[Mike Barrio]

Don't know if any of you have ever been on "Sales Courses"? .......... If you have, I'm sure you will have been told that 20% of your customers will produce 80% of your sales

Believe it or not, I would suggest that the 20/80 rule can also apply on a stillwater fishery .......... as I think that about 20% of my customers catch about 80% of the fish recorded in the catch returns

I've been watching this for years now and can't help thinking that there must be a way of making things more even .......... say 40/60

Would you like to try to come up with some basic tips?

Best wishes
Mike

PS: I would also suggest that the same 20/80 thing pretty much applies to all species of fish on our rivers and wild lochs too.

[Jim Eddie]

Mike

If I knew the answer , I would write a book and retire 


Its called the Pareto principle by the way.

 

Jim

[Mike Barrio]

Its called the Pareto principle by the way.
 

Jim

Thanks Jim, I was trying to remember that and failed miserably

It would be nice if this thread could be a sort of "small stillwater tips" idea

One I could put some thought in to perhaps

Best wishes
Mike

[Mike Barrio]

................... or there again, maybe I should write the book?

Mike

[Jim Eddie]

Ok here's my starter for 10

Sit down to fish in a boat , don't stamp your feet , don’t wear a bright orange jacket, to quote Walton "study to be quiet" 

Find the fish, depth , location , look for inlets outlets , structure , weed-beds etc

Persistence , keep at it, you wont catch if your fly is not in the water.

Change , don't persevere with a method that is not working

Give them what they want , match the hatch , if they want lures pulled fast or slow or drifted buzzers what ever.

Learn from your experience, certain flies and methods are always better at certain times of year. 

Learn from other anglers , what do the ones that catch all the fish do differently.

Read , your local librarary will have books on fly fishing, read the Fly fishing mags (some are better than others)   

 

Jim

[Sandy Nelson]

Persistence , keep at it, you wont catch if your fly is not in the water.

This is the main reason All the guys i know who catch lots of fish, normally fish lots.

I know i can quadruple my catch rate by not drinking so much tea

But i like tea

Sandy

[goosander]

Have been thinking about people i know who always seem to catch fish. They do not appear to do any thing diffrent from the rest of us and yet they seen to miss nothing that is going on round them. Over the years i have come to the conclusion that they have something in there genes strange as that may sound, same as a good opera singer or others who are at the top of there profesion. What do others think?

[Rob Brownfield]

This sort of stuff is talked about a lot on the Carp forums. One thing seems to be very common though..and thats the huge difference between the instant angler who walks into the local shop, kits himself out and turns up on the water expecting to catch...and the angler who started off catching sticklebacks with a bandy net, watching the frogs and newts in the margins, understanding the activities of the water birds, starting off catching tiddlers, then hooking a bigger fish and deciding that thats what they want to catch and so they start to strive for bigger fish, different fish, fish from other waters, fish from rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, reservoirs etc.

There is no substitute for experience..simple as that, and fishing the same water day in day is not the way to gain that experience..folk have to challenege themselves if they want to be a good all round angler. Fish different methods, fish different waters, fish wild waters, fish stocked waters etc etc.

There is often a suggestion that some anglers have a sixth sense..well i firmly believe that. Far to many times I have caught fish almost "on a whim"..I get a feeling thats something is about to happen, I get an almost extra alertness that comes over me and I just know I will catch in the next minute or so.

Anyone else get that feeling??

[Iain Goolager]

I think there are a few angles on this thread;

Firstly everyone with the right tuition, mentoring, perseverance & exposure can develop their abilities and become regular 'catchers' & competent anglers- The guidelines in Jedi's post, for example, are a good example of how to achieve this. However there are anglers that have this (I'm not going to say X Factor) inexplicable sixth sense (as stated by Rob) and I don't think that it is something that can be passed on.

There seems to be a trend (on stillwaters) in a growing quantity of anglers regularly reporting huge catches, say 12 to 30 fish per session, and although this obviously has a bearing on 'the percentages' I don't think it tells the whole story.

Spiderman touched, maybe lightheartedly, on the fact that to increase his catches he should stop drinking so much tea. I know that when I'm having a purple patch I will regularly go for a brew, see how friends are getting on, sit and take in the surroundings, change tactics, move locations,etc. etc.
I class myself in the 6 to 10 fish (typically) catagory as I'm not too interested in numbers & perhaps gauge my own enjoyment and goals differently from others. One of the reasons for not fishing competitions nowadays. I'm sure I'm not alone in this and this can possibly also affect collation of returns.

Every time I go fishing I KNOW that I will catch fish & this is not cockyness just supreme confidence in my tactics and experience. The day that my hands don't shake as I tie on my fly or that I don't expect to catch within the first dozen or so casts is the day I give it up & I've loved it for 35 years.

To summarise - Do I think I have the Sixth Sense - I once thought I might but when I assess, for example, my Salmon fishing ability I realise that I'm not a natural fisherman just the result of confidence through years of experience.

Tight Lines

Iain

[Sandy Nelson]

Very nice Iain

Sandy

[goosander]

There is definatly something, instinct possibly? One is throwing ones fly across the water mind elsewere. The casting geting quite ropey when one finds one straightens one back and the line goes out well. You feel the gental touch and swing the rod downstream while the reel starts clicking. When you lift the rod there she is hooked in the sissors.
 Have seen me sitting on the bank watching a guest fish, the water having that leaden look and knowing that nothing is going to come. The light changes and you lift your rod , move like the heron into the water and start putting out a line and before the whole line is out there is a fish on the end.
The same member in our syndicate year in year out catches over half the total catch whatever the conditions and yet he only fishes Saturdays and the odd Wednesday. Watching him he appears to do nothing diffrent from the rest. Why?

[Jim Eddie]

Falkus , wrote a bit about this in one of his books if I recall correctly , I'm sure Bruce Sandison touched on it as well.

Apart from doing all the right things, there is sometimes no logical explanation why one angler catches more than another. I read a theory once that suggested that some people have retained more of the instincs from our hunter gatherers roots. 

 

Jim

[Gus]

Hi Folks,

As a relative newcomer to flyfishing, I thought you might like a viewpoint from one of the 80% who don't catch the majority of Mike's fish! As he is looking to improve the fishing experience of his clients, hopefully passing on my observations will be helpful...

Last week whilst fishing Midmar, there were about 5 or six guys rotating around the ponds, almost everyone was having a quiet time of it with only one or two fish having been caught. I say 'almost' as there was one angler who was well into double figures   Naturally I went up for a closer look and ended up fishing opposite him. He seemed to being doing nothing obviously different to me - keeping low, both casting to a similar spot, a very slow retreive and using similar flies, except that he caught two fish and I didn't. So what was different? Certainly he had a longer leader and lighter set up than me, but he also seemed to be able to spot when to strike - maybe I need stronger glasses