit slow on the uptake. (What I will say upfront if that if you haven’t read it then you really should)

***If you are happy to question conventional wisdom and learn a lot about tying more effective flies you would do well to read this.***

But as I commenced reading through Wyatt’s engaging chapters I more and more realised that we were very much on the same page. It is something of a revelation, simply because the overwhelming background noise in fly fishing and fly tying circles continues to be based on “finding a better fly” and in general “better” implies a closer copy of the real thing.

Conventions are so pervasive that even innovators tend to revert to type, so caught up are all in the common “wisdom” of our sport.

Fly Fishing Outside the Box, by Peter Hayes (Coch-y-Bonddu Books, 2013, ISBN9781904784562) is one of my favoured publications, not because I agree with everything that Peter Hayes suggests, but simply because I love that he is prepared to publicly challenge common wisdom in exactly the same way that Wyatt does in his book. The trouble is that for all that innovative thinking Hayes falls into the imitative fly trap with a focus on fly patterns and a chapter “Imitation’s Last Frontier”. This isn’t to criticise Hayes, but to rather demonstrate how incredibly difficult it is to escape the long held conventions of various aspects of our sport.

***Another thought provoking book well worth your attention.***

It is perhaps worth noting that Peter has a second book, written together with Don Stazicker, equally well worth the read and equally in many ways as innovative and questioning as the first. It is called “Trout and Flies Getting Closer” (Kindle Edition available on Amazon as an eBook), and for all the innovation there is the focus on imitative fly patterns all over again. It is a tricky monkey to get off one’s back.

I belong to a WhatsApp group dedicated to fly tying which sees literally hundreds of posts every week and most of those, images of the latest creation from one of the participants. In all honestly none vary considerably from the other hundreds of patterns. Few, if any, represent a step forward in terms of fish fooling ability. They are all nice, they represent a level of artistry that can’t be downplayed but do they make any difference out on the water? Personally I don’t think so and now I have “found” a like thinking angler in Bob Wyatt who equally believes that we fly fishers tend to overemphasize the fly pattern and underestimate the importance of almost everything else.

Go to the British Fly Fair, ( A wonderful event to be sure) and there will be rooms full of fly tying materials, fly tying tools, international “stars” demonstrating fly tying techniques. Not that there is anything wrong with any of that, not that I don’t personally enjoy exploring and trying out new things. BUT, and it is a big BUT, what is it that we are trying to achieve? To me I am trying to achieve a result in terms of consistently catching fish. Yes it is nice if the patterns I manufacture look pretty to my eyes, that brings confidence. Yes it is fun to fiddle about with new materials and I have to admit that my patterns tend to evolve a little bit year on year, such that the fly boxes never look exactly the way they did six months back. But I have almost entirely given up on trying to “copy” nature. To my eyes and to Wyatt’s it is a thankless and likely impossible task.

Of course the fly pattern is of critical importance, at least insomuch that without one you are not going to catch many fish. The question really then becomes what makes an effective one? And therein lies the rub. For decades we have been taught to focus on close copies. There are endless book titles pontificating about fly design, thousands of images of upright and delicately fashioned patterns. Dozens of tomes suggesting how to “Match the Hatch” but to my mind there is ample evidence all about us that this view is seriously flawed.

Simple, “scruffy” flies, which could represent any number of bugs are to my mind generally more effective. They don’t imitate anything, or they imitate everything, it’s a matter of perspective.

For starters the most famous flies or those in greatest general use are both simple in design and universal in appeal. The Adams, the Hare’s Ear, the Pheasant Tail, the Elk Hair Caddis and others don’t even in their names suggest the imitation of a specific insect. In fact one of the best known “Upwing” imitations The Adams actually started life as a caddis fly imitation apparently and its popularity likely has as much to do with visability as it does imitation.

There have been a number of key innovations since the days of Halford and the standard dry fly, but almost all of those are advances are more in terms of engineering and fishability than considerations of imitation.

There have been innovations, the G & H sedge a new look of using spun deer hair, although still sporting the standard perpendicular hackle. The Comparadun, really something away from the accepted dry fly style. The parachute, mechanically far superior to the Catskill ties and Fran Betters’ interesting use of snow shoe hare.

The advent of parachute styles, Cauci and Nastasi’s Comparadun, Hans van Klinken’s superb “Klinkhamer” and of course one of the more recent advances The Perdigon. None of these flies claim to be more imitative, at least in terms of their looks. They might well be more imitative in the manner in which they are presented, not least because they are all effectively “emergers”, but that is another matter entirely.

So when you are considering loading up your fly boxes over the winter months I would strongly suggest that you read Bob Wyatt’s “What Trout Want”, Hans Van Klinken’s “Klink”, Peter Hayes’ “Fly Fishing Outside the Box” and MOST importantly, start to think of your fly designs not in terms of close copy imitation but rather in terms of presentability and fishability.

To my mind fly fishing is ALWAYS about presentation and having flies that aid in that presentation is a far better bet than trying for an impossible EXACT copy of any given bug.

Tags: Bob Wyatt, Comparadun, Educated Trout, Fly Tying, Klinkhammer, Matching the hatch, Peter Hayes, Simple Trout Flies, Tim Rolston
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Right Fly

August 19, 2025

Fly Fishing is NOT about the fly; but what if it is?

I have written extensively about my view; that fly fishing really isn’t about the fly; despite so many anglers, writers, influencers and others all becoming besotted with flies and fly tying.

It isn’t that I am immune to the allure of a nicely fashioned imitation; I have even been known to lash together the occasional artistic and well-proportioned Catskill pattern of my own, but these days I don’t tend to fuss too much about such things.

I remain convinced that the closer you get to a “perfect imitation” the further you get away from catching fish. It is a difficult pill to swallow, because decades of angling writers have convinced us that “if only I had the right fly…. Blah Blah Blah”.

**The idea that one has to “Match the Hatch” is so ingrained it is difficult to escape.**

If one doesn’t get a take then it must be the fly, if one doesn’t catch a fish, even in spate conditions and freezing winds, it must be the fly. If one casts over an actively feeding fish and it doesn’t take, then, it must be the fly. I totally reject that notion for any number of reasons. Not least because, when you have that viewpoint, you have painted yourself into a corner before you even start. You have limited your thinking to focus on one aspect of your game, frequently resulting in ignoring a heap of other important and likely more important aspects. You figure that you don’t have the right fly so you might as well go home. Or, perhaps worse still, you keep working your way through a stuffed fly box, tying and retying different patterns and using up your precious tippet in a frenzy of misguided hope.

Reasons for a fish not eating your fly are myriad, drag, leader flash, poor presentation (in multiple guises), even simply fish that are not feeding, it’s rarely the pattern, at least not the specific pattern.

But what if it is?

After slightly more than two years, fishing the Wye River in my “new” home in Wales, I have been successful using only four, or maybe six flies most of the time. I had visions, after my move, of having to learn Latin names, study new bugs. I even invested in a little net from the local post office. It is designed to allow small children to abuse minnows, but serves me adequately when I wish to catch the prevailing insects to better identify them. It has proven interesting, but I can’t say it has made any difference to my catch rate. Most of the rising fish will take a small neutrally coloured Klinkhammer, a CDC midge, a floating nymph/emerger or going deep a 2mm bead black thread perdigon. Honestly, 99% of my fish, have taken one of those even amidst some notable hatches.

**Most of the flies I use are simple, relying on suggestion more than imitation.**

After moving home and with that feeling insecure on new waters, I studied Pat O’Reily’s “Matching the Hatch” (Swan Hill Press: ISBN 1 85310 822 7”.) An excellent tome, it proves to be, a great resource for me to find out what bug it is that I have in the mesh of my child’s minnow net.

However: in a book, dedicated to matching the hatch of all the various bugs, aquatic and other, that might be ingested by a fish, O’Reily suggests paradoxically that there are SEVEN patterns which cover most of the bases. What he refers to as “The Magnificent Seven”. Had he been less of a fan of Yul Brynner and more focused on Enid Blyton it could have been the “Famous Five” instead. The point is, and I agree, that you don’t need an exact copy of every bug for success. In fact I suspect that even were that possible it might prove counter productive.

Much as “matching the hatch” has become the accepted norm; even cursory examination of on stream experience shows that we all catch fish without carrying a million specific imitations. If it wasn’t for the fact that we can get away with less than perfect imitations, I doubt that any of us would catch much at all.

Selecting a key “few” patterns which work for you is probably the baseline of almost all anglers. I personally wouldn’t choose the flies that O’Reily has, but I do go along with the concept that you don’t need too many different imitations to cover most of the bases.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking the author, the book was first published in 1997, things were a bit different back then, fly designs and materials have moved on a long way since. The images of various insects alone are worth the price of a copy. Without it I wouldn’t have a cooking clue as to what bug I had captured and, as mentioned above, it has proven interesting to study a few insects on the water and determine what they are.

FOR THE RECORD:

O’Reilly suggests his “Magnificent Seven” are:
Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph (Covering most nymph forms)
Greenwell’s Glory (Covering Upwings)
Tup’s Indispensable (Covering pale upwings)
Silver Sedge (Covering all the sedges/caddis flies)
Damsel Nymph (Present throughout the year and an essential stillwater pattern)
Coch-y-bonddu (covering beetles)
Olive Suspender Buzzer (Covering all the midge pupae)

Given that the book considers both rivers and still waters, the Damsel and Suspender Buzzer are almost exclusively stillwater flies, that leaves only FIVE to fish moving water.
O’Reilly’s selections are obviously somewhat dated, but that is to be expected and this is by no means a criticism, although the fact that they are all tied on barbed hooks is.

My current “modern” selection for rivers would be:
CDC Parachute Klinkhammer (Covering Upwings and emergers)
CDC Midge (Covering midges and small upwings)
Spun Dun (Covering Upwings and emergers)
F Fly (Covering upwings and caddis flies)
Perdigon (Covering nymphs)
In fairness, I haven’t specified colours, so I am cheating a bit compared to O’Reilly’s rigid pattern choice.

The actual patterns don’t matter that much, so long as you can cover the bases, if you want to include a parachute Adams or a Walt’s Worm, that’s all fine. In the end confidence in the flies is probably about as crucial as the actual pattern itself. (See https://paracaddis.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-c-word/ on this blog)

The concept of “Matching the Hatch”, close or exact copy imitation has been the mainstay of fly angling literature for decades. The fact that it is rubbish doesn’t seem to make a dent. There are undoubtedly elements in an effective fly which are required. BUT, exact, or even close copy imitations are certainly not.

I have to say that I am a dyed in the wool, vociferous advocate of presentation. A PRESENTATIONIST above all else, the skill in fly fishing is presentation, not having the most extensive fly box, not learning Latin, not identifying ephemerids by their wing veination under a microscope. Learn to present your flies effectively and you will catch fish. That is my mantra, that is what I believe, study, and teach. Presentation, presentation, presentation.

**A quality Brown Trout taken on a non-descript midge pattern**

So what about the other evening?

I headed out late onto a section of the Wye River; a favoured spot for evening fishing. The tailout will often erupt with moving fish in the last hour of a summer’s evening, it is easily wadeable, if a tad slippery. If things go to plan you can catch dozens of fish without moving twenty feet.

