duaneredford.com   "Fear No Water"

Hidy Ho good neighbors,

Little tardy with the post this week.  This time of year gets tough, in that, I am combining fly fishing, upland game, and speaking engagements into a 24 hour day.  Not complaining, but I will be happy when guiding pheasant hunts is over the end of this month.  By the way, I guide on a private ranch, so seasons are longer than public stuff. 

Had a couple great fly fishing trips last week.  The fishing has been good.  I really focused last week on working the angles with my clients.  By that I mean we worked runs effectively and efficiently utilizing typical depth, speed, profile, and color principles (D,S,P,C), but added in angles. 

All else being equal, a slight variation in a casting angle can change the presentation just enough to illicit a fish-eat.  It’s the next step in becoming a good nymph fly fisher.  The ability to pick or squeeze out the last bit of fish holding water can make all the difference in the world in the number of hook-ups.

Let’s say you’re fishing a run, have the D,S,P,C dialed in and feel as if you’ve picked the run apart perfectly.  Before you walk away, try to change angles.  I suggest subtle movements, left, right, forward, back, or a combination of those to fully cover the water.  You may have prefectly drifted a seam, but missed a feeding fish by mere inches.  Maybe the fish is swinging 6″ right and left, and you are drifting just outside that zone.  Since, you can’t be exactly sure where your bugs are throughout the entire drift, a simple angle change can make the difference.  Folks that fish with me will attest to this, it is amazing how many fish we pick up after a subtle angle change.  “If you change nothing, nothing changes”.

Also, I see clients continue to pound the same part of a seam, and every time they are hooking up on the same obstruction.  A subtle change will get you past that obstruction, and because of how fish hold around obstructions, it’s not unusual to catch a fish after an angle change by that very obstruction that was “in the way”.

In the picture I am posting about how to attack a bend, really look it over as to how to cover the bend completely.  What is left out is how to finish each stage by subtle angle changes, before moving to the next stage.  Just too hard to show graphically.  Look at it this way, after you’ve finished a stage, use your intuition to dictate to you what angle change is necessary to completely cover the run.  Sounds silly, but it works.

The longer you nymph fish with the same set-up, the more “intuitive” you become.  You begin to “see” your bugs underwater, and realize the angle change to finish the run.  It’s called angling for a reason. 

I explain this concept further in The Playbook, and will sometime post a video.  You may not catch fish in each run, but I promise you’ll walk away from it knowing you fished it well. For now, Fear No Water!  Thanks for dialing in.

Duane