This summer, I drove my youngest son to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I dropped him off at a camp and then headed home. I decided to stop at a small creek in Wisconsin for a day of fly fishing. I was alone. It was hot. Muggy. And the bugs swirled around my head like the dusts of dirt around Pig-Pen, the character in the comic strip “Peanuts.”
I fished for about 30 minutes. And then quit. I had had enough. The stream in mid summer was weedy, with only small channels in the middle that were fishable. If I had been a new fly fisher, I would have been pretty discouraged. Maybe I would have thought, “This is too hard. I’m never fly fishing again.”
When you’re just started out, it’s important to find early success, and here are three ways to make that happen:
1. Learn to fish nymphs and streamers … immediately.
The learning arc for most new fly fishers is to learn to dry fly fish first. They take a fly casting class. They feel the surge of emotion of early casting success. But then struggle to catch fish during their first few outings. Perhaps there’s no obvious hatch, and they default to fishing a dry-fly attractor pattern like Parachute Adams or Elk Hair Caddis every time they go out.
You’ll catch more fish early on if you learn how to nymph and fish streamers while you’re also struggling to learn to fish dry flies. I might add that learning to sling a streamer may be the easiest first thing to do. It will force you to take a good look at your tackle, which needs to change if you’re fishing streamers.
I remember well my struggle learn to fish streamers. For starters, I was trying to hurl a size #6 Woolly Bugger with a 6x leader. I didn’t know any better. No one told me that I needed 2x or 3x tippet. I had learned to dry fly fish first, so it didn’t dawn on my that I needed different tackle.
My suggestion: if you’re struggling to catch fish and you only dry fly fish, add streamers to the mix. Yes, it’s one more thing to learn, but especially in the fall, you will find much more success.
2. Know and Avoid the Dead Zones.
Steve and I published an entire episode on fly fishing dead zones, those times of the day and seasons of the year when very likely you’ll not catch fish.
New fly fishers don’t have this knowledge. If they did, most likely they’d catch more fish and be able to fan the tiny flame of passion for the sport.
Dead zones to avoid are winter (of course), early morning and late evening in the spring, and midday during the heat of the summer.
In the spring, especially late April and early May, I like the 10 AM to 2 PM window during the day for fishing dry flies. In mid to late summer, when the water is low and the temps are hot with lots of sun on the river, the best opportunities are fishing dries during the evening until dark. And in the fall, I primarily nymph fish and streamer fish. Most often, the streamer bite is on in the mornings in late September and October.
Of course, veterans can catch fish during any time, and there is much more nuance to dead zones and hatches than I can write about in this short space. The point is that new fly fishers would do well to know when not to fish.
3. Rethink Float Trips.
My brother, who is a competent fly fisher, often takes his oldest son (who is now 13) to Oregon for a couple days on the McKenzie River. They float for a couple days and catch a zillion rainbows – about 8 to 12 inches. It’s a lot of fun for Matt’s son.
This year, Matt came back and said, “I’m really tired of these kinds of trips.”
One reason is that on most float trips, the guide hands you a fly rod, instructs you on where to cast, and, voila! you catch fish. The big problem with float trips is that you don’t learn a lick. Steve and I are big proponents of hiring guides, but we do so only once or twice a year. Our primary goal is to gain intel when fishing a new area. (I do find that I learn quite a bit on guided wade-fishing days.)
We all have “friends” who go on big trips out West, take gorgeous pictures of huge trout, and think that they are fly fishers. They are not. Very little is learned on a guided float trip.
New fly fishers need take the harder path of the learning curve. It’s tempting to sate your desire to catch fish with float trips. The best move is simply more reps on river – making mistakes, finding success, and doing it all over again and again.
Years ago a guide told me to “take a few years and then pick up your game with another guided trip, class or fish somewhere new”. This has served me well and kept me from repeating the same old same old.
I don’t quite agree that you don’t learn on guided trips. I think it really depends on the guide and the expectations that you lay out with him/her before the trip. I was absolutely hopeless when I first started out. I hired a guide for a full day of wading who luckily had a real gift for instruction and I told him that I was trying to figure out this sport and that I wanted to learn. It was less a guided trip and more a day long class on the water. Looking back, if I hadn’t taken that trip I very likely would have abandoned fly fishing. When you start out in fly fishing, there are so many variables, many of which you’re not even aware of, it’s really helpful to have someone there to give you a frame of reference.
I appreciate your point.
Note that the point was all about “guided float trips” – not guided wade-fishing trips. The two are so different in terms of learning. Guided float trips tend to be “cast left, cast right” and don’t involve a lot of skill or nuance. That’s not always true – but true enough.
Fair point on a float trip vs a wade trip. I see a float as a chance to put to work all the skills you’ve learned on the water. Yes a beginner can catch fish on a float, but a skilled angler can have a shot at a special day. I agree that if you only do floats with a guide, that’s not fly fishing. Fly fishing is doing a float when you can, but also sneaking off work early for a quick wade on the way home. It’s looking up and realizing that the only one who saw you put your backcast into those bushes was a beaver.