There were a few fish moving on the top when I arrived. Not a lot but something to target at least. I took my first fish on about the third cast and then little for a while. A rising fish, a cast, a take and a miss. Nothing to worry about. Another rise, another cast, another take and another miss. This happened four times in a row and that is, to be fair to me, unusual.

I checked that the fly wasn’t tangled, perhaps being pulled in reverse, but nothing was amiss.

I caught some fish, even a LOT of fish for that matter, but it seemed to me that something was “off”. Usually an accurate cast over a moving fish will result in a take, perhaps require a second cast. Here I was making four or five casts and not always getting a response. Could it be the fly? It really felt as though the fish were not fully committing. What the English would refer to as “taking short”. I am not sure that I buy that, but for whatever reason the fish didn’t seem totally convinced by either my imitation or presentation.

The leader was my standard 20’, tapered down to 8x, my casting was working well, once the wind had dropped, and I was, in my view, covering rises with considerable accuracy and quality presentation. Usually that’s enough.

The Klinkhammer worked, but not well enough in my opinion, the CDC midge worked, but again, too many drifts to get a result, and eventually as the light faded into the last half hour of fishable conditions I changed pattern. I had captured some “Welshman’s Button” Sedges earlier on in the evening, in my kiddies fishing net, more out of interest than what I considered necessity. They certainly seemed to be the prevailing hatch. So the fly I selected was a black parachute goose biot caddis.

The goose biot caddis is a pattern I designed to imitate micro caddis on the streams of the Limietberg Reserve in South Africa and it had proven very effective there. To be frank, I hadn’t cast that pattern in two years. But it did the business; from two, three, four casts over a rising fish, to get a response, now it was one or two.

In the fading light I probably made less than eight casts to catch the final four fish. I quit after that, the darkness increasing the possibility of injuring the fish unnecessarily. The takes were now so confident that I frequently had to use forceps to remove the barbless hook. I can’t be sure that it wasn’t the dim light more than the pattern that made the difference. And more to the point I am pretty sure that any dark caddis shaped pattern would have done the trick. But it was interesting.

None of that really changes my view that it isn’t about the fly. Yes the caddis pattern seemed to be more effective, but then again any small dark caddis-shaped fly likely would have done. Caddis flies are a distinctive profile, and I hadn’t been casting anything particularly caddis like.

Although I firmly believe that it isn’t about the fly, it does pay to be “in the ball-park” in terms of size and shape.

Where I believe I was in error, (and bear in mind that I still caught a considerable number of fish on the “wrong fly”) was that I wasn’t covering the shape of the ongoing hatch. (Welshman’s Button in this instance).

It isn’t easy to know, there are always midges on this river, the sedges (Caddis) are fairly small, and mixed hatches are the norm. But I definitely felt that my other patterns weren’t producing the results that I expected and the change made a significant difference.

Even then you don’t need a specific pattern, a small F fly, a dark Elk Hair Caddis, perhaps even a larger version of the CDC midge would likely have done the business.

So, despite this apparent anomaly , I still hold to the idea that in reality you don’t need a specific imitation. The “Magnificent Seven” concept, although I wouldn’t choose any of those particular flies, holds true. Close enough is good enough much of the time. Clear differences in size and shape however do matter. Clearly different “prey images” require some adaptation, although even then, much of the time the fish are focused on damaged, semi submerged insects trapped in the film and really looking a bit of mess.

I suspect that on this evening, I wasn’t quite right in terms of the shape/profile of the prevailing food source. I still caught some fish, but it was more of a struggle than it should have been, until I switched patterns.

I still hold to the following:

You will catch fish with the right fly
You will catch fish with the wrong fly
But you will catch most of your fish with the right presentation.
Fly fishing is ALWAYS about presentation.
I would far rather fish the “wrong fly” on the right leader than the other way around.
Sometimes, a change of fly will make a difference, but it doesn’t need to be an exact copy.

The trouble is that the “Match the Hatch” mantra is so ingrained, so pervasive, so frequently repeated that it is difficult to get it entirely out of one’s system. I still carry far too many flies “just in case”.. I need to work on that a bit I think.

Tags: Fishing the River Wye, Fly Fishing Presentation, Fly Patterns, Fly Tying, Matching the hatch, The Magnificent Seven, The Right Fly, Tim Rolston
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

What do you think?

August 11, 2025

I recently “hosted” an old friend from South Africa who was visiting the UK and cleverly arranged to get in some fishing in Mid Wales. Best I understand it, he managed to convince a considerable family entourage to camp out in the nearby hills, just so that he could go fishing for a few days. That provides some indication of the commitment of both himself and the extended family for that matter. Nobody else in the party has much, if any, interest in fishing.

I tell you this because; although having a visiting angler come to your home waters is always something of a pressure event, one hopes that the fish will put their best fins forward as it were. With this extended number of people intimately invested in the outing, the pressure was more than somewhat on.

**Visiting angler John targets some of the few rising fish we found, late in the day.**

As it turned out, after bright weather and pretty much drought conditions for weeks, the day in question dawned bleak, chill, and cloudy and there had been a good down-pouring of rain in the hills over night. I dropped Lennie off at work and returned home to find an excited John on the doorstep, all ready to tackle the Wye, and hopefully catch, what would be, his first brown trout and / or first grayling. So you will see that the outing was important in more ways that one.

We headed out onto the club section in Newbridge on Wye, walking along the road and across fields to reach a favoured section, which receives little fishing pressure other than from me. The water is exclusive in the sense that you have to live in Newbridge to become a member. Exclusivity via geography rather than financial stature. (If I had known in advance, I could have been persuaded to pay more for my humble cottage).

**The Upper Wye holds some great fish, both Brown Trout and Grayling. The hope for the day was for John to tick off at least one and perhaps two new species. He managed that in the end.**

Crossing at a convenient spot it was obvious that the water was up and a little bit discoloured, something rather unusual on this stretch. That had me thinking that we were in for a hard time of it. The previous few outings had clear water and fish willing to come up for a dry fly even with little or no surface activity.

I set John up with a dry fly, fishing a lovely run with a distinct bubble line, screaming fish at us, but to no avail. We added a nymph in a duo rig and continued without success. Then I re-rigged my rod for Euro-nymphing and fished through a very good slightly deeper run. I was showing John the ropes as we went along, him being unfamiliar with Euro-nymphing techniques. I fully expected a result but got none. The river holds both native wild brown trout and grayling, surely one of them could be lured by a deeply presented nymph? But no, not a sniff.

Whilst John persevered with a nymph rig, hopes slightly buoyed by a fish attacking the indicator, I returned to the original run and re-rigged back to a duo outfit with a small perdigon on the point and a favoured small Klinkhammer on the dropper. I was really spinning my wheels and waiting for John, thinking that we might have to move to a completely different venue with clearer water. There would be other rivers flowing out of dams which weren’t coloured up by the rains, should it come to that.

**A change in tactics worked out well, but why were the fish in the shallows?**

But then; this is where things got interesting. The water was definitely discoloured, but a fish rose not feet from my legs. (I suppose that might be some indication of the stealth of my wading, but in reality why was it there? ), then another fish rose under the rod tip. There had been no surface activity, and generally in this run the fish are further out in the obvious bubble line. Could they have moved in close because they could better find food? Or perhaps they felt safer in the murky flows, to move closer into the shallows.

I didn’t know, but changed tack and cast up against the bank into water not a foot deep, immediately getting a take on the dry fly. A really nice brown trout which threw the hook on the second jump. Disappointing but encouraging too.

So, reassessing the situation I waded back to the bank and started fishing where on any normal day I would be standing. Three more casts and a grayling intercepted the dry fly and again threw the hook, then another which was was landed. Not five minutes later a fish rose so close under my rod tip that I could barely cast to it, almost dapping the dry fly onto the rings of the rise and eliciting another take and another feisty grayling in the net.

In something like 15 minutes, I rose four fish, although I dropped two of them for whatever reason, this on a morning when hours or focused toil had produced nothing.

Could it be that for some reason the fish moved into shallower water? I have fished this run numerous times and the fish are ALWAYS out on the bubble line on the seam between the deeper water and a shallow rock shelf. What was the thinking in moving into the shallows on the opposite side to where they normally feed?

**John’s second ever Brown Trout and a mission half completed.**

It was interesting, and something of a success on the one hand, but I am still not sure as to the reason for the effectiveness of the change of tactics. I suppose I could chalk it up to a good “educated guess” and let’s face it there are a lot of those in effective fly fishing. But at the same time it bothers me that I don’t really know the reason behind it.

We spent a few more hours, fishing the shallows in various spots with little success, other than John landing his first ever Brown Trout, all of four inches long. A milestone, albeit a diminutive one, and then we packed up for lunch.

**John finally adds another new species, a grayling on a dry fly.. Well done.**

Returning to the water in the evening the river had fined down and cleared considerably. We fished a different section and John got a larger brown trout and a decent grayling, two new species for him which was wonderful.

All in all a good result, dragged kicking and screaming out of a poor start to the day. A victory of sorts, ripped from the jaws of impending defeat.

I will still wonder about those fish in the shallows, but will file it away, because no doubt at some point in the future I might find myself in a similar situation and that tiny bit of knowledge could spell the difference between success and failure once again.

**Out on his own the following day John picked up some more fish including this gorgeous Brown Trout. He must have learned something the day before, even if I didn’t.**

But what do you think? Did the fish move into the shallows for better visibility to feed? Or, did they perhaps simply feel more secure in the slightly murky water to come close?

Perhaps there is another scenario which I haven’t considered, I would be interested in your thoughts.

There is little doubt in my mind something was happening, and I was fortunate enough to adapt and make the most of it, but I am not sure what “IT” was. Some thoughts?

Please do feel free to leave a comment, it was an interesting morning, but you may well have further insights which have escaped me. Thanks.

Tags: Dry Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing coloured water, John Elverson, Tim Rolston, Wye River
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Drumming ‘Em Up.

August 3, 2025

On those chill winter evenings, perhaps glass in hand, we might conjure up images of fishing, either in the past or potential future. But those images rarely include struggling to cast into a frigid gale, slinging tungsten on a tight line rig, or stumbling on slippery boulders and heading for an unanticipated swim.

**The last few outings it seems that the grayling are more susceptible to a well presented dry than the brown trout.**

No, optimists that we are, and anglers have to be optimists to survive, we see the bright side. The languid flow of a crystal clear stream. The dimpled rises of active fish under the far bank vegetation, perhaps the regular interception of mayfly duns in a slick tail-out. The neon blue flash of a kingfisher headed home, or perhaps even a squeaking otter family as the day turns slowly into night.

For most of us, the ring of a rise is worth more than gold, the opportunity to know that you have a fish in your sights, a fish whose location has been revealed and all importantly a fish which is feeding on the surface. We can eschew the nymph, ditch the tungsten, and focus on the purest of pure presentation of a drag free dry fly. I am not sure why it matters so much, but it simply does.

