Ted Leeson

The Nine Best Places to Fish a Pond During Ice-Out

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:00:00 -0500

YOUR FAVORITE TROUT streams may be running bank-full and turbid, but melting ice means that ponds and small lakes are ready to roll right now. Best of all, with oxygen confined to the surface layer, most prey is in depths of less than 10 feet. Trout are rarely far away.

The most effective tactic may be to fish from the bank when so many trout are within easy casting range. Start early, because the period during and just after ice-out can be absolutely hot.

Just as important: Know where to cast. This hypothetical trout pond shows nine general areas that typically furnish the best early-spring action.

1 INLETS
Rainbows, cutthroats, and baitfish stage off inlet mouths prior to spring spawning. Hit these spots with streamers, spinners, salmon eggs, or egg patterns. Fish may also drop back into outlets if they find spawning habitat, so try there as well.

2 CREEK CHANNEL
In stream-fed, manmade still waters, look for the old creek channel cutting through a shallow flat. This deeper water offers trout a natural ambush point. Hang bait in the middle, or ply the edges with streamers, Woolly Buggers, or spinners.

3 WEEDBEDS
Aquatic vegetation dies back in winter, depriving insects of cover and exposing them to trout. Work dragonfly nymph patterns just above the dead weeds, or bottom-fish the real thing. You can find the beefy nymphs underneath woody debris.

4 DEADFALLS AND TIMBER
Downed wood is a magnet for insects, bait, and trout. Fish it with shallow-running hardware or Woolly Buggers on a floating line. This is also an excellent place to fish bait such as minnows and nightcrawlers below a bobber.

5 SHALLOW BAYS
The first areas to warm up in the early spring, skinny-water bays can be prospected with leech, weighted nymph, or water-boatman patterns. Stay on the lookout for cruising trout and intercept them by casting well ahead of their line of travel.

6 MUDFLATS
Bloodworms—bright red midge larvae—inhabit the soft, silty bottoms on the flats. Rig a small San Juan Worm under an indicator or a live redworm under a bobber, and ride it just off the bottom. Cast and let it drift with the wind.

7 NEW GROWTH
From shore, cast out in open water beyond the new growth of reeds, tules, or rushes. Use a strip-and-pause retrieve with a floating line and a damselfly nymph, Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear, Prince nymph, or leech pattern.

8 BARS AND MIDWATER SHOALS
Work these structures by casting from shallow water to deeper. Rig a floating line with a 12- to 14-foot leader. Count a fairly large (No. 8 to 12) midge larva or pupa pattern down to the bottom, then use a glacially slow retrieve.

9 ICE SHEETS
As the thaw begins, look for open water between ice sheets and the shoreline, particularly in shallows adjacent to deep water. Some anglers cast baitfish imitations onto the ice shelf, then drag them into the water and begin their retrieve.

The Sweetwater Guide School: Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Fishing Guide?

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Sooner or later, in idle daydream or secret fantasy, every serious fly angler wonders What would it be like to guide for a living? The idea holds a distinctly off-the-grid appeal, for nothing about the job is conventional. It's a seminomadic life of irregular hours and seasonal work, hinging on the whims of weather and fish. There's not even a formal career path to follow. You can't major in guiding or join a union. Learning to guide is more like becoming a triggerman or a topless dancer—you make the most of your native assets and pick up the rest on the job.

At least that's the way it used to be. In recent years, a handful of guide schools have set up shop to teach aspiring newcomers the essentials of the trade. And people, lots of them, are signing up. Since I'm currently engaged full-time in becoming the laziest man on earth, I'm not really in the market for a new career as a guide. But I'm curious about the people who are, and why, and what it takes to make it happen. So setting personal ambition aside, I enrolled in the Sweetwater Guide School to take a weeklong training course and find out.

THE CAMPUS
The base of operations is an 800-acre ranch out of Greycliff, Mont., homesteaded in the 1870s on prime bottomland bordered by the Yellowstone River and low hills rolling to the distant backdrop of the Beartooth Mountains. We headquarter at the Harrison House, one of three on the property, a vertically rambling, prairie-stark old Victorian of impeccable Western pedigree; it was the site of a locally famous murder a century ago and an equally famous retaliatory lynching in what is now Hangman's Gulch.

