Patience or Prospecting - Alternative Approaches to Trout Fishing

[Paul_B]

You must have missed cols post in "WBT parliament petition"

Dog pisses against lamppost. Rain washes it down drain. Drain flows into river. Metabolites kill insects in river.

No doubt they are trying to stop its use in other areas such as seed dressings - if these are equally damaging??? If you are going to stop its use in applications where it is causing death to 'friendly' insects, then it needs to be all those uses to reverse the downward spiral of insect numbers.

But you obviously know far more about it than the scientists, so carry on.

Col

 

[Paul_B]

Yes Paul, the revived former industrially polluted rivers both sides of the Pennines is something wonderful to behold. The general absence of dairy farming and intensive arable farming in their valleys is surely a major part of their increased insect life which feed some wonderful brown trout and grayling now available to the anglers who fish them.

Mick

I never thought I'd see it but am thankful I have, I wish my dad could have.

 

[Scotty Mitchell]

Fife Leven, used to smell it long before you could see it, runs through some rough, urban areas. Now a very healthy river with great insect life and trout population, unstocked.
Fife Eden, runs through mainly farmland, skirts one small town, and is nearly dead bar a few Salmon and the stockies.

Farmers.

 

[BobP]

I would say that on occasion patience is a virtue. A few years ago I had a couple of hours on the Dorset Frome. The beat was completely wild and unstocked with an acknowledged small trout population.

This was in mid-April. I eventually found a spot that deepened off on a sharp bend just after a long riffle and had the feeling that if I was going to find a trout anywhere it would be there so I sat down, leaning up against a fence post and just waited. Forty minutes later a trout rose, and five minutes later he rose again. I still sat there waiting to see if the fish would establish a steady feeding pattern while picking through my dry fly box. I settled on a size 16 parachute black gnat and by the time I had tied it on the fish had risen three more times.

I hitched my way across the bank on my backside to the water's edge, cast once to get the distance and the second chuck went dead on track and the fish took it. Not a huge fish, maybe a pound & a half, but very satisfying & completely out of character for me as I am usually one who goes actively hunting for fish.

I think that if one knows a water and has pin pointed a particular fish, maybe from previous experience, the sit & wait approach can often pay dividends. It's a lot less tiring certainly.

 

[eddleston123]

Everyone is different, but I can't see myself hanging around the bank of a river for some 40 minutes waiting for a trout to show itself. That strategy quite clearly works as displayed above, but I'd need to weigh that up with the question ''How many trout could I have caught in that 40 minutes prospecting/fishing blind.

Sometimes, I only have a 2 hour session and 40 mins is a big chunk out that. As I said earlier, everyone to their own.



Douglas

 

[micka]

Everyone is different, but I can't see myself hanging around the bank of a river for some 40 minutes waiting for a trout to show itself. That strategy quite clearly works as displayed above, but I'd need to weigh that up with the question ''How many trout could I have caught in that 40 minutes prospecting/fishing blind.

Sometimes, I only have a 2 hour session and 40 mins is a big chunk out that. As I said earlier, everyone to their own.



Douglas

To slightly contradict myself there is another side to the coin. It always pays dividends to spend some time just observing what is going without getting rooted AND, as so many of the experts tell us, not to dash through water you've not cast a line over first.

This was brought home to me a few years back during my obsession with Euronymphing when I was fishing a middle beat on the Ribble. As I was making my way to the main run, I started to carefully cast my light bugs upstream in what was just mid-calf deep water (if that) in the last stages of a spate when an explosion occurred and a silver grilse jumped into the air with my little beaded nymph in the corner of it's mouth. My heart was in my mouth as I couldn't believe what was happening in such thin water. I was only using 3lb tippet though I had an old Orvis Battenkill with a disc drag on it. But it's simply not fair to play a fish like that for ages and when I forced the issue the barbless hook came away.

But I've learnt a valuable lesson since then.

Mick

 

[Scotty Mitchell]

I’d say I do an equal amount of both. River and Loch, some days I go looking to cover ground and hunt out a fish, other days I’m happy to wait or wander till I see a steady riser. Both approaches have their merits, depending on conditions obviously.
I absolutely in the school of not walking through water I haven’t fished. One example springs to mind, I was fishing the Cumbrian Eden, a beat as instructed by Mr Trout the day before. I had my son with me who was just getting used to being near running water so I wasn’t up for heroics, we were stood on the bank and I was flicking small hares ear spider up a pacy, shallow riffle by shallow I mean 8’, not really expecting much and talking the boy through the dead drift idea, when a 2.5lb Grayling took, it was in an eddy behind a stone that was the same height as it!

