December 27th, 2024 – Taking a holiday break from fishing
Well, if I don’t fish again in the next five days, I still will have met my goal for this year of 60 days on the water. In fact, I’m up to 65 as of last week. Last year when I wrote a similar post at this time of year I was at 66 days. Now that I am retired, I’m hoping to up that number substantially. Unless my priorities change I plan to fish 80 days in 2025.
Last year, I ended the year on December 20th with a killer day on the Henry’s Fork and thanks to a robust midge hatch, I got a couple of really nice rainbows on teeny dry flies. It doesn’t get much better than that in my opinion!
In this article, I will talk briefly about my last two days on the water, but more importantly, tie in some thoughts that I talked about in my article from June that discussed Mindset. In that article, I talked about the mental prep that the experienced angler goes through when fishing a place that is familiar. You draw on previous experiences, time of year, flows, water temps, etc. In examining those conditions, you make choices as to how you approach the day – the methods – dry fly, nymph, wet fly, streamer, which also dictates rods, leaders, flies and the list goes on. That day on the Green River in June, I was planning on rising fish and swinging soft hackles and streamers was my back-up. Instead of a baetis or caddis hatch, the fish were rising to tiny midges and I had left my midge box in the car. So facing only refusals on top, I swung soft hackles for over an hour and got nothing. Same was true with streamers. My Mindset that day was a collection of all the things that I knew about that spot on the Green @ Little Hole. And it all proved to be wrong!
What was it that killed the day? Variables! In fishing, things are rarely the same from day to day, but they can be! The fact is, from day to day, conditions change. As mentioned above, water temps, flows, sun or clouds, time of day, etc., all have an impact on the fish. One of the advantages of keeping a blog, or in old school circles, a journal, is that you can compare the places you fish regularly, day to day, season to season and year to year. As an example, the same day, year to year rarely fishes the same. Why? Variables!
My Experience Fishing Two Days in the Same Spot Back-to-Back
Last week, I fished the South Fork two days in a row, at my secret, not so secret wading spot which is only accessible during winter flows. I bring this up as an example, as the conditions from one day to the next seemed identical. Same time of day, same temps, both air and water, identical flows and even with overcast skies and relatively warm air for December, the midge hatch never happened. So, given the day-to-day similarities, the section did fish about the same from one day to the next. I fished the first day, Friday, solo and the second day, Saturday, with John. John was hell bent on streamers, but because I had only had a couple of eats on a streamer the day before, my plan was to nymph. However, because of the warm temps and overcast, I was also hoping for a midge hatch, which did not happen Friday, but who knows?
The fact is, you don’t know. You can make predictions based on a previous experience, but you never know with fishing, so I brought my Scott G2 3wt in the event there was a hatch and my Scott G2 4wt for indicator nymphing and anything else. My 4wt does great swinging soft hackles and lightweight streamers, like leeches. Well, the midge hatch did not happen Saturday either, so I fished my nymph rig on the seam. Why the seam? There are certain things that you learn from prior experience that are fairly consistent. The seam is always a great place to nymph. Inside the seam if the current is fast, outside the seam when the current is slow. On this occasion, the current was slow and the majority of fish I encountered, all whitefish I might add were on the outside of the seam. Whitefish tend to congregate, so where you find one, you will find others. In the course of an hour, I had caught 3, lost 3 and missed several on the hook-set, which is not uncommon with whitefish, with their small, rubbery, tender mouth. They were all in waist deep water, same flow, similar distance from the seam. John was fishing streamers above me. He was targeting brown or rainbow trout with his streamer and my feeling was they were further out for the most part, based upon my experience the day before. I had to swing my fly fairly far out into the run, which is where I got my eats previously.
What surprised me was the absence of cutthroat trout. Typically they will eat the same nymphs as the whitefish and prefer a similar flow. But even after moving my nymph rig around a lot, I was unable to locate them, or possibly they were there and not eating my flies! Having fished this spot over the years, wading in the winter and floating in the summer, it has always held a good population of cutthroats. One factor to consider is that the winter flows the past two years have been lower than in previous ones. We were at 900cfs and in prior years it has been closer to 1200cfs. Streamflows vary seasonally and year to year and it is always an important variable to consider.
Zooming Out and Looking at Variables More Broadly
My dad was a scientist and at one point I thought I might become one as well. Quoting Wikipedia: The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge, characterized by careful observation and skepticism. When you are conducting an experiment and looking for an outcome, you hold everything constant, change one variable and note the outcome. And each time you repeat the experiment, you change a different variable and measure the outcome. In fly fishing there are so many variables! However, it is fair to say the variable we change most is the fly. Now if you are carrying a few hundred flies, how to determine which one to try next? Experience is always the best teacher, but knowledge can also be gleaned from videos, books, blogs, etc.
In science, when you change a variable, ie, make a fly change, you are hoping for a different outcome. You are hoping that the fish eats your fly. And you are also hoping this is repeatable, meaning that multiple fish will want to eat that fly on that day. But still it is difficult to only change that one variable and if multiple variables change, you can’t determine “cause and effect” scientifically. Let’s use an example: you are casting a BWO adult dun pattern at a rising fish, during a BWO hatch and getting refusals. You know this fish is eatlng BWOs because you have seen the fish eat them as they drift by. This is a perfect situation for determining cause and effect. You are casting at a single rising fish. Your cast is either in the feeding lane or not. The drift is drag free or not. The tippet is fine enough and in great shape so it’s invisible to the trout. These are all variables that you can control, so if you are making the perfect cast and the fish won’t eat, it is just a matter of changing the fly until you find what they will eat. You can change color, size and type (comparadun, cripple, etc) until you happen on the right fly. Finally the fish eats a slightly smaller cripple and you are stoked!