I'm not sure what to expect when I arrive: the rigors of angling boot camp or, my worst fear, a flyfishing dude ranch in gimmicky masquerade. It proves to be neither. When the eight other participants show up, the whole gig takes on the comfortable vibe of a deer camp, informal and almost horizontally laid back. School director Ron Meek casually gestures toward a wall of food in the refrigerator and a dangerously overstuffed pantry: "You're on your own for breakfast and lunch. If you see it, you can eat it." But after long days on the river, the staff instructors mercifully dish up dinners—pork tenderloin, steaks, barbecued ribs, and other sorts of humble fare to sustain the working guide. Come evening, we adjourn to the porch and practice the easier parts of the profession, double-hauling a few cold ones from a backyard cooler and polishing up our lies.

Though we've all come to learn the skills of guiding, not everyone, I soon discover, aims to be a guide. Ken Wilson and his 17-year-old son, Kendrick, already experienced and well-traveled anglers, have signed up, Ken says, "because we wanted to improve our fishing skills and wanted to do it together." Kendrick, though, thinks that at some point he might like to try his hand at guiding in Alaska.

Ed Cyr has just retired from the last of his three careers—as a sergeant in the Army Reserve, a county sheriff, and most recently a Washington state tax collector. He already fishes the Columbia River from his own jet sled but has come to better his boat handling.

For Karen Reed, a 40-something flight attendant, the school is her husband's idea. He wants her to learn to manage a drift boat, she tells me, "so I can row, he can fish all day, and we're both happy." Sorry, she doesn't have a sister. I asked.

This mixture of goals turns out to be typical. The school has 250 graduates to date, about half of whom took the class as an advanced flyfishing or boating course. The rest, like the rest of this group, came to train as guides.

THE CURRICULUM
Regardless of motive, the drill's the same. Study commences at 8:30 sharp, after we eat breakfast and pack lunch coolers, including extra water on very hot days. "A lot of your clients will be elderly or out of shape," guide Dave Goff cautions. "Bring lots of water and make them drink it."

Some mornings, seminars head the agenda. We log time around a fly-tying table, where instructor Tracy Peterson walks us through eight or nine "guide flies" that take trout virtually everywhere. He also conducts a session on stream insects, though as he acknowledges, "You don't need to tie flies or know bugs to be a good flyfishing guide. But both give you an edge."

We take a class on fishing knots and, on a savagely hot morning, get lessons from Brant Oswald, whose list of credentials as a casting instructor is longer than a fly line. Though he coaches us individually on our technique, the ultimate focus falls on the client. In this case, we're learning how to help square-one beginners—who may represent 40 percent of bookings— throw a fly well enough to catch something. And this emphasis, perhaps as much as anything, sums up the governing philosophy of the week: It's all about giving your clients the best possible experience on the water.

To that end, safety, for both guides and anglers, is stressed in all matters, from entering and exiting boats to pinching down hook barbs to working around floatplanes to client injuries. Many states require that a guide complete training in emergency medical procedures. And so our single longest seminar is a crash course run by Doug Lobaugh, a barrel-chested captain at Livingston Fire & Rescue and a 17-year EMT veteran. When this two-legged hurricane blows out of the room hours later, we've got our mandatory American Red Cross certifications in First Aid Basics and Adult CPR.

I'M TED, AND I'LL BE YOUR GUIDE TODAY
By far the bulk of our training takes place in the field, and each day we split into groups of four to hit the river in two drift boats and a jet boat, periodically stopping to wade-fish. Then, by turns, one student plays guide for the other two as an instructor looks on, gives advice, and corrects mistakes. Pretending to authority on a river I've never fished feels a little fraudulent, but to become a guide you've got to learn to act like one.

My first victim, who prefers to be known only as Lynne, is from Chicago. She concedes that she's no fishing expert and has joined the class both to ratchet up her fly-rod skills and to lay some potential groundwork for the future. Like her husband, she's an avid bird hunter, and they're considering joining, or managing, or even starting up a cast-and-blast operation some years down the road, possibly one geared to female clients.

At the moment, though, she's ankle-deep in a riffle, poking through an open fly box, wanting to know what'll work.

"This one," I lie without hesitation, walking that fine line between perfect confidence and pure cow pie that is sometimes part of the job, because Rule No. 1 is: Your clients must have faith in you. Lynne proves easy to guide and listens well, if not wisely, at my request changing dry flies, adding droppers, then going deep, then changing spots. I've got my other client unproductively occupied in a similar fashion. A strong downstream wind, turbid water, and lockjawed trout aren't helping matters, and under mounting performance anxiety and shriveling self-esteem, I shuttle the 100 yards between my two anglers, toting an absurdly superfluous landing net.