**Somehow a fish on a dry fly counts for more, I am not sure why that should be, but to me it is simply the case.**

A fish taken on a dry fly is just magical, it was magical the first time it happened to me on a local canal at the age of 12, well over fifty years ago, and it remains so. To watch a fish, rise up from its aquatic realm, briefly entering our world of air and light, to intercept a tiny twist of fur and feather is, to me, a magic trick. It is like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It never fails to amaze me, not after half a century of playing the same game. I will persevere beyond reason with a dry fly if I have any hope of success. Yes I will fling tungsten, perhaps even enjoy doing so when the chips are down, and the river up. BUT, I really do like to take fish on a dry fly (Emergers included).

**With grayling in particular, you never quite know what you are going to get. The largest of fish can make the smallest of dimples. This fish of modest dimensions, but the next one? Who knows.**

Back on my old “home waters” drumming them up, was pretty much the norm, if they were rising then all good and fine, but if they weren’t, most of the time you could persuade the fish to oblige with a well presented dry fly. The rivers were crystal clear, which might have helped things along, and the bug life wasn’t particularly robust; the fish had to eat what was available to them when opportunity arose. That’s not to say the fishing was easy, it wasn’t, and some days the fish just “weren’t on”. But most of the time you could find someone willing if you put in the effort.

Here on the Wye in Mid Wales, things seem a little different. If the fish aren’t on the go they simply aren’t. Perhaps it is linked to the considerable fly life on the river; turn over a rock and there are caddis cases in their hundreds, Heptageniid Nymphs in abundance and of course in mid-summer 18 hours of daylight for fish to gorge themselves. Truth is that the fish really don’t need to feed all the time, and it isn’t any surprise that they simply don’t. They don’t give a hoot for my sport, and if they decide not to play there is little to be done about it.

**Scruffy dries are more my thing these days, most of them emerger or Klinkammer styles of some description.**

So it was a trifle unusual to me, that a few days ago I headed out onto the Wye, fairly early in the morning and with little to no surface activity on offer. I was determined, for no reason other than obstinacy, to cast a dry fly over some likely looking runs. To me, the drift of a well presented dry fly, even uninterrupted by a fish, is still a pleasure. I never quite get the same feeling from flinging a nymph. Yes the tungsten can be effective and YES I will pursue that when required, even enjoy it to a point. But to me it isn’t REAL fishing. I can happily cast a dry fly for hours, mending line, aiming for the perfect drift, watching the post of my parachute lazily follow the bubbles on the water, and never waver from my commitment.

It rarely seems to be the case that blind fishing and “drumming them up” works on the Wye; the abundance of food and the extended daylight hours might well be a factor here. BUT, on this occasion it worked. Perhaps the fifth drift down the bubble line of a delicious looking run resulted in a take from a moderate grayling. A few casts more and another rose up from the bottom to intercept the mini-klinkhammer I was fishing.

**Sometimes are just what I call “Grayling Days”, next time out you won’t find a Lady of the Stream and it will all be native brownies. It doesn’t matter, I love to catch them both.**

I continued to explore various runs without so much as a rise in sight, but pulled up fish in almost every spot I tried. Interestingly, only one of the fish taken on that day, some twenty fish in total was a native brownie. ALL of the fish were grayling, and not a few of decent proportions. It seems a little odd that bottom focused fish, with sub-terminal mouths, like grayling, would respond to the dry fly more aggressively than the native browns. But then again, that is what happened.

**Flies orientated to have a submerged abdomen seem to illicit more of a response.**

I enjoyed a lovely morning on the river, saw a kingfisher, and caught something in the region of twenty fish, all but one were grayling, and all on a dry fly. I haven’t previously had much success with drumming them up when they are not on the move. Perhaps the low and clear water had something to do with things. I suppose that is the point really, you never actually know what is going on. I should likely have fished a duo rig with a nymph as some sort of insurance, but I am old and grumpy, it was a nice day and I just wanted to fish a dry fly. This time it worked, next time it likely won’t. Who knows?

What does seem to make a difference, particularly to the Grayling is to fish some sort of emerger style fly, a floating nymph or Klinkhammer style with the abdomen below the surface. I an growing increasingly confident in the idea that this orientation of the fly can trigger more takes, even if the fish aren’t “up on the top”.

I continue to experiment, but haven’t really fished a true full hackled dry fly in months. I still carry a small net to investigate the hatches, because I am not familiar with them, but last evening, with long horn sedges the predominant species I was still successful with a small Klink’ style pattern.

It is all good fun, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes rewarding and it seems that if a fish is moving on the top, it is, for the most part takeable, with a well placed and drag free cast. When they are not up, things are more tricky. But again, it seems that there are times when they can be tempted and the pleasure of fishing a single dry fly somehow makes the extra effort all the more worthwhile.

**Casting a dry fly over glorious water is a pleasure in itself, sometimes you get lucky and the fish oblige.**

There was a chill wind on the river last night, once the sun went down. A harbinger of winter on its way, and when the time comes, I will be forced to sling tungsten and wade frigid flows. For now I will enjoy fishing on the top, perhaps limiting my potential to a point, but not my enjoyment.

There will be plenty of time for nymphing in the coming months, so for now I will try to focus on the surface feeders, even if I have to persuade them to become such.

Tags: Dry Fly Fishing, Flyfishing, Klinkhammer, The River Wye, Tim Rolston
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Enquiring Minds

June 22, 2025

I have been asked more than once, by anglers and non-anglers alike; “What makes a good fly fisherman?”. It can be interesting to ponder, because at first glance one could suggest that it would be the guy who casts the best, or ties the neatest flies, perhaps simply the one who spends the most time on the water? (We will come back to that later).

However to my mind, things like casting and fly tying can be learned by anyone willing to put in the time, so they cannot, of themselves, be indicators of future success. What I do believe is a MASSIVE indicator of future competence, even in the angler who is still struggling with the basic mechanics of the sport, is having an inquiring mind.

Anyone who is serious about fly fishing and has spent a few seasons on the water, quickly gets to realise that fly fishing is far more of an intellectual pursuit than a mechanical one. The very best anglers are those questioning things all the time. Why is that fish over there? Why is that rise form like that? Why did the fish not take my fly? Why did that fish take my fly? And myriad other subtle queries, many of which might well be subconscious.

Having an inquiring mind, questioning everything, pondering what Brian Clarke in his excellent book “In Pursuit of Stillwater Trout” terms “The Piscatorial Navel”..

**Time on the water is valuable, but all the more so if you question everything, become an observer and experiment**.

Which brings us back to “Time on the water”; an essential part of becoming more effective is to spend time fishing, there is little substitute for that. One can read as many books as you like, and very valuable that can be. But there is no real alternative for your personal growth but to get out and fish. Take the good with the bad, have success and failure, blank or not. The rub however is that time spend on the water teaches one little if not accompanied by a considerable amount of reflection.

If you are simply doing the same old same old, casting the same flies on the same leader, fishing the same stretch of water, standing glued to the spot, never noting the insects in the air or the rise forms of the fish, then you are not learning much.

There are many anglers who will tell you that they have fished for twenty years or something similar, and all to often what they mean is that they have fished the same year twenty times. The very best anglers modify their approach, scheme, experiment and learn something new almost every time they are out and about, rod in hand. They also constantly question what is considered to be accepted wisdom from the past.

**This was the Standard Dry Fly of my youth. I don’t own a single fly pattern that looks like this anymore.**

Effectively, every outing is to some degree an experiment, as it is unlikely that the fish are doing exactly the same thing each time you wet a line. It is up to the angler to try to come up with an effective strategy.

To my mind, one of the most limiting aspects for many anglers is that their first port of call in terms of a new strategy is to change flies. This near religious belief that if they only had that magic pattern their fortunes would change. All the worse when combined with the age old and undoubtedly incorrect assertion that you need a close copy of the food that the fish are currently feeding on.

Questioning that belief in close copy imitations is viewed a heretical in some circles even now. To suggest that perhaps a dry fly doesn’t need a hackle could see you burned at the stake, but the evidence against close copy imitation is glaring.

Firstly there are thousands if not millions of fly patterns and one can safely assume that if you have heard of one of them it has caught at least a few fish. Which to me suggests that almost any pattern will catch a fish at some point.

Secondly, the bigger problem for the angler is that if you assume that your lack of success is a result of not having the “Right Fly”, then you absolve yourself of responsibility for all the other adjustments you could be making. Getting better presentation in all of it’s guises would be a great place to start. The very best place to start on that front would be to learn to cast better, be able to mend the line to delay the onset of drag and to fish much longer leaders than most anglers do.

Thirdly, at least here on the Wye in Mid-Wales, the hatches are nearly always complex mixtures of midges, sedges, up wings and more. Even if you needed close copy patterns and were able to carry them all, you would still battle to know which one to try given the multitude of potential prey items on the water.

**Could it be, that the simpler and more generic the pattern, the more food items it potentially imitates**. **Can flies be “All things to all fish?”**

It is one of the reasons that I have, over time, moved more and more towards the most generalist patterns, ones which could be “This or That” to the fish. I try to make them as non-specific as possible in the hope that the fish will see in them what the fish want to see. See “Fly Tying and the Man on the Moon.

The strategy seems to work pretty well. Yes I will change sizes, sometimes colours too (as much for my own amusement as any effect on the fish).
I am far more likely to change my leader set up than the fly pattern, which usually means making it longer and finer, although my standard dry fly rig these days is universally 20’ plus tapered down to 8x.

But as far as effective flies go I don’t think that close copies are for the most part remotely necessary. What I do believe is that one can increase the effectiveness of the patterns in a number of ways.

Improve their presentation, that is, in the case of dry flies to present them with slack so they don’t drag immediately. It is FAR more effective to fish the “Wrong Fly” well, than the “Right Fly” poorly.

Secondly to provide a reasonable facsimile of a food item, although it seems that this can be pretty generic. The vast majority of the time fish feed on what is available to them, perhaps targeting the vulnerable more than the specific insect. True “selectivity” or perhaps more logically “specific focus” is rare. Most of the time fish cannot afford to be overly picky about eating only one food form. To my mind they will eat what is available to them, all the more so if it can’t easily escape.

Personally I like the idea of having “micro-movement” in the fly, the illusion of a struggling life. Something that previously has been covered by “old fashioned” soft hackles and spider patterns, but which for me, these days, basically involves using CDC fibres in almost all of my flies.

See Micromovement on this blog.

I have equally come to believe that apparent vulnerability (See: “Is Vulnerability a Super Stimulus” on this blog ) is a trigger for a predatory fish, perhaps getting them to consume a fly even when they are not actively feeding. In his exceptional book “What Trout Want”, Bob Wyatt tells that effectively ALL of his dry flies are emergers, and I realised that to be pretty much true of my fly boxes too. Aquatic flies are at their most vulnerable in the process of hatching out, and you can bet your socks that the fish know about it.

It is no surprise that most popular and effective modern dry flies such as the Klinkhammer, Comparadun, Spun Dun and others are low floating, trapped in the film, styles rather than the supposedly upright dry flies of Halford and the Catskill schools. To my mind they are again imitating that struggle to emerge, that vulnerability at the moment of eclosion. (It is no mistake that NONE of these patterns adhere to previously held norms of fly tying. Their creators questioned long held beliefs, experimented and came up with something new!)