Hopefully, you can now target other fish with the same rig and have a similar outcome. A similar outcome can be achieved nymphing to a fish you can actually see feeding on nymphs in a riffle. You have a bead on the fish, you see him opening and closing his mouth. You can cycle through the various nymph options, caddis, baetis, midge, etc., until you happen on the correct size, shape color and get the fish to eat your fly. Of course your presentation must be excellent, in the feeding lane at the right depth, drag free, etc. Again once you have validated your fly, you can target other fish!
The above scenarios are the “best case”! In each case, you know exactly where the fish is and you have an idea of what they are eating, and that they are actively feeding. You also know where they are in the water column. Most scenarios are not that clear cut. In cases where you cannot see the fish, you have no idea where they are or what they are eating, or even if they are eating for that matter. In these situations, you have many more possibilities as to where to fish and what to fish and even where in the water column to fish. In these cases, you rely on prior experience. Last week, when I fished the South Fork, I had prior experience fishing that same run. I had located a few trout and I knew where the whitefish were feeding based upon my experience Friday and was able to use that knowledge Saturday as the conditions had changed very little. However, I also know that the same spot fishes differently at other times of the year. Change the flow, the water temp and hatches and the fish will move around and target different flies.
Confidence Flies and Going a Level Deeper
If you are a fly fisher and you fish regularly with more than a year of experience, you no doubt have confidence flies. And of course, your confidence flies will differ based upon the river, or even section of river and also time of year, also if there is a hatch or not. A confidence fly is one that regularly produces results for you under a given set of conditions. But, there is a hidden problem with confidence flies. Here is an example. A friend of mine fishes a stream in Idaho all summer long. Early on he discovered that a parachute Adams was producing results on nearly every outing in the summer. Some days it did better than others but he usually got results. The parachute Adams is sort of a Swiss army knife when it comes to matching a baetis hatch. Get the size right and on this stream, it often works. So where is the problem you say? Well, if all you ever fish is a parachute Adams, how would you ever know? Maybe a cinnamon ant would out fish it 2:1. Heck, I’m the same way with my midge box. I probably have 80 different patterns in the box an even when you narrow it down to dry, nymph, emerger, I still have at least 20 of each size, shape and color. So why am I always choosing a zebra midge nymph? Because it is my confidence fly! Now the other patterns of midge nymph that I carry are popular patterns and therefore probably someone else’s confidence fly. So here is the question. If I start my day fishing the zebra midge and I catch a fish or two, I have reinforced my confidence in the fly. If they are not eating it on a given day, I am likely to belive that they are targeting a caddis pupa or baetis emerger and switch to something completely different. My point is, to expand your knowledge about what works and what doesn’t, you have to be willing to experiment outside of your confidence zone! That means…..
Be Willing to Change What’s Working
The best time to change your fly and learn about new ones is to change out the fly that’s working. Take my friend for example; the best time to change out that parachute Adams is after he caught a fish with it! Why? Because, if he fished with the Adams for an hour, caught nothing, and then changed it out, he wouldn’t learn a thing if the second, third or fourth fly also caught nothing. However, after catching a fish on the Adams, he knows he’s found fish, they are eating on top and they like the Adams. When he changes it out, if he catches nothing he knows why the Adams is still his go to. However, he may also find a fly that out fishes the Adams at least on that day under those conditions.
For many fly anglers, as you reach a certain level of experience, learning new things becomes more important than the number of fish you catch on a given day. You won’t learn much if you are not willing to experiment.
A/B Testing
In my prior life, I was involved with internet marketing and A/B Testing was used extensively. Let me explain how it works and then I will relate it back to fly fishing. Let’s say we are trying to drive click throughs on a given website. We are selling a new brad of fly rods and want to put Ads on Midcurrent, FlyLords or some other fishing blog sites. We put up an ad and get some click throughs, but we aren’t sure we have optimized our ad to get the most click throughs. A/B testing is about presenting two versions of the ad, one with different font, graphics, image than the other. One ad A, the other ad B. You alternate the ads for each site visitor, so roughly 50/50, then measure the results. The ad with the most click throughs wins. Later, you can match the winning ad with another new ad and try the process again and see which wins. This way iteratively, you continously improve your results.
You can do the same with fly fishing rigs. For instance, my friend who likes the parachute Adams could fish that plus a second fly, a “double dry” rig. If the Adams continues to outfish the other choices, he keeps it on. If the second fly wins, say an ant, he removes the Adams keeps the ant on and measures it against a new fly. This can be done with 2 or 3 fly nymph rigs, and tandem streamer rigs. A lot of my friends do this with a hopper / dropper rig. This is an excellent approach on days when you are not sure if the fish want to eat on top. You get all your eats below and the hopper is nothing more than a fancy bobber.
Hope you found this useful!
The pic below is from a July day of fly fishing on the Greys River in Wyoming. I experimented with a number of patterns that day and had my best results with a Royal Wulf stimulator. In some cases, the dropper out performed the dry on a dry/dropper rig. This was especially true in the deeper runs.