Playing guide is a lot harder than it looks. By noon I've racked up more miles than an NBA ref, my sports have racked up exactly nothing, and I'm completely out of ideas. Lynne tells me not to worry about it, but it's a relief when the afternoon shift change comes.

When you're not running the show, you're acting as a client, a role that must be taken with at least some seriousness to have any instructional value for the student guide. Drawing upon a natural aptitude for being catered to, I warm to the part of client immediately, showcasing a lifetime's worth of bad flyfishing habits under the camouflage of pretending to be a novice. It's hard on the guide, but it's my job.

The burden falls, one afternoon, on 20-year-old Sam Aiken, a block mason ("like my daddy and his daddy") who grew up hunting and fishing in North Carolina. He's the kind of young hard-charger I expected to find here. Beneath a quiet reserve and a polite drawl peppered with "sirs" and "ma'ams" vibrates a guy so fired up about becoming a guide that I worry he'll burst into flames. With a lean, rangy build and forearms thick as dock ropes (laying all that brick, I guess), he looks like a guide already.

Because he is young and eager, I can't help but yank his chain a little, hamming up the role of rank beginner and trotting him through his paces. He patiently shows me how to cast, explains how to work a run, and never once steps out of character, which is vital because Rule No. 2 is: Be professional. Remember that the job is as much about teaching as finding fish. Though he's never been West before, he taps into that native fish sense that some guys just have, gives me instructions, and gets me onto trout.

At night, he ties flies or taps away at a laptop, working on his résumé. The school maintains a network of outfitters, lodges, and fly shops that call when they need guides. Demand often outstrips supply, and before the week is over, Sam has a job offer in his pocket. It surprises no one.

HOW TO COOPERATE IF THE FISH WON'T
The Yellowstone here is a big river, best fished from boats, banging the banks with oversize Woolly Buggers and steroidal rabbit-strip streamers. It's like slapping the water with a wet hamster, but we roll some good trout. The fishing serves double duty as instruction in angling techniques and as training for the oarsmen.

There's much more to handling a drift boat than merely floating downriver. You must hold off the bank at a constant, castable distance; adjust for wind and squirrelly currents; call out the fishy spots coming up; back-row to slow your clients through the prime water; maneuver the boat to help weak casters put their lines in productive drifts; keep a self-protective eye on their back casts; watch their flies for follows or strikes; and net fish—all with an economy of effort that will see you through the day.

These are the finer points that Woody Linihan has come to learn. Already an experienced angler with good rowing chops (he once built a drift boat), he practices the moves that separate a splash-and-giggle boater from a fishing guide. And from his 20-year career as a bartender in Las Vegas comes a stream of stories, of barflies and bouncers, of high-stakes players and blue-haired slot monkeys. This helps with Rule No. 3: Show them a good day, if not with fish then with something else. Personable, upbeat, and relentlessly entertaining, Woody tells me, "I don't see guiding and bartending as all that different. They're service occupations. The customers come to relax and have fun. It's your job to see that they do." But he's dead serious about becoming a guide. "It's time to reinvent myself," he explains, "doing something I love." The stakes are high for him, and at age 40 with two young kids, he has no illusions about the uncertainties ahead. But he means to take his shot.

Where drift boats prove impractical, on big rivers in remote destinations, guides run motorized craft. Already a scarred survivor of several tragic relationships with the internal combustion engine, I have misgivings about my stint at the tiller of a 55-horsepower outboard jet-pump on an 18-foot johnboat. But Rob Norman, my partner for the day, can hardly wait. He's up to his armpits in the lower unit as we get lessons in removing the intake housing, clearing debris from the grate and water path, and treating the various mechanical ills that can befall you on the water.

Rob, more than anyone, has committed to walk the walk. At age 32, he has chucked his 11-year career as a paramedic in Austin, Texas, moved all his stuff into storage, and come here to learn the ropes. Inspired by guides on a trip to Alaska, he returned home thinking: "What better way to spend your time than teaching people something that could change their lives? Flyfishing did that for me." He obeys Rule No. 4: You must love your work because your clients won't have a good time if you don't. When I ask about guiding, he speaks instead of fishing as a quiet escape, as a spiritual refuge, perhaps as a necessary counterweight to screaming sirens and heart attacks.

Despite my apprehension, jet-boat day chugs by without incident but with frequent quizzes. "How would you fish this water?" Meek asks, pointing. "Where would you station your clients?" And so on, as we learn to read the river, run the chutes, and practice back-trolling. Despite extra tutoring, it's obvious that I suck at this. I'm scheduled for a second session later in the week but swap it for additional drift-boat time and two beers.

