Fly Odyssey’s Gilly Bate provides some insight for anglers hitting the chalkstreams later in the season ……..
The majority of beats have seen a steady stream of fishermen by now and the fish are on high alert for anything even remotely suspicious. With the fattening period of the mayfly and the banquet provided during weed cutting, feeding patterns can become highly selective and you need to make a plan before you start fishing.
It’s incremental with each tiny element boosting all the others, added together they can make all the difference between success and failure.
The most obvious and extraordinarily the one most often ignored would be wearing sombre coloured, drab looking clothing and keeping a low profile. Simple but vital.
Moving as quietly and as slowly as you can will help you to spot hidden fish and tell tale signs of feeding lanes.
Fish are not only scanning their watery horizon for our presence but they are also super alert to the tiniest vibrations and a lighter rod and line set up can make a big difference. Try dropping down to a 4 weight or even better a 3 weight. If you are worried about distance with the lighter line, try a 10 ft rod. The longer rod also makes it easier for mending and moving line around to deal with the current. Drag is a killer and an instant notification to the trout that something is wrong. Practise aerial mends and reach casts to allow extra seconds for the fly to move with the current and not at speed. If you can add a little bit of slack into the casts this can also help to reduce micro drag on the fly making it appear more natural. Check out youtube videos of casting and practise before you turn up at the river.
Always allow the fly to drift way past the fish before you attempt to re cast and peel the line off slowly without any rip or pop. Minimise false casting and try to get into the habit of one cast to the fish. A fly line flashing overhead is an instant give away.
Try using 12ft leaders instead of the standard 9ft. The extra distance keeps the fly line further from the fish and they are less likely to feel the vibration of the line landing on the water. Leaders are also flashy in the sunlight so dull them down by rubbing with a blade of grass. Ensure that you have the correct size of leader to present your fly. A light leader won’t be strong enough to turn over a large fly and a thicker leader can look like a piece of rope attached to a delicate offering.
Too thin a leader
Too thick a leader
Beware of overloading your fly with silicon so that it perches up on top of the water and looks completely unnatural to a feeding fish. It should sit in the top layer like an insect drying it’s wings before take off.
Observe the fly life and try to imitate size and silhouette. If a fish approaches the fly but then turns away, it’s nearly right so try a smaller size or check that the leader isn’t giving the game away. Add some thinner tippet and try again. If fly identification seems impossible with fish taking almost invisible insects, go as small as you can with the simplest of dressings.
There are micro dries available from https://www.theessentialfly.com/micro-dry-flies.html
As a general rule as we progress towards the late stages of the season, the upwings get smaller and the sedges get larger. Upwings need to drift down over the fish with the current, sedges tend to pop down onto the water and then pop off again in a flash so try to present a sedge as close to the fish as possible minimising the time it has to look at the fly and therefore creating an instant reaction. Don’t forget terrestrial patterns at this time of year such as ants, beetles and daddy long legs, even the wasp fly which Robjents in Stockbridge sell can be hugely successful.
Blue damsels are another rarely used fly but occasionally you will find a fish that’s figured out that they are worth that leap into mid air.
Try fishing small black spider patterns with the tiniest slick of silicon on their backs to keep them in the surface, they don’t last for long before they start to drown but another fly rarely used for upstream dry fly but highly effective.
If the beat rules allow nymphing and there are no fish up on the surface then look for fish darting from side to side or burrowing their noses into the weeds and gravel dislodging nymphs, freshwater shrimp and larvae. You have to really concentrate on the fish’s mouth at all times with an eye on the fly as the current brings it over the fish. It is vital that you have good line management taking up the slack fly line as it travels so that a strike will have you straight onto the fish.
With the hot days it can pay to turn up late and fish into the evening so make sure that you have plenty of sedges but also a selection of spent flies for fish to sip down as the sun disappears over the horizon.
Tight Lines, Gilly Bate.
Success!