Almost all of the fly patterns described in my eBook “Guide Flies” are simple, not least because I would rather be fishing than tying flies. And as a guide one doesn’t wish to invest hours on patterns that likely as not will end up in a tree on the client’s first back cast. Equally those flies need to be effective, clients like to catch fish.. See: Guide Flies

But I am really beginning to wonder if the simpler they are the more effective they become. Is it really possible that the simplest and most generic patterns could be more effective than the lovingly fashioned patterns with their Wally Wings, Coq de Leon tails, and genetic cape hackles?

Well it is beginning to look as though that might very well be true. Having “discovered” some emerger style flies that had been languishing in my fly box for over a year without being tested and having had some success with them a few days back. See Emergers on this blog.

I thought to tie up some more, only to realise that I couldn’t remember how I had manufactured them. My first attempts to recreate the flies just didn’t look the same. Eventually I “reverse engineered them” , that is that I cut them up and unwound the thread to try to work out what I had done. Then I remembered that I had, on little more than a whim, used up some offcuts of CDC left over from tying F flies.

I had mixed the CDC fibres with some sparkle dubbing and effectively created an emerger or floating nymph style fly, in which I had previously had very little confidence. But they had worked and I figured to test them some more. Oddly, I have never actually tied or fished a floating nymph pattern in all the years I have been fly fishing. I think that I might have missed out on some opportunities there.

**This stupendously simple pattern proved spectacularly successful when cast at rising fish, and even drumming up some which weren’t showing.** **Even to me it doesn’t look like a dry fly, but it is!**

Heading out late, (it was the longest day of the year) I sat and waited from some activity, but in the end impatience got the better of me and I started fishing up a lovely long gravel bedded glide. There were no fish moving on the top, but I stuck to my guns with a single emerger pattern on fine tippet. Covering the most likely lies and bubble line and rose a small grayling on the second cast.

It is generally quite unusual on the Wye to be able to drum up fish if there is no obvious surface activity, so a surprise, but a most welcome one. A few minutes later and I rose another grayling which put up a decent struggle before being netted and released. This went on, picking up six fish out of the run despite the lack of obvious activity.

On the next run a fish rose, I presented the emerger and it was taken immediately. Another rise, another cast and another fish. Once the fish was released I decided to move upstream and closer to my exit as it was already getting quite dark. There is a gorgeous shallow run just where I would cross the stream on the way home and I decided this would be my “last stand” for the day. By the time I had arrived there was a good amount of surface action, mostly small subtle dimples along an obvious current seam. After a few seasons now fishing the Wye I know not to assume that small dimple rises mean small fish.

**Another nice brownie to the nondescript emerger.**

My first cast over a rising fish and a take, another and quite decent grayling, after drying the fly out I cast over the next rising fish and landed a spirited and reasonably sized brown trout. Drying the fly again and casting over another rise and.. .bang, another decent trout. I repeated this with five casts to five rises, each resulting in a take and a fish. At this point I had to quit, it was getting too dark to safely unhook the fish without damage and the fly seemed to be so effective that most of the hook ups required the forceps to extract the fly.

Of course it is early days, it isn’t statistically likely that any fly, even this one, will work all of the time. But over the past few evenings it has proven lethal, with fish taking it on the first or second drift almost all of the time. By quitting time I had landed close to twenty fish, both trout and grayling, all to two flies, because somewhere in the dark I snapped off one and had to replace it.

**A lovely brownie from an equally gorgeous shallow run, late in the evening. Again to the nondescript emerger pattern.**

The fly is spectacularly simple, with no standard hackle and a hot spot just so that one can follow it on the drift. The tails are “micro-fibbets” from a nylon paint brush, the body either stripped peacock quill (the original) or hare’s ear ribbed with stretched pearl mylar. The thorax a loosely dubbed mix of chopped CDC fibres and hare/antron mix and the hot spot is a tiny dimple of fluorescent orange nylon. It doesn’t imitate any specific insect, although I am sure does a pretty good job of imitating a stage of insect life in general. To my surprise it floats a lot better than one might imagine and the hot spot makes it easy to follow, even in fading light. Despite years of questioning the wisdom of the “close copy fly” and simplifying my own patterns more and more, this one surprised me. Even now I can’t quite get my head around how totally nondescript it is, and yet so effective. Again it makes me think that the more one tries to close copy something the further away you are from imitating something else. Almost all the standard flies, found in every angler’s fly boxes are similarly generic. The Adams, the Elk Hair Caddis, the Hare’s Ear etc, none are “close copies” of anything. The more I experiment the more convinced I become, that “close copy flies” are not only an affectation, but an ineffective one at that.

Next time out I will keep experimenting, but I certainly feel that I have a real “Go To” pattern to add to the fly box.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment.

Comments are most welcome, they provide valuable feedback that I am producing something of value that hopefully educates and stimulates thought. Given that I am suggesting you question everything, disagreement is fine too. Your most valuable weapon as a fly angler is your enquiring mind, so if you wish to question the assertions herein, that’s all good.

The author, is a past World Fly Fishing Championship competitor, Author and Flyfishing Guide, coach to the South African Fly fishing team and certified Fly Fishers International “Master Casting Instructor”.

Tags: Emergers, Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, Guide Flies, River Wye, Tim Rolston, What Trout Want
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Fly Casting, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Dimples

June 14, 2025

Dimples on the far bank.

I have had a LOT of adjusting to do since moving to Wales; a gorgeous place with gorgeous people, lovely scenery and pretty good fishing. BUT, the fishing is quite different to what I was used to in the Western Cape of South Africa.

Where I used to be picking pockets in small crystal clear streams, for often visible trout, these days I find myself on larger waters, the clarity not quite good enough to spot fish much of the time, and a mixture of species including grayling, to both consider and potentially target.

Grayling are just one of my favourite fish, pretty as a picture, ladies of the stream, dressed up for a party, with gorgeous orange tinged dorsal fins and more importantly to me, a love of flies. Be they subsurface nymphs or surface floating dry patterns.

**Grayling are simply such pretty fish, but make no mistake, that dorsal fin can catch the current and make the ladies tricky to get to the net.**

Now, things have been tricky of late, the rivers have been on their knees, with drought forecast and hosepipe bans a likely consequence. I have been out on the water here and there, even slotting in an evening or two after work, despite exhaustion from the day’s activities and the stress of a less than supportive workplace.

After close to three years here and fishing these waters, I have already worked out that it is best to spend at least as much time sitting and watching as it is to be casting and wading about. It isn’t something that well fits my psyche. Back in the Cape we would hunt all day, forging ever upstream looking for a takable fish. Now things need to slow down, the fish will come up when they are good and ready and time spend sitting on the bank with a keen eye for a disturbance of the water isn’t wasted, frustrating as that may sometimes be.

So it was on the latest evening outing, nothing much happening, as the usual mixed hatch started to get going. Gradually the air filled with the ubiquitous midges, some yellow mays, some brook duns and unidentified fluttering sedges (caddis), recognisable only by their erratic flight.

I targeted the first consistent riser in a shallow run, and rose the fish on a small parachute pattern but missed the take. Switching flies I rose the fish again on an emerger pattern that has served me well on these spring/summer evenings and again missed. I was thinking that the likelihood was that this was a grayling, pushing perhaps, the fly out of the way as it rose. Switching to a small Klinkhammer style emerger I elicited a compound rise from the fish. Clearly watching it come off the bottom, turn downstream and follow the pattern for perhaps a metre before taking. This time I had her on and landed a nice, if not overly large grayling. At least the net was wet and the evening not a blank.

**A long slow flat, not ideal perhaps, but that is where the fish were moving on the top**.

I walked the bank looking for new opportunities and blind fished a little; temptation to cast overcoming discretion to a degree. But then again, when fishing one’s focus is better tuned and spotting the occasional dimple is more likely out on the water than sitting on the bank.

I spotted the tiniest of dimples in the surface on the far bank. These rivers tend to have a metre or so of slack water up against the far bank. A buffer zone if you will, where the interference of the riverside slows the flow and creates a near slack. I have learned over time that the trout like this, and equally that it is a very tricky spot to cast a fly. The main flow is significantly faster than this far-bank eddy, and getting a good drift is really tricky. On top of throwing upstream mends, wiggle casts and reach mends the best option is simply to throw a near uncontrollable leader. Slack in the tippet might, JUST, buy enough time to get a drift that the fish will accept.

So with over 20’ of leader and perhaps 4’ of 8x tippet I threw my emerger towards the bank, just upstream of the previous dimple and hoped that drag wouldn’t set in too soon.

An insignificant dimple of the surface and I tightened into a good brown trout, not a monster but perhaps better than average. I was pleased simply to have made the cast and obtained a positive result.

**This scruffy emerger has continued to “do the business” when the chips are down.**

Moments later another dimple not a short span upstream, and repeating the process hooked into another brown trout which went ballistic, running through the bankside weed growth before flinging itself airborne snapping the fine nylon still trapped in the silk weed. To be honest, although disappointed to a degree, I was well pleased to have elicited a take in such tricky surrounds. The hooks are barbless and the fish will jettison that fly in short order.

There were few more fish on the move and eventually I made a tricky and deep wade down the length of a long flat to get into position to cover the ones that I could spot.

It wouldn’t be my ideal choice of location, the water not moving fast enough to hide poor presentations, the fish with plenty of time to review the offerings, but they were at least feeding.

I opted again for the emerger patterns that have done so well for me of late. The fish definitely hone in on this vulnerable stage of the insect’s development. In his excellent book “ What Trout Want”, Bob Wyatt states, something along the lines of: “All my dry flies are effectively emergers” and I like that. It makes sense. In fact, there is a great deal in that book with which I find myself in agreement. Not least that the idea of close copy imitation of high floating dry flies is an affectation based on little related to actually deceiving fish.

The wild brown trout continue to amaze with their lavish spots and dogged resistance.

I have become a “scruffy fly fisher” and I am not talking about my personal (although questionable) attire. The longer I fish the more impressionistic my flies, but the proof is in the pudding and over the course of the evening I realised that I had to take out the forceps to retrieve the flies in over half of the taken fish. To me that suggests a level of confidence on the part of the fish, that the presentation and fly were on point.

Standing in the same spot, bellybutton deep in the flow, and flooding the fly boxes in my lower pockets, I picked off half a dozen trout and grayling. I didn’t move, mostly because locomotion was fraught with risk, but equally because fish kept moving within casting range.

None of the fish was especially large, or for that matter, particularly small. But it was a rewarding session, where I managed to target and catch most of the fish foolish enough to show themselves. I suppose a victory of sorts.

As the evening progressed, it became obvious that I might battle to safely release deeply hooked fish in the fading light, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. The fish deserved for me to stop now and I was happy to do so.

I am yet to have an evening where all the fish are “on the top” and I can “hammer them” with well presented dry flies. But these evenings where you choose your battles, make your best casts, mend lines to get a good drift and entice those bankside feeders to make a mistake. Well that really is priceless.

I don’t know how many fish I landed, more than six and perhaps less than a dozen, but each one was targeted specifically and to me that is a win. A win, on a gorgeous section of the River Wye, with the birdsong in the background, the bright neon flash of a kingfisher heading home, the bleating of newly shorn sheep and the shrill of an overhead red kite to round off the evening.