BACK AT THE RANCH
After five solid days of coaching, it's impossible not to get better at almost everything. And we all do. On the final morning, each of us is summoned to the office for an exit interview. One by one, my companions emerge waving certificates of completion. I graduate too, with what is now known as a "social promotion" but in my day was called the "Gentleman's C"—an unspoken agreement in which I'm passed from the course under the strict condition that I never attempt to use the credential. But I have other plans and inquire instead about the career opportunities for a professional client.

Meek says he'll get back to me.

WANT TO GO? Sweetwater offers six weeklong guide-school courses a year between March and October. Each is limited to nine students, and the cost is $1,900. For more information, go to sweetwatertravel.com or call 866-464-8433.

How to Catch Trout on a Fly Rod with Dragon- and Damselfly Imitations

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

There's something simmering beneath the surface of lakes and ponds right now, and most anglers will blast right past it in a lather to hit the more glamorous, and less predictable, spring hatches on rivers and streams. But the "dungeon bugs" of still waters can offer plenty of action, and comparatively few anglers bother with them.

More good news: Opportunities abound, since damselflies and dragonflies thrive in lakes and ponds across the nation. Hatch times vary with latitude and altitude, but broadly speaking the show opens in May, with some of the best performances taking place close to shore.

MIGRATING DAMSELS
By virtue of sheer numbers, damselfly nymphs rank high on the aquatic menu, available to trout year-round but at their most helpless when struck by the urge to emerge. Damsels, however, don't hatch on the surface film. They migrate toward whatever, in their tiny worldview, constitutes dry land: downed timber, tules, or reeds sticking above the waterline; rocks or docks; or the shoreline itself. There they shed the nymphal skin to become airborne. If you see these papery, castoff shucks, and the presence of adult flies, you're in the right place at the right time.

As they make their shoreward exodus, most damsel nymphs crawl along the bottom. Getting your fly down among the naturals usually produces the best action. In water depths of 4 feet or less, go with a floating line, an unweighted or lightly weighted fly, and a 9- to 12-foot leader. Cast out perpendicular to the shoreline, and let the fly sink for, say, 10 seconds, and then begin a slow, steady retrieve; a hand-twist works well. Inch the fly back into shallower water to replicate the natural insect's path. Increase the countdown on each cast until you touch bottom, and then back off a few counts to keep your fly snag-free. Use the same technique in deeper water with a sink-tip or full-sinking line.

Some damsel nymphs, however, swim to shore on or just under the surface, triggering the violent, take-and-turn boils of every angler's fantasy. Target these trout with a floating line and an unweighted fly. Damsels appear to swim at a pretty good clip, but if you look closely, there's a lot of shoulder-shrugging, butt-wiggling body motion, with frequent stops to rest, for precious little forward progress—it's a lot like me paddling a canoe. Duplicate this movement with slow, 8- to 12-inch strips, pausing between pulls. And stay sharp. Trout frequently grab the fly when it's motionless.

On gusty days, freshly hatched adult damsels (and dragonflies) may be blown into the water and picked off. But it's not a bankable occurrence—I've witnessed it once or twice in 20 years—and unimportant to fishermen.

SQUIRTING DRAGONS
With armor-plated abdomens, bizarre extraterrestrial eyes, and a hinged lower jaw that snaps out to snatch a meal, dragonfly nymphs are a scaled-down version of Sigourney Weaver's worst nightmare. In its landward migration, the dragon nymph is strictly a pedestrian. It walks rather than swims, though when alarmed, it can force a jet of water out its rear end and squirt to safety. Aside from being a really cool skill to have, this gives a clue about the fishing. Again, cast perpendicular to the shore, and use the countdown technique with a slow-crawl retrieve punctuated with quick 6-inch strips and a pause. Keep the rod tip right down to the water, or even a few inches under the surface with a sinking line, to minimize slack—pickups can be subtle. Concentrate on the perimeter of weedbeds and shallow edges that drop abruptly into deeper water.

Dragonfly time is marked by the psychedelically colored adults darting about and abandoned nymphal skins clinging to shoreline vegetation, though you won't find either in big numbers. The hatches aren't dense, but when these beefy nymphs start moving, the trout aren't far behind. Sally forth and slay them.