 

[BobP]

I’d say I do an equal amount of both. River and Loch, some days I go looking to cover ground and hunt out a fish, other days I’m happy to wait or wander till I see a steady riser. Both approaches have their merits, depending on conditions obviously.
I absolutely in the school of not walking through water I haven’t fished. One example springs to mind, I was fishing the Cumbrian Eden, a beat as instructed by Mr Trout the day before. I had my son with me who was just getting used to being near running water so I wasn’t up for heroics, we were stood on the bank and I was flicking small hares ear spider up a pacy, shallow riffle by shallow I mean 8’, not really expecting much and talking the boy through the dead drift idea, when a 2.5lb Grayling took, it was in an eddy behind a stone that was the same height as it!

My cousin in Austria rammed that message home several years ago when we were fishing the stretch of river he rents. I was fishing dries, not catching much and ignoring the water close in. He watched me for a minute and then asked why I wasn't fishing the shallow water on my side of the river. I pointed out that the water he was indicating was crystal clear and only about 25cm deep with not a fish to be seen. He insisted so to shut him up I cast about ten yards up & watched as a big grayling materialised out of nowhere and scoffed a big Klink. Thomas went on his way but stopped and turned after a few yards. "Now do you believe me? he called.

He also said that first thing in the morning the sunny side of the river fished better and in the afternoon to fish the shady side which on those glacier-fed rivers made sense.

 

[micka]

My cousin in Austria rammed that message home several years ago when we were fishing the stretch of river he rents. I was fishing dries, not catching much and ignoring the water close in. He watched me for a minute and then asked why I wasn't fishing the shallow water on my side of the river. I pointed out that the water he was indicating was crystal clear and only about 25cm deep with not a fish to be seen. He insisted so to shut him up I cast about ten yards up & watched as a big grayling materialised out of nowhere and scoffed a big Klink. Thomas went on his way but stopped and turned after a few yards. "Now do you believe me? he called.

He also said that first thing in the morning the sunny side of the river fished better and in the afternoon to fish the shady side which on those glacier-fed rivers made sense.

Two good posts above - mine now edited to say "mid-calf" water. 10" maximum - excuse me for that mistake. This grilse had just clearly just come the through the pool below and was resting in the shallow tail I started to fish - always great takers in that situation but I was astonished at the tiny fly it took.

Another lesson to learn - many anglers are lazy and don't like long walks. This club beat was a fair walk from the car park I like it because I lose the crowds.

Similar in reservoirs where so many anglers like to stay in "stocky alley" to feel their rods bend regularly. RE on this forum emphasised in recent magazine articles what I've tried to practise for a while - to catch grown on fish lose the crowds and seek out the distant bays that hold plenty of food.

Or in the words of Mick Brown doing a promo on Pike fishing in my local tackle shop a few years back. "pike aren't a difficult fish to catch but they hate sustained heavy angling pressure and if it's relentless they will become night feeders. Try and find lightly fished water to get the best results."

Trouble is whether in the UK or trout meccas in the USA, and according to Bob Wyatt, even in South Island in New Zealand too, it's hard to find lightly fished waters. But they do exist (in decreasing numbers) in the UK if you are prepared for a longer drive and good hike after it. The less populated the area and the more inaccessible, the better the chance.

Mick

 

[Paul_B]

We have a lot that like to splash about in the water in their posh waders then say they cant cast out far enough to get to the fish, thank goodness for new the 12 metre spacing rule

 

[LukeNZ]

Do dogs pee in rivers? I've never seen any of mine do it. I would think it's a bit tricky to lift one of your legs when standing in fast water, and there aren't any trees or lamp posts in the water either.

They tend to pee on scents. Fresh water wouldn’t provide that stimulus, as it’s not a dogs natural territory. A waste of a calling card?

 

[Overmiwadrers]

I consider myself very fortunate in that the rivers I fish are not only unstocked but are still pretty healthy with very good levels of invertebrates. From May through to September I would consider myself very unfortunate if the weather was not terrible not to see at least some rising fish . Also On Smaller streams fish do tend to look up more . I will be fishing at the weekend and will be surprised if at the least I don’t get an iron blue hatch at midday

O M W


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So I went on Sunday it was cold foggy and drizzly did ok on nymphs and at lunchtime there were a few rising to either green flies of fallen leaves or midges but but caught two on dries only tiny but I’ll take anything that’s rising at this time of year

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