The only real problem is that I shall be tired tomorrow, and work beckons. Summer evenings can be as rewarding as they are exhausting, but I suppose that is what makes life worth living.

Plus, you need to take your chances, the drought is now broken, courtesy of a wave of thunderstorms which have dumped gallons of water into the valleys, coloured the water and put the Wye into full blown spate.

The river will wink at me again sometime soon, and I shall hopefully respond, even if it means staying out late. A red letter evening is on the cards, I just need to keep heading out; but then again, success so far has been more than sufficient to keep me hooked.

It is nice to note that some of these posts reach a global audience, that is greatly appreciated, but don’t be shy to make a comment. It is lovely to know that people read this stuff and perhaps gain from it. Some posts are perhaps more “educational” than others, but comments are always welcomed. If you have read this far then my appreciation goes out to you.

I try to produce content which is both entertaining and potentially of value to you and your own personal fishing journey. So don’t be afraid to drop us a line, make a comment or perhaps subscribe so that you don’t miss anything important..

Kindest regards.

Tags: Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly fishing emergers, Fly fishing for trout, Fy fishing the Wye, outdoors, Tim Rolston, travel, Trout
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Fly Casting, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Life is like a box of chocolates

June 1, 2025

As Forrest Gump famously noted “you never know what you are going to get”, and so it was with my most recent foray onto a section of the Upper Wye River.

I had been out the day before and drummed up a few grayling and the occasional trout on an emerger pattern, but there wasn’t much in the way of actual surface activity from either species.

I loitered, watched, waited and hoped for a rising fish to target. Rising fish give you two crucial bits of information entirely lacking when looking at undisturbed water. First you know where there is a fish and secondly you know that it is feeding. Finding a rising fish no only buoys the spirit, but provides realistic hope of success. Sadly those rising fish were for the most part absent and I was left to drumming them up. It worked OK for a while but the final two hours were fruitless and fishless in equal measure.

So this morning I headed out once again, this time to a different stretch, which I know quite well. Again I was hoping for some surface activity, but the chill downstream gale didn’t bode well and after fruitlessly targeting a couple of fish which rose once or twice only under the trees on the far bank, I sat and watched. Nothing, not in half an hour and that horrible wind would come and go, ranging from unpleasant to seriously offputting, the occasional rain squall adding insult to injury and I was about ready to pack it in.

With the river accessible within minutes of our cottage, there is little point in flogging a dead horse, better to wait for improved conditions perhaps.

As I walked back upstream I became aware of a considerable disturbance over the gravel beds on the side of the river, very large fish splashing about in the shallows, undoubtedly spawning behaviour, recognisable, even from a distance. At first I was expecting Thwaite Shad, they should be in the river about now, although their migration might well have been hampered by the drought conditions and low water in the river over spring.

**This guy was feeding in amongst the spawning barbel, perhaps eating eggs or dislodged invertibrates from the stream bed.**

But then I could see that these fish were considerably larger than most of the Shad I have seen and recognised them as Barbel (Barbus barbus) (Not the sharp-tooth catfish my South African friends thing of as Barbel).

The wind was howling downstream but I am, after all, an angler and I couldn’t resist the temptation to make a cast with my dry dropper (duo) rig. The first cast resulted in a take and a decent brown trout, likely mixed in with the barbel and having a great time eating perhaps eggs or invertebrates churned up by the spawning process.

After hours of little to no success I thought that perhaps I was onto something of a winner and after a few more casts picked up a half decent grayling too.

With that I thought it worth persevering despite the horrible conditions, and eventually got another “take”. I lifted the rod to be met with solid resistance, as though I had hooked into an angry concrete block. Pressure on the line resulted in near no movement from the fish and I realised that I had hooked into one of the barbel. I was hoping that I had persuaded it to eat a fly, favouring nymph over nookie, but the likelihood was that it had been foul hooked by accident.

Battle ensued, and I don’t think that I have ever played a fish that was so resistant to being manipulated, dogged and heavyweight, it look a long time to start to gain any sort of control over the situation.

Occasionally the fish would roll in the water, flashing its silver underside before heading off on another brutish run. It seemed ever more likely that the fish had been inadvertently hooked in a pectoral fin, but with that, I didn’t wish to snap off and leave a hook in the fish unnecessarily and it equally became a challenge to see if it could be landed on the 7x tippet I was fishing.

**Apologies for the beaching, I had no option, it wouldn’t fit in the net and I needed to remove the hook. The fish was in this position for only seconds and swam away unharmed in the end.**

It has become something of a mission of mine to convince anglers that they don’t need ultra-heavy tackle and thick nylon to catch fish effectively and efficiently. A foul hooked barbel might not be the most sporting measure, but it would surely reveal what is possible with the correct rod and line control.

Eventually I managed to get the fish into the net, (Well a quarter in perhaps) before it flopped out again and I had little option but to beach it so as to remove the hook.

A quick picture and I set about releasing my massive captive, far larger than anything I had been expecting to hook. Earlier in the season, in pretty much the same spot, I had landed a 5.5lb cock salmon on 7x tippet, but this fish was considerably larger and stronger than that. I am guessing a conservative 10lb and quite possibly more.

So not the day I was hoping for, or the fish that I was expecting. I can’t say I take great pleasure in landing a foul hooked fish, even if it is an accident. But at the same time there is some measure of accomplishment in being able to land the fish on light gear at all. If someone was asking how I felt about my morning I think I would have to suggest that I am somewhat conflicted. Nice to have some success with the trout and grayling. Encouraging to be able to further demonstrate what can be achieved in light tippet, given the correct techniques. But had that barbel been hooked in the mouth I would have been singing from the rooftops; as things are, I am not really celebrating.

It’s an odd thing this fishing lark. One generally starts out wanting to catch a fish, any fish. Then to catch lots of fish. Then to catch large fish, then to catch specific species of fish and at some point, when one nears the end of your very own personal piscatorial Cul de Sac. You want to catch a specific species of fish in a specific manner.

That was what I was aiming to do this morning, catch a wild brown trout on a dry fly, but I ended up playing a foul hooked barbel in excess of 10lb on 2lb nylon and succeeding. It feels like a bit of a win, but then at the same time a bit of a failure.

As Forrest Gump says “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never quite know what you are going to get”.

Perhaps the fish will be feeding on the surface, next time I get on the water, one can only hope.

Tags: Barbel, Dry Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing, Tim Rolston, Upper Wye
Posted in Fishing in Wales, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Emergers

May 25, 2025

No doubt if you have read many of my blog posts you will know that I am far more of a “presentationist” than an “imitationist”. This is ,to a degree, a little embarrassing for someone who has published articles and books on fly tying. To be fair, my fly tying books are a lot more about technique than close imitation of a natural, so maybe I am not entirely shooting myself in the foot.

Essentially I believe that a well presented fly, placed in close proximity to a rising fish, will, in all likelihood result in a take. Effectively the skill of the angler being the primary contributor to success. It’s a nice ego boost when it all works out, and most of the time it does. Here on the Wye, especially late on summer evenings, the fish will move on the surface, feeding on a mixed hatch of olives, caddis (sedges), yellow mays and of course the ever present and numerous midges.

It is one of my favourite times to fish, testing and requiring of accurate casting and limitation of drag, but rarely if ever have a felt the need for a close copy imitation. Generally smaller is better than larger in terms of pattern, and “in the film” more effective than “high floating”. That mostly means me fishing a #18 dark midge pattern, which might be covered in saliva if the fish appear to want dinner presented in the film.

**This super simple “in the film midge” pattern usually does the trick on summer evenings.**

Generally, if the fish are moving the midge will get a positive response as often as not. But of late we have seen the driest spring on record, the rivers are on their bare bones, some of the gravel beds are enjoying their first sunbathing in more than half a century and of course the flows are languid at best.

On one of my recent late evening outings, hunting for rising fish, I found more than a few in the slow pools, feeding consistently, but not particularly urgently, barely breaking the surface. I would say NOT breaking the surface would likely be a better description.

I tried out my reliable midge patterns, the tippet was fined down to 8x Stroft GTM (pretty much my standard for summer dry fly fishing), the leader was over 20’ (again standard if the wind isn’t howling). I knew that I was getting good presentation and was able to cover a number of fish without positive result.

**A floating version of a midge with a wing primarily to allow the angler to follow the drift.**

Sinking the midge into the film didn’t produce anything either and I was scratching my head a bit. I sort of see it as an insult if the trout fail to respond to what I think is a well presented fly, and it challenges my belief that you don’t need a close copy fly for success. BUT, what was going on that these fish were ignoring what I considered to be pretty good presentation?

I was forced to consider a fly change, not something I do a lot of; relying more on accurate casting and longer and finer tippets for the most part. But that wasn’t doing the business.

**Fishing midges in the film in conjunction with a bright posted parachute can help follow the drift in adverse light conditions. But this trick wasn’t working either.**

Searching through my fly box for some inspiration I came across a row of flies I had tied more than a year ago and never really tested. They were flies tied primarily to fill up a vacant row of a well-stocked box. My OCD finds empty fly box rows somewhat disturbing, so on occasion I will tie something a bit odd. Something a bit different, but I didn’t really have a lot of confidence in them once I was on the water, and tended to ignore them in favour of patterns I already knew to be effective.

The rise forms were bothering me though; swirls caused by fish moving close to, but not breaking the surface and I became convinced that the trout (and a few grayling), were taking something stuck in the film or emerging through it.

The flies were originally tied as dry flies, but really look a lot more like a nymph (lets say floating nymph but for a better description). The tails were nylon micro-fibbets taken from a paint brush, the body a slim taper of hare’s ear/antron mix, the post a tiny dot of fluorescent orange yarn and the hackle, Bistre CDC tied around the post using a split threat method. Non-descript would be a reasonable interpretation of these rather unusual looking dry flies.

The flows were low and the fish obviously had enough time to make a decision about what to feed on, so far that decision had been to ignore all offerings. So I tied on the “new” pattern, not really expecting any change in fortunes, but raised the first fish after, perhaps, three casts.

I went on to take five trout and a grayling in my final half hour on the water, all to the same fly. A pattern in which I had little to no faith, started to prove itself and increase my confidence.

It certainly isn’t a close copy of anything, but it sits nicely in the film and the orange hot-spot post makes it remarkably visible.

On the last cast of the day, as I started back towards the bank, thinking of home and a cold beer, a fish rose directly upstream of me. One cast of the fly into the ebbing rings of the rise was met with an instant take and a nice wild brownie to the net.

Could it really be the fly? I mean it isn’t a great imitation, but it worked solidly and I can only assume that it’s position in the water column (right in the film), the bedraggled, untidy finish, and perhaps the subtle flash from the tiny amount of Antron built in, did a better than average job of imitating whatever it was that the fish were picking off.

In general fly tying terms I don’t believe that the term “Emerger” is really that accurate, many insects hatch so quickly that the fish would have to be in a furious rush to get hold of them before they fly off. And of course you can find “Emerger patterns” with anything from a CDC wing to a 3mm tungsten bead. They can’t all really been imagined as “Emergers”. Perhaps it is more a case of stillborn insects, those which don’t quite make it out of the shuck. In fact, the somewhat maligned “Spider patterns” and “Soft hackles” do a darn good job of imitating these hapless bugs caught in the surface film. But in effect, a bedraggled pattern stuck in the film can be a game changer if the fish are focused on items just under the surface.