CHOICE PATTERNS
Damselfly nymphs can change color to match their surroundings. Shades of green, olive, brown, and tan are common. I prefer damsel nymphs with lifelike mobility, such as this Marabou Damsel. Sizes 12 and 14 work just about everywhere. Dragonfly nymph patterns are bigger, like this Spun Wool Dragon, usually weighted with lead wire or barbell eyes, and tied on 2XL hooks, sizes 4 to 10. —TED LEESON

10 Tactics for Catching More Trout on Flies

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:00:00 -0500

In fishing, change is sometimes a matter of babies and bathwater. New gear and methods, fresh ideas and approaches replace existing ones, and in the general rush to the cutting edge, older techniques get pushed aside, the priceless along with the worthless. Here are my votes for 10 flyfishing practices that have fallen out of general favor in the past few decades and are worth reviving.

1 Hand-Tie Your Leaders
There's no disputing the convenience of machine-tapered knotless leaders. But the old-fashioned kinds offer an angler some indisputable advantages. Knowing the exact architecture of the taper allows you to easily rebuild a broken leader on the stream or to modify its performance characteristics to meet changing fishing conditions. You get more versatility at a tiny fraction of the cost. All you need are spools of tippet material, the know-how to tie a Blood knot (if you don't, go to field andstream.com/bloodknot), and a formula. Here's my basic leader recipe, a 9-foot 4X, for everyday use and as a platform for alterations:

TIPPET DIAMETER	TIPPET LENGTH
.021 inch	36 inches
.019 inch	18 inches
.017 inch	16 inches
.015 inch	8 inches
.013 inch	8 inches
.011 inch (0X)	8 inches
.009 inch (2X)	8 inches
.007 inch (4X)	26 inches

2 Skate a Spider
Fishing dry flies on a dead drift is a classic maneuver, but skating has a long history, too. Otherwise reluctant trout will often crush skittering dries in big, implosive strikes. The older flies designed for this technique—called spiders and variants—are tied on short-shank hooks with long, oversize hackles that cause the flies to bounce and skim on the water. Keep the fly and leader well greased, and use rod motion or the current drag to draw the fly across the surface, in a smooth pull or in stuttering twitches. By the way, you can skate swinging wet flies as well, lifting the rod until only the leader is on the water and the fly is kicking up a little rooster tail. It's a terrific short-line, pocket-water technique.

The length of the butt section allows for 6 inches of line to be used when you're nail-knotting it to the fly line; the other sections allow 2 inches each for the intermediate knots.

If you break a leader, it's easy to determine the correct tippet size to start remaking the taper. Just begin at the butt section and count down from 21 by twos (21, 19, 17, etc.) to find the diameter in thousandths of an inch. If you need a lighter leader, cut the 4X back to 6 inches and add a 5X or 6X tippet. For a heavier one, cut back to 0X (.011) and add a 1X or 2X tippet. Avoid joining materials that are more than .002 inch apart in diameter because the knot may not hold well.

3 Dap a Dry
One of the oldest and simplest tricks in the book, dapping is now dismissed as a technique for children and simpletons. But this approach is ideally suited to situations with no casting room, like brushy little streams or tight, bankside runs. Stay a rod-length back from the water. With only the leader through the rod tip, lower the fly to the surface, let it drift a few inches, then pick it up and set it down again, essentially "patting" or "dapping" the fly on the water—mimicking precisely the behavior of an egg-laying caddis or mayfly. Listen and feel for the strike. Crude? Possibly. Effective? Without question. It allows you to get a fly into otherwise unfishable spots.

4 Lose the Bobber
Today's anglers rely heavily on yarn or foam strike indicators even though old-style nymphing is often more productive. Forget the indicator when:

1) Nymphing deep, briskly paced runs. Given the top-to-bottom current differential and the weight needed to get the fly down, an indicator can cause unnatural drag.

2) Working pocket water. Short, twisting current tongues and narrow chutes make it difficult to put the fly and indicator on the same drift. Fish a nymph on a short, barely taut line.

3) Fishing clear, shallow, glassy stretches. Indicators can spook fish. Instead, grease the leader to within a foot or two of the end.

Watch where the line or leader meets the water for the tiniest pause, twitch, dart, burp, or hiccup.

5 Make Flies From Hide Fur
Prepackaged fur dubbing for tying flies is marvelously handy but limited. It's usually chopped and blended rabbit or squirrel hair. In contrast, fur on the hide, which has been used for centuries, opens up a wealth of choices, particularly for newer fly-tiers who may only know the processed stuff in sealed plastic bags. Muskrat and otter are terrific dubbings; mole fur is superb. Badger, lynx, coyote, beaver, bobcat, opossum, raccoon, and nutria are excellent as well, and all of these hairs are still obtainable. Fur on the hide is pleasing to work with, offers a range of subtle natural colors, and allows the option of including or omitting the guard hairs in the mixed dubbing to control the texture of the finished fly body.

6 Mind Your Streamside Manners
New fly anglers are born every day. New trout streams are not. That means more crowded waters. But it doesn't mean that old-fashioned stream etiquette must go the way of oiled-silk fly lines and gut leaders. On the contrary—good manners are more crucial than ever. The prime, and most frequently violated, directive: Give an angler on the water some space. Determine which direction he's working, then put in well behind him and maintain your distance. If you think you may be crowding your fellow fisherman, you probably are. At the very least, politely ask whether he minds sharing a spot. Never poach another fisherman's water by putting in ahead of him, regardless of whether he's working upstream or down. In crossing paths when fishing, the angler moving downstream yields to the one working up, exiting the water and walking farther below him. Conversely, if you've already found a promising pool, fish it well, but don't homestead it. Keep moving and give others a chance. If the hatch is on, and you've found rising fish, you need far less room than when you're prospecting. Nothing breeds goodwill like offering someone else a piece of your hotspot. The governing principle in all of this is simple: Respect other people's enjoyment.

7 Fish Wet Flies
To most anglers in the last 50 years, flyfishing has automatically meant dry-fly fishing. Reliable floating lines have made it the method of choice. But the old style of wet-fly fishing will often catch trout when floating patterns fail. It's also a simple technique. Cast a wet fly across stream or quartering down. Follow the fly with the rod tip as it swings on a tight line in an arc across the current and comes to rest directly downstream. Mend the line or use the rod tip to swim the fly in front of boulders, into seams, and beneath overhanging brush.

When you're fishing a tight line like this, pinch the fly line against the rod with your index finger, leaving a foot-long loop of slack hanging between your finger and the reel. The loop, pulled taut when a fish hits hard, gives a kind of cushion and more reliable hookups.

Fish two, or even three, flies this way, each on a 12-inch dropper tied to the bend of the hook above it.

8 Learn the Water Haul
With the emphasis these days on big water, and big casts, this sneaky presentation has almost been forgotten. But when you're hemmed in by low-hanging brush, the water haul delivers. Let the current carry the line directly downstream of you. Hold the rod 45 degrees downstream, then sweep it upstream with a short arm motion and a flick of the wrist. Keep the rod tip low, moving parallel to the water, and you can shoot a cast that never rises more than a few inches above the surface, snaking a fly deep under tree limbs and bushes. And because you can remain stock-still and perform this cast with the rod low and a minimum of motion, it's a smart choice for fishing spooky trout that are holding close to you.

9 Use Your Feet
Today's anglers cast longer lines and fish at greater ranges, in many cases simply because modern tackle makes it easily attainable. But unless the situation calls for it, reaching way out there is actually one of the worst ways of catching trout. Accuracy suffers, drag problems increase, and hooking percentage drops. Great anglers of the past, such as Ray Bergman, understood that being a good fisherman and being a strong caster aren't the same thing. Smart positioning and stealth will outfish a whole lot of fly line. It's a little like defense in basketball; the best players rely more on their feet than on their arms. Study the currents and subdivide the water into individual fishable sections. Then walk or wade to the one optimum spot for working each section of water—a position that allows you to throw a fairly short, straight, precise cast. This is not always possible, of course. I'd say only about 98 percent of the time.

10 Roll Cast
Most fly anglers learn the roll cast first—then quickly brush it aside as merely a step on the way to "real" casting, an attitude encouraged by the stiff, fast rods now in fashion and the overwhelming use of weight-forward fly lines, neither of which roll cast particularly well. But when your back's against the wall (or the brush), with no room for a conventional overhead delivery, a roll cast keeps you fishing. With a moderate-action rod and double-taper line, it gives surprising range, and it's perfect for wet-fly fishing, where false casting can dry the fly and inhibit sinking. The cast is achieved in a single, efficient motion that keeps your fly on the water instead of logging frequent-flyer miles in repeated, unnecessary false casts.

How and Why to Fish for Headwater Trout in the Spring

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

One of trout fishing's Ironies is that just when the spring angling urge is hitting, your favorite rivers are high, muddy, and unfishable. Your options? You could wait for better days, but why not fish the headwaters and tributaries? The opportunities, you'll soon discover, abound.