Over the years I have come to realise that most of the more modern productive and innovative dry flies don’t follow the standard Catskill-Halfordian construction. Almost all are low floating, the Comparadun, the Parachute patterns, the Klinkhammer, the Spun Dun, the F Fly and others all tend to sit lower in the water than old fashioned “standard dry flies”. (It is likely that even the original standard dries didn’t actually fish high on the water, despite the imaginings of the anglers that fished them. Poor materials and even poorer floatants probably meant that many of the older style flies actually sat in the film and would today be seen a “Emergers”. )

Given the massive selection of colours available in dubbing, biots, thread and other materials it simply isn’t realistic to imagine that one can “match exactly” the flies on the water. Nor for that matter to work out which of the numerous variations available to the fish in a mixed hatch are being taken. Here on the Wye there is most often a mixed hatch and much of the time it is the midges which are grabbing the attention of the fish.

So I have a new “favourite fly” or at least a fly in which my confidence has grown exponentially. I have never before actually tied a “floating nymph” and didn’t really intend to do so here, but that would be the best description I can come up with.

I have for a very long time now tended towards flies which are low floating generic imitations at best, and have to confess that I don’t own a single genuine Catskill tie. Spun Duns, F fly variants, CDC parachutes, BSP’s and Klinkhammer style flies make up the majority of my dry fly boxes. In some instances, as in this case, the line between nymph and dry fly becomes a little blurred.

For someone who ties and fishes simple and non-descript patterns in general, this pattern is simple and non-descript in Spades!. To be honest I am still a little surprised that it worked as well as it did. But, from now on, if I see fish swirling just under the surface late of an evening, I am likely to pick out this pattern first.

Presentation can mean a lot of different things, from casting and mending line to setting the fly at the correct depth. Sometimes, as in this case, it seems that the correct depth can mean stuck right in the surface film. A location where most aquatic insects are at their most vulnerable and I am a firm believer that fish hone in on the most vulnerable as part of their effective feeding strategy. See also: Vulnerability: A super stimulus?

Experimentation and the battle between success and failure are pretty much what keeps me heading back to the river. You never quite know what you are going to find, and cannot be certain of success, no matter the amount of experience one has. Sometimes it is fun to hammer free rising fish during a known and recognisable hatch. But then again, on occasion, being forced to think the problems through and make an educated guess as to the best strategy can be the most fun. All the more so if a change in tactics or flies results in a wet landing net.

Tags: CDC Midge Pattern, Emergers, Floating Nymph, Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing the River Wye, Trout feeding in the surface film
Posted in Fishing in Wales, Fly Tying, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Heavy Tackle Paradox

November 12, 2024

It is an opinion that I hear all the time, that heavier gear lands fish more rapidly and with less stress to the fish, and that light gear advocates are killing fish through their selfish machinations..

A recent post, on line, about an admittedly unintentional capture of a 4.5lb cock salmon on 7X tippet, highlighted, once again, the misunderstanding of what happens when we play and land fish. The near universal comment suggested that I was killing the fish through fishing too light. One angler even commented that he had snapped off 1X tippet on a trout recently. If you read through this you are going to quickly realise that snapping 1X tippet (approximately 13lb breaking strain) is impossible without a considerable degree of “pilot error”, personally I would say that it was impossible.

More importantly you are going to find out that heavy gear quite likely puts LESS pressure on the fish and doesn’t speed up capture at all. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for the heavy tackle guys, but the maths don’t lie.

This blog, is all about the mechanics of playing and landing fish, primarily in fresh water. Salt water tactics are manifestly different, relying on near straight sticking fish with ultra heavy tippet material. Freshwater angling, simply doesn’t look like that.

So do you understand what happens when you hook and play a fish on fly tackle, do you have an understanding of the mechanics of it? After years of fishing, guiding, competing in World Championship events and more, I respectfully suggest that most anglers don’t have a cooking clue as to what goes on when they play fish.

We spend our time discussing fly casting, fly presentation, leader formulae, knots, fly design, fly tying, sink rates of patterns, food items, entomology etc etc. But, when the moment comes and you hook a fish, I mean my goodness you actually hooked something……BLANK! We have not considered or practiced what to do next, at the most critical point in angling. You have hooked your fish and now what?

The majority of anglers really don’t have a clue, and to be honest, nor did I a decade or two ago. But I have spent a lot of time and energy, a lot of fishing, trying to figure it all out. I don’t have all the answers but I do know with a degree of certainty that much of the popular wisdom related to this is erroneous. Equally, how erroneous it is turns out to be something of a geographical construct.

In South Africa (my old home), fishing #0 to #2 weight outfits is very much accepted, in those old stomping grounds, 8x tippet is pretty much standard, whilst in the UK # 4 rod is considered overly light. I have met, and enjoyed the company of anglers who fish # 5 weight gear on diminutive streams for even more diminutive trout, but it makes no sense to me.

I even know of a South African anglophile, with a distinctly British accent, who went into a well known and internationally renowned fly fishing store asking for a #2 weight ultra-fine rod, only to be greeted with the response. “You must be South African”.. That amused me, over gearing is near universal, but with the acceptance of Euro-nymphing, more anglers are beginning to realise that AFTMA numbers mean very little when it comes to catching fish.

I have visited an “International” fly fishing show, where I couldn’t find a seller of #2 weight, double taper line anywhere.

Even the most basic requirements of fly fishing tackle is considerably misunderstood. Heavier lines require heavier rods, that much is true. But heavier lines only provide some advantage in terms of casting bigger flies or perhaps casting further. They offer very little if any advantage in playing fish.

Most of us would imagine that a # 7 weight rod would apply more force to a fish during playing than a #3 wt. The idea of heavier gear for bigger fish is ingrained in everything that we understand. But is it true? No not really.

So if I asked the question, that an angler with a #7 wt rod, and an angler with a #3 wt rod hooked a fish of the same size, at the same time which one would land the fish first? What would you say?

If one uses the same rod angles and applies the same torque, in this case maximum, to the rod handle the lighter gear applies more force to the fish. The force is a function of the torque applied to the rod, the angle of the rod to the line and the length of the rod when bent.

I measured the amount of torque I can apply with a rigid broom handle, lifting a weight at a 90° angle, and that came out to around 10 Nm. No doubt other anglers might be stronger or weaker but for my calculations I have used that figure as a reasonable number.

So how much pressure can you apply at maximum torque with say an 11ft nymphing rod, which bends to half of its length when playing a fish with the line at 90° to the rod butt?

The equation is:

Force = Torque/ [sine of angle X effective rod length.]

In this instance:

Force= 10Nm/ (Sine 90° (1) x rod length)………..The sine of angle 90° is 1.

Converting Newtons to pounds the calculation is:

Force (lbs) = 10 x 0.225/ 1 x rod length

For a rod bent to 1.67m effective length the result is:

Force (lbs)= 2.25/1.67 = 1.34lbs force

Having a tippet heavier than 2lbs (allowing for a bit of insurance), is pointless. You are NOT applying more pressure on the fish, no matter how much you think that you are.

An angler, fishing an 11ft euro-rod, which bends in half to a nominal length of 5.5ft (1.67m) can only apply in the region of 1.34lbs of pressure on a fish. It doesn’t make any difference what tippet is being used. (Based on application of 10Nm of torque at the rod handle with one hand).

If the second angler selects a #7wt rod which only bends by a third, for example, the nominal rod length at 90° would be 7.3ft / 2.22m, and he would only be able to apply 1.1lbs of force to the fish.

So in the above question, both anglers would be entirely safe fishing 7x tippet, neither would gain an advantage from fishing 5x tippet and angler B is gaining absolutely nothing from having the heavier rod. In fact given that the torque applied at the rod handle has to also lift the weight of the rod, then the angler with the heavier rod is applying even less pressure on the fish. Plus the stiffer rod is less able to absorb sudden shocks such as the strike on the take and more liable to snap the tippet.

How is that possible? I mean you are pulling like hell right? Battling to get that fish in? One of the great issues here is that to the angler applying the torque to the rod handle, it all feels the same. No matter that it is a #3 weight or a #7 weight. More to the point, as the rod tip dips towards the fish and the rod angle opens up whilst the pressure on the fish increases exponentially, what the angler can feel in his or her hand is exactly the same. Which is why so many people snap off fish, letting the rod tip drop. You are applying the same torque as you were, but with a change of rod angle the pressure on the terminal tackle increases, however, to the angler it feels exactly the same.

Go and watch videos where anglers lose fish, either from the hook pulling out or snapping the tippet. Almost invariably if you watch closely you will notice that the rod tip drops and the angle to the line increases directly at the point of the loss of the fish.

Maths isn’t really my thing and equations are somewhat less compelling than actual experiment, so I would suggest to you that you get out a rod and line. Put on some 7x tippet and tie that to an immovable object, such as a tree or a fence post. (or my wife’s opinion). To provide a fair experiment, it is probably best that you use a hook and hook that into whatever anchor you choose.

Wear some eye protection, just in case things come loose.

Step back from the attachment to give yourself ten feet or so of line out of the rod tip and then raise the rod to a 90° angle to the line, that is the butt of the rod to the angle of the line. Rotate firmly back as though you were applying maximum pressure to a fish. I absolutely guarantee that you won’t break the line unless there is a suspect knot or abrasion with the anchor. However, if you then gradually lower the rod tip, and repeat the rotation pressure you will at some point reach the breaking point of the tippet, but only once you have dropped the rod some considerable degree. My calculations suggest that with 7X Stroft GTM you are going to max out at about 155 degrees. Nobody intentionally plays fish at this angle!!

You are going to be applying less than 2lb pressure on the hook, no matter if you use a broom handle. Whilst it might be a bit of fun, it also serves to reinforce in your mind the fact that you can fish lighter without additional risk to you or the fish.

As an interesting alternative, you can do much the same experiment with the line hooked to a scale and have a mate read off the force at the hook. If you do this with heavier nylon you can keep increasing the rod to line angle and watch the numbers climb as you do so.

Some points on playing fish:

The three primary causes of snapping off hooked fish are:

An overly harsh hook set, combined with the immediate rush of the fish.

Some form of weakness in the line, abrasion, poor knots, sharp hook eyes (varnish) or tippet rings.

Dropping the rod tip, increasing the rod to line angle over pressurising the tippet.

If we look at those individually and consider what can be done to prevent them then we are on the road to being more effective.

Harsh hook set, obviously the first thing is not to overcook the strike, this happens more often when taken by surprise, rather than when anticipating the take. You should really always be anticipating the take but we all get caught out with wandering minds on occasion. Almost the only times I snap off on the strike is when I wasn’t paying attention.
Another factor is to have light gear and soft action rods, a softer rod will better absorb the shock of a take or a sudden unexpected rush by the fish. An excellent reason in itself to fish lighter gear, you will break off LESS.
In conjunction with this, is the fact that as you are applying less force on the strike with lighter gear you really want to be sure that your hooks are sharp, and that means sharpening them, even if they are brand new. Personally I prefer the Eze Lap Model S sharpener for trout size hooks.