1 POCKET WATER Stretches above or below a pool frequently hold trout because of the proximity of safer deep water. Concentrate on current tongues and slower water behind rocks. Work pocket water with short, controlled casts.

2 POOL This provides one of your best bets for finding bigger fish or a hatch. Keeping a low profile, approach the tail from downstream. If the water there is shallow or lacks bottom cover, skip it unless you see rising fish. Fish deep through the belly of the pool, concentrating on the slowest current. If shallow water spills into the pool head and drops off sharply, work the deep lip.

3 STAIRSTEPS Bedrock or stone shelves can create rocky steps, each backing up a pool a few feet to a few yards long. Fish anything that looks deep enough. Stairstep pools are usually small, and six or eight good casts will tell the tale.

4 CLIFF EDDIES When current angles into a cliff, it often produces eddies on the edges of the rock face. These can be difficult to fish, and they won't hold many trout—just good ones. Get as close as you can, and let your nymph or bait drift in the eddy.

5 PLUNGE POOL These pools are fed by cascades of water that may drop anywhere from 2 to 10 feet. Cast into the turbulence to get deep, but keep in mind that the trout will be holding in the slower flows on the edges or downstream. These can be highly productive if you can find a position to fish without drag.

6 SHALLOW RIFFLES AND POCKETS If these are shin-deep, then you're going to be getting small fish. As you move upstream, look for glassy slicks on the surface or patches of dark water that may indicate scoops or depressions in the bottom.

7 BEAVER DAM Approach from downstream, keeping a low silhouette, as the deepest and sometimes best water is directly above the dam. Scan for rises; midges may be hatching, and mayflies may be drifting down from above. The area above an older dam may be too shallow to fish, G but if there's any depth, fish it thoroughly.

8 BLOWDOWN Brush or timber in the water will eat your tackle, but it offers prime cover and usually holds bigger trout. Fish the sheltered water behind the blowdown and the edge of the current.

9 CUTBANKS This is similar to a deep-water bend, but the bank is slightly undercut. Trout hold tight to shore, especially in higher flows. This water fishes fairly easily with almost any technique.

10 BEND A classic feature of lower-gradient water, this is a top spot for larger trout. Fish it from below, first casting to the slower water on the inside of the bend, then working to the outside bank.

Fly of the Month: The Partridge and Orange

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:15:00 -0500

MATERIALS
Hook: Wet fly, 1XL shank, size 10Â¿Â¿Â¿16 Thread/Abdomen: Hot Orange Pearsall's Gossamer silk thread Thorax: Hare's ear dubbing Hackle: Grouse hackle

DIRECTIONS
Step 1 Attach thread behind the hook eye and make three wraps toward the bend. Peel the fuzz from the base of a grouse hackle and strip off the fibers on its right half (as you look at its convex side). Use the correct hackle size. The lowermost fibers should be as long as the hook.

Step 2 Mount the hackle atop the shank, with the concave side up and the tip over the eye. Clip the stem, and continue wrapping the thread in close, touching turns to a point on the shank just above the barb. Reverse direction and wrap back, stopping a third of a shank-length behind the eye.

Step 3 Dub a ball-like thorax halfway to the hook eye. Position the thread in front of the dubbing.

Step 4 Take two wraps of the hackle toward the bend. Then capture the hackle tip with one wrap of thread.

Step 5 Wrap the thread forward once through the hackle. Secure it with three half hitches, clip off the hackle tip, and dab tying cement to the head.

Reaching for Success

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:05:00 -0400

One of the most useful presentations in the fly angler's repertoire is the reach cast. The two variations below deliver the line across the stream at an angle; the portion in the fastest current is placed farthest upstream, buying it some additional "free-float" time and delaying drag on the fly.

The upstream reach The target is in a slow flow across from you, beyond a band of faster current. Make a conventional overhead cast. On the forward stroke, as your rod reaches the 11 o'clock position, shift the direction of motion 90 degrees, swinging the tip upstream through a big quarter-circle. As you do so, reach the rod as far upriver as you can, ending with it held parallel to the water. The line now forms an angle, from the rod tip upstream and then across and down to the target.

The downstream reach To cast across a slower current to reach a faster one, simply swing the rod in the opposite direction and reach downstream. -Ted Leeson

Tips
1.) Work out enough line to extend beyond the target. The angle of this cast effectively shortens its range, and overshooting the mark compensates.
2.)End your forward delivery with a high rod tip for maximum upstream reach.
3.) As your rod reaches the 11 o'clock position, swing the tip in a quarter-circle upstream.

Reaching for Success

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:05:00 -0400

The downstream reach To cast across a slower current to reach a faster one, simply swing the rod in the opposite direction and reach downstream. -Ted Leeson

Tip: Use Steam to Revive Beat Up Flies

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Restoring mashed flies to their original operating condition is as simple as boiling water. Just put a teakettle on, and crank up the heat to produce a healthy jet of steam. Grip a fly at the hook bend in a pair of pliers and hold it in the vapor stream, rotating slowly so that the mist penetrates wings, tails, and hackles. Heat and moisture will relax the kinks, massage out the crimps, and return the fly into fishable shape. When it looks refreshed, shake off excess moisture and lay it on a paper towel to dry. —TED LEESON

The Proper Way to Fish a Pool

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Pools on a trout stream are a lot like whitetail bucks—they vary some in size, conformation, and peculiarities, but all share the same basic anatomy. Understanding that structure is the key to finding and taking fish. Consider a pool as the "tenderloin" of a trout stream: Charging in without a plan is the surest way to butcher it badly. Instead, carve the water into separate, fishable portions.

Fishing Strategy: To cover as much likely water with as little disturbance as possible, work systematically from the tail to the head and from near water to far. When no fish are rising, here's your plan.

Keep low and stay above the fast water that can snatch your line and drag the fly. Use a dry-and-dropper combination to work the tailout fish. Begin at the near bank and fan casts across to the far side.
Stay just behind the lower lip. Cast quartering upstream, gradually lengthening your casts, working across the lip. Pay special attention to the deadfall.
Comb the band of current from the soft water in front of you to the inside edge of the seam. Don't cast into the current tongue from here; you'll get instant drag on the fly.
Fish the flat all the way out to the seam. Then work to the upper lip, still keeping your fly on the inside edge of the seam. Finally, search each finger of current spilling through the riffle.
Walk the bank to the tail, and wade quietly into position. Stay in the slower water, ideally about one rod's length away from the seam, which will help you minimize drag. Work across the gut from seam to seam.
As you wade to this position, begin covering the far bank by quartering downstream and shaking slack into your cast. It's easier to control drag this way than by casting upstream from lower in the pool. Place your fly as close to the bank as possible.
Continue wading toward the upper lip, working the tongue with quartering-upstream casts, and the far bank with quartering-downstream casts. Finish by searching the outside edge of the rock shoal, the lip, and across the tongue to the edge of the eddy.

Walk back to the tail. Replace the dry-and-dropper with a tandem-nymph rig. Fish positions 5 through 7 just as you did before.
Cross the stream, staying well behind the eddy fish. Use a dry-and-dropper again, concentrating on the bank side of the eddy.

POOL ANATOMY

1 TAIL: The most commonly overlooked and undervalued section. It holds nice, but spooky, trout when light is low—in the early morning, in the evening, and on overcast days, primarily late spring through fall.

2 LOWER LIP: The downstream edge of the deep part of the pool. The bottom rises abruptly at this lip, and trout lie just ahead of it.

3 BANK WATER: From the outside seam to the water's edge. Good from late spring through fall, this strip along the bank hits its peak from midsummer on, when overhanging vegetation offers shade and an abundance of terrestrial insects.

4 SEAMS: Where the tongue current meets slower water on either side. Often marked by a foam or bubble line, it's a prime feeding area all day long. Large trout do hang in the seams, but look here mostly to rack up numbers.

5 GUT: The sweet spot. Trout stack up in this deepest part of the pool from late fall to spring, making it the top choice for winter fishing. During summer, you'll find fewer trout here but generally the largest.

6 TONGUE: The main flow of current through the pool. It creates the seams and transports food.

7 EDDY: Formed where current breaks around a point of land. Bigger is better, but even an eddy the size of a turkey platter can hold fish. These are most reliable after early summer.

8 THROAT: The narrow section of water that runs into the pool. Unless there's visible cover on the bottom—boulders or shelves—don't waste time here. Swift current over a smooth streambed won't hold fish.

9 RIFFLE: Produced by a shoal at the inside of the throat. Any current here more than a foot deep can hold big surprises. Broken, well-oxygenated water draws fish in hot weather. The riffle and flats below are a good high-water bet.

10 UPPER LIP: The upstream edge of the deep part of the pool. The current tongue slows as it drops over the upper lip into deep water; trout tuck up behind this shelf to feed.