**Chuck away the cover, drill a hole in the base, and hang it on your lanyard or vest. Best investment you can make.**

You need soft hands, to hook and play fish effectively you need to be able increase and decrease the pressure on the line rapidly. So not having control of the line, or more commonly having a drag set high on the reel is a recipe for disaster. All I want from the drag is that it is smoooooooth, I don’t need it to stop a train, I can add more pressure with my non-rod hand if and when I need too.

Weakness in the line:

Knots: The most common of these is poorly tied or ineffective knots, you don’t need to know a lot of different ones, but be proficient in tying them effectively. For tying on hooks or tippet rings I have converted over to the “Penny Knot” (although on thicker hooks and tippet rings I use a three turn version as the line will sometimes slip a bit on thicker wire). This knot is tiny, and super strong, giving very close or equal to the breaking strain of the nylon. It has the advantage of needing to “click” as to tighten it down, so if it doesn’t “click” then you know to retie it as it has seated incorrectly. I haven’t used any other knot for hook connections for ten years or so.

For dropper knots I prefer a two or three turn surgeon’s knot, but with this one it is CRUCIAL that the loops tighten up as one. If they separate during the tightening down process the knot will fail.

Although this works, in this video the presenter is not being particularly careful that the loops act as one. You need to be more careful, separation of the two loops during tightening down is crucial to this knot’s effectiveness.

Fluorocarbon tippet: Personally I find that the knot strength of fluorocarbon is highly questionable, and subject to random failure at inconvenient moments. To the point that I simply don’t use it. The idea that it sinks faster is really pretty questionable. It has a minutely higher density than copolymer, but a lot of fluorocarbon is thicker diameter than the same breaking strain copolymer, negating in my view any possible advantage of greater specific gravity.

Abrasion: Claims that fluorocarbon is more “abrasion resistant” I suspect has a lot to do with it mostly being thicker in the first place. As said above I don’t use it. But whatever line you are using it is a good idea to keep an eye on it, run it through your fingers every now and then and change it if there are signs of wear. Particularly important when deep nymphing where the line may be rubbing on the bottom. It is also important to check after playing a fish, most abrasion probably occurs when a fighting fish wraps the line around an underwater obstruction, or partially frays the tippet with its teeth. It doesn’t escape me that it is far easier to replace copolymer, which is a fraction of the price of flouro’ and yet another good reason to skip the expensive stuff.

DROPPING THE ROD TIP: I have put that in capitals because it is both the most common cause of break offs and one of the easiest to avoid.
The pressure exerted on the line, as I have demonstrated above, is changed significantly depending on the angle of the rod during the fight. Let that rod tip drop too far, particularly on lighter tippet and you have a recipe for disaster.
The main reason for this is that the fish runs hard enough that you are unable to hold the rod up. You have two options, give line or drop the rod tip and risk break off.
If you are holding the line under one of your fingers against the handle cork you should simply let some line slide out and maintain the rod angle.
For this reason I recommend that you trap the line with your middle finger and not your index finger. The index finger is what is applying pressure (torque) to the rod and it can be difficult to let the line go quickly if trapped in this manner.
Another common problem which results in the rod tip being pulled down is that the reel drag is set too fiercely. If the drag on your reel won’t give up line easily and you are unable to hold the rod up with that drag setting the only possible outcome is for the rod tip to be pulled down and likely the line will fail or the hook will pull out. I set the drag at the point of just avoiding overwind if I rip line off it as fast as I can. No more. Any additional drag required is applied with my hand against the spool of the reel. Reels without exposed rims, to which additional breaking can be applied should be avoided. Never turn up the drag mid fight, that final dive for freedom by the fish is going to spell disaster. Leave the drag alone and use your hand on the spool or reel handle if you really need to tighten up. At least then you can let go again.

Some years back I had a great week or so fishing dry fly for African Smallmouth Yellowfish. These fish are solid as a house brick and far stronger than any trout. They are more like European Barbel in makeup. Unfortunately, I didn’t know until several days had passed, some relatively neophyte anglers in the group were struggling to land fish. When I found out the first thing I did was to check the drags on their reels. Every single one was set as though you were targeting Tarpon on 150lb test tippet. Every time they hooked a fish , the rod tip would be dragged down to point at the fish and the line would part. They upped the tippet to almost 10lb and still broke off. All that was needed was to back off the drag and they started to land fish. Such a simple solution to such an upsetting problem.

This Smallmouth Yellowfish was landed on 8x tippet, where many of the guests were snapping off on 2X. With reel drags set too high they were unable to maintain essential rod angles when playing fish. Smallmouth yellows are far far tougher, faster and stronger than any trout.

Whilst this was going on I was catching the same fish, in the same river with 8X tippet, take a look at “The 8X Challenge”

Finally, another common issue is tangling line around the reel seat, reel handle etc, if this happens and you are unable to give line the rod will again be dragged down and line failure is inevitable if you can’t clear the tangle quickly.

If you follow the above points, maintain the rod angle and apply the maximum force you are able to with one hand on the rod, you will safely play and land fish of all sizes, without failure and without harm to the fish.

Finally: I have consistently used terms such as “hold the rod up” really just for clarity. But the rod angle can be maintained in the vertical or any other plane. Such that side strain can and should be used. In fact, because you are not wasting any pulling power trying to lift the fish’s weight, side strain can help a great deal in landing the fish more rapidly.

One doesn’t land fish because you drag them about, you land them because, in an effort to escape they get tired. All you need to do is to provoke them into trying to escape and hang on until they are tired enough to land. They don’t get tired any faster on heavy gear.

There are of course other factors, having the right amount of line out when you net the fish, not reaching for the net too early and suchlike, but I am going to leave those for another day.

I do urge you to get out in the garden, tie your line to a tree, play about, drag bricks around, have your mate hold the line when you pull and then swap places. Fish are far too valuable to damage or for that matter to lose. Spending time thinking about playing fish, experimenting with playing fish and practicing playing fish is time very well spent. You never know when the next take could be the fish of a lifetime.

Tags: 8X tippet, Does light gear kill fish, Fishing, Fishing with light tackle, Fly Fishing, Light line fishing, Light tackle and landing fish, outdoors, Playing fish, Rod angles when playing fish, Tim Rolston, Trout Fishing
Posted in Cape Streams, Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Tackle Rigging, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Euro-nymphing

November 6, 2024

Euro-nymphing, isn’t simply “Chuck and Duck”

Now it so happens that I have been fortunate enough to spend something in the region of forty years fishing some of the best dry fly water publicly available in the World. (Although I suspect that most anglers have never heard of the rivers of the Limietberg).

Those waters flow through the mountains approximately an hour from the centre of Cape Town in South Africa, at the southern tip of the continent. They are nutrient poor, and flow gin clear, if with perhaps a hint of “well-watered whisky”. Despite the “nutrient poor” epithet, these streams produce trout of twenty inches every year, perhaps not in great numbers, but they can be found. The rivers are gorgeous, the fish doubly so, the place is NEVER stocked and regulations have been Catch and Release Only for decades. For much of the nine month fishing season one can focus on sight fishing to visibly rising trout if one wishes to do so.

So that is my background, or at least much of it, and it makes me a dry fly purist to a point; those rivers, the CAR (Catch and Release) regulations, the bright sunshine, blue skies, clear waters and frequently low flows make these streams a dry fly fishing university. I enjoyed years of experimentation, discussion and thought on these streams. Honing my tackle set ups and technique, almost entirely focused on dry fly presentation. So perhaps more than a dry fly purist I am really a “presentationist”, I don’t generally take too much interest in the fly. The difference between successful fly anglers and the less effective, is almost entirely about presentation.

**Winter Grayling fishing, it’s chilly, you want to be as effective as possible.**

Having relocated to Wales, I have had a season and a half to reassess my angling. We have great fishing here in mid-Wales, superb small streams, larger rivers like the Wye, and Llyns (lakes) of all sizes. There is, to be frank, a plethora of opportunity as a fly angler, plus there are not just trout but grayling to target also. And with the trout season just passed, the grayling season is open, and we all know (don’t we) that Euro-Nymphing is the go to method for targeting these gorgeous and sporting fish.

The trouble is that the Wye, is a far cry from the streams of the Western Cape. It is a large river, even up here not too far from its source, and can easily be twenty meters or more across. The Cape Streams are far more intimate, there are obvious holes, runs, glides, pockets (my favourite). Much of the Wye is, at least at first glance, uniform. From the angler’s perspective at the surface, there are few features to help one pick a drift or anticipate a strike. Back in the Cape I would know that a fly drifted 6” from the left side of “that rock” would result in interest from a trout nine times out of ten. The Wye isn’t like that, the river is huge compared to my past playgrounds, the fish are equally not always on the prod, they can switch on and off, switch from surface activity to bottom feeding, focus on midges during brilliant mayfly hatches…. In short, my new home is very different to my old home. It isn’t worse or better from an angling perspective, but it is different.

**Euro techniques are effective on a number of species including wild brownies.**

With that difference, and the presence of both grayling and a grayling season, it behoves me to improve my nymphing technique, which in this day and age means improving my “Euro-nymphing” technique. I have embarked on both “on stream” experimentation and exploration of the options, and an “on-line” investigation of what other people suggest. I am improving, and a recent foray, producing eleven fish in an hour suggests that I am definitely honing my skills.

Euro-nymphing is in essence a very simple methodology, based on easily understood principles, which frequently has the uninitiated imagining it is just a case of slinging heavy flies on a mono rig, the quintessential “Chuck and Duck”.. Nothing could be further from the truth. The lack of understanding of the subtleties of these methods (because there are numerous variations) means that many anglers that I see on the water are being far less effective than they might be.

**The Upper Wye is a large water, intimidating at times. Choosing the right method can be crucial to success.**

No doubt we have all heard the somewhat derogatory phrase, suggesting that, “opinions are like arseholes”….”Everybody has one”… Except that when it comes to Euro-nymphing, everyone has at least three.

As a certified master casting instructor I can frequently find myself frustrated by video content from self-proclaimed “casting experts” that is hopelessly inadequate and frequently entirely erroneous. I suspect the same is true for anyone with expertise in any field should they dig deep enough. Today anyone with five minutes and a “GoPro”™, can reach an international audience at the touch of a button. That doesn’t mean that everything out there is rubbish, it quite evidently is not, but you do need to sort the wheat from the chaff.

With Euro-nymphing, there seems to be, these days, an overabundance of the chaff. Everyone seems to have jumped on the bandwagon, so there is a lot of great information out there and a considerable amount of rubbish as well.

With a method that is being adapted and modified at lightning speed and anglers testing out tight line tactics for everything from competitive angling to steelhead fishing there are a massive number of variations, and certainly one could never claim that there is “only one right way to do this”.

One can readily find those suggesting a tapered leader starting with 20lb maxima, or with a click of the mouse, another emphasising the importance of a “micro-leader”. There are those who recommend a tapered set up for “better casting and accuracy” and another school who jump blindly into a level line system that appears far too simplistic to be effective.

**Euro methods really came primarily from anglers targeting Grayling.**

To be honest it is a bloody minefield; I am not a complete novice, I have fished, guided and published books on fly fishing and fly tying. I have competed in World Championship events on various continents, and I would like to imagine that my cohorts respect that I give catching fish on artificial flies more attention than any sane person perhaps should. It has taken me a lot of time, experimentation and thought to get to the point where I feel I have some sort of handle on all of this.

I was fortunate to be part of a group of anglers who “brought back” the concepts of Czech nymphing from the World Championships, some long while ago, so have been aware of these techniques and watched them progress over some considerable amount of time.

That said, my previous home waters didn’t really demand that I made use of these methods, the streams of the Western Cape are far better suited to upstream dry fly most of the time. (although that doesn’t stop some of the Euro fanatics, chucking 3mm tungsten at actively rising fish).

With my move to Wales, and entirely different waters and species, I have been forced to improve my technique and invest more time in experimentation and research. Years back, all my focus was on improving my dry fly techniques and perhaps even developing some useful variations. I can spot a good dry fly drift from a mile away, but it has taken some time to get close to the same level of confidence when it comes to Euro styles.

I have been forced to experiment, and research, and play with various rigs, kits, rods, leaders and more and I ABSOLUTELY don’t have a definitive answer as to the best approach.

What I can tell you is that, whilst everyone’s experience is different, and everyone’s on-stream situation varies from day to day, there is a lot of good information and a lot of basic repetition of rubbish, which at some visceral level annoys me.

The reason that I am writing this, or at least have the confidence to write this, is that I have become far better at “Euro-nymphing” than I was. I now live in a place and fish on a stream, which lends itself, and/ or compels me, to become more proficient at these techniques.

In my past life I would almost never throw a weighted fly, unless targeting indigenous yellowfish, there was little need to do so.

So the point is what? At its essence, “euro-nymphing” is a method of presenting artificial flies, near the substrate of a river, where the fish frequently focus their attention. The idea is to present the flies in as natural manner as possible and with the all important addition of take detection.

With dry fly fishing, take detection is seeing a swirl and your fly disappear into the maw of your target, pretty simple to recognise and a game played in two dimensions.

With “Dry and Dropper” fishing, either the dry fly is engulfed, as above, or it disappears beneath the surface; its drift interrupted by either the bottom structure or a fish . Still pretty simple.

With “Euro-nymphing”, the take, subsurface by definition, is hidden from the angler, there is no splash, there is no disappearing dry fly or bobber, there is a hesitation of the sighter material’s travel or a tactile result on the line, trapped under the finger of the angler. (But those things are entirely dependent upon the level of control the angler has over the rig)

**A solid grayling, taken on a dry dropper rig. Euro-nymphing isn’t the only way to catch fish.**

So for all the “Experts” and “Explanations” the crux of the matter is that, Euro-nymphing, uses dense (not necessarily heavy) flies, to reach under the surface flows, to trick fish into eating the imitations and provide some indication to the angler that there has been a take. Just like dry fly fishing, drag is the enemy and this time it is happening in three dimensions and two environments.

The absolute crux of all the variations of Euro-nymphing is that the flies get to the slower currents near the substrate of the stream, stay there and the set up allows a high sensitivity of take detection. If you can do that you can catch a lot of fish, and there are more ways than one of achieving the same or similar results.

With all of that in mind I want to suggest to you a few things.

You are “casting” the weight of the flies and not a fly line, which means that the leader is of very little importance, or at least can be simple. For my money that means level and thin.
There is little advantage to having a tapered leader if any, it might aid turnover on calm days, but will prove useless if there is a breeze. Tapered set ups are going to catch up in the current, or more frequently in the wind, and they are going to sag, all factors which reduce the efficacy of the technique.
If you aren’t following competition rules, you don’t need a Euro-nymph line, but using a nymphing line does help, because it assists in tactile feel when fishing and playing fish. I like to be actually holding the nymph line, despite that most of the rig is mono. My current rig is an 11’ Vision Nymphmaniac rod, approx., 12’ of 5x Stroft GTM, 3ft of 4x tri-colour sighter material, 3’ of 7x Stroft GTM to a tippet ring and first dropper and approx. 3ft of 7x Stroft GTM Sto the point fly. Tippet lengths can be varied to cater for different depths of stream, but I find the above works over most of the water I fish on the Wye. This rig isn’t competition legal, as the sighter breaks the taper and is thicker than the butt section of the leader. But it does provide slightly better visability and I can “float” the sighter for a while if I need to.
Fluorocarbon, doesn’t in my opinion, give you an advantage, it is much more expensive, less flexible, has poor knot strength and to me those outweigh the considerations of refractive index. I fish copolymer all the time. (Stroft GTM to be specific). The notion of “greater abrasion resistance” to my mind comes more from the marketing department than the angling counter. I have rarely if ever broken off as a result of tippet damage. (It does behove you to check the tippet every so often though). It seems that a lot of the tutorials out there simply copy others and the universal “use Fluorocarbon tippet” is regurgitated like a repeating egg sandwich lunch, without any real thought.
The thinner the line the less it is affected by the current or wind, providing better contact and more sensitivity. For me (as with my dry fly set ups), fishing the thinnest leader and tippet set up that you can is a HUGE advantage. If you are “Euro-nymphing” with 12lb maxima tippet, you are kidding yourself in my opinion. Yes there are those fishing eggs for Steelhead and such, and they are using much the same ideas, but to me when you start adding the amount of weight required to fish with thick line in heavy currents, used in these circumstances that isn’t what I would refer to as Euro-nymphing.
Most anglers, with a combination of feelings of inadequacy and worries about lucking into a massive fish, imagine that they will never land their prize on 7x tippet, and consequently fish far too heavy much of the time. I fish 7x tippet as standard on my Euro-rigs. (8X on my dry fly outfits for the most part). You can land large fish on fine tippet and as importantly, the absolute enemy of contact and control on a Euro nymphing outfit is thick nylon. For more thoughts on playing fish and landing large fish on light tippet I would refer you to other blogs on this same platform.
https://paracaddis.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/trout-torque-or-thoughts-on-playing-fish/
https://paracaddis.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/line-control/
https://paracaddis.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/8x-challenge/
Drag isn’t a term restricted to water, if the wind is blowing the thinner your line/sighter, the less it will be negatively affected. Actually I find that wind affects on the line are more damaging than the drag from the water in terms of sensitivity.
Because density is the issue, more than weight, flies don’t need to be large to sink fast, if the profile is correct and the line is thin enough to be unaffected by the rapid surface currents. Over the past season, a simple #18 2mm bead perdigon has produced over 70% of my catches, no matter that there were other and frequently larger flies on the leader at the time. Small flies catch more fish, much of the time, small dense flies with streamlined profiles have to be a significant section in your fly box.
Whilst it is true that you can use any rod for Euro or tight line nymphing, it is far more effective, comfortable and sensitive to have at least a long and lightweight rod set up. I currently have two outfits I use. The first a 10’ inexpensive Reel Flyfishing Technymph, which will do an adequate job on the tight line front but can convert over to a decent dry fly or dry dropper set up with the simple change of the reel and line. The second is dedicated to tight line methods and is an 11’ Vision Nymphmaniac, which I only acquired this past season. I am not advocating specifically either and have no affiliation with the brands. If you are starting out, there are plenty of relatively inexpensive “Euro-nymph” rods which will perform far better than struggling along with your 9’ #5. Ideally you want a rod which is capable of throwing a single 2mm bead if required. Heavy rods won’t do that and will force you to fish heavier than you need to.
Finally, effective as it might be, Euro-nymphing isn’t the panacea of angling effectiveness, and fishing dry fly, dry-dropper, or swinging streamers might be a better tactic on a particular day, stream, occasion.
On wide sections of relatively featureless river, such as on many sections of the Wye for example. You might do better to fish with a dry dropper or indicator outfit. Yes you will not get the same depth penetration or quality of drift as you might with a Euro outfit. But you can cover a LOT more water without overly aggressive wading and could well end up with more fish in the net as a result.
Specifically for novices a few additional points
Although, in my opinion, the better you get at this the lighter and smaller flies you can fish, at the start you are best to be just a tad too heavy. You might lose more flies but it will help you get a better idea of the drifts and the contact if you can feel your way through. Having your flies ticking the bottom and feeling and seeing your sighter twitch will help you trust the system and better pick up takes.
To start with don’t try to fish too far away, right under the rod tip will do nicely. I prefer to fish at a bit more range than that, but in the beginning, if you are fishing at range you will certainly find yourself out of control, hooking the bottom and missing takes.
Spend time watching the currents and the affects on your drift, you will quickly find that as you improve your flies will come downstream far far slower than you imagined. If you can hit seams between currents even more so. The bubbles on the surface should be whizzing past your sighter as though it is close to standing still.
Most beginners tend to lead the flies too much, pulling them up and out of the strike zone and moving them abnormally. That said, as a novice you might do better to fish a little heavier and lead the flies a bit more, until you get your confidence.
Remember that fishing, upstream in line with the rod tip, will produce the best drifts, fishing across currently generally results in poor contact and loss of control.
Plus, as mentioned above, Euro-nymphing isn’t the only option and there are going to be situations where you would be far better off casting a line and floating an indicator or a dry fly. Don’t try to push a square peg into a round hole. Fish the water the way that it needs to be fished.

This is obviously a simplistic overview of my own thoughts and experimentation, and there are, as I started with, plenty of options when it comes to these styles of fishing. There is some terrible information out there and there are some excellent places to look for quality advice.

Again without any specific affiliations, other than my appreciation of their presentation and expertise I would recommend to you the following if you are trying to learn more.

The Andy and IB fishing Channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/IBandAndyFishing

Not only are these two fun to watch and seem to really enjoy themselves out on the water but Andy has a presentation and educational style that I really like. It might be overly simplistic for some, but that’s the point. His basic presentation on fishing a “French leader” is a GREAT starting point for anyone new to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-V1D62W5g I highly recommend that you take a look at both this specific video and the rest of their channel.

Tactical Fly Fisher https://www.youtube.com/@tacticalflyfisher3817?app=desktop

Devin Olsen’s channel, focuses to a large degree on Euro or tight line styles, but covers some interesting competition and ex-competitor tweaks, such as correctly landing fish, net set ups and more. Devin presents some interesting video tutorials on lots of things that I think are important and many “presenters” ignore. Playing fish, landing them, fishing one fly or two flies and all are well worth a look at. One simple video to get you started a nice explanation adjusting nymph depth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIJB15HKNpI

Troutbitten https://www.youtube.com/c/Troutbitten

A tremendous resource of what I believe to be accurate and informational video and podcasts with well thought out logical argument for various methods and adjustments. Well worth a poke about on a winter’s day if you are trying to think a bit more deeply about what you are doing out there on the water. For example this video tutorial on “floating the sighter”.. Just a well thought out, logical approach to one of the many variables in Euro-nymphing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oosj_4hRsQ

Tags: Euronymphing, Euronymphing Wales, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, grayling-fishing, outdoors, Tight Line Nymphing, Tim Rolston, Trout, Wye River
Posted in Fishing, Fishing in Wales, Tackle Rigging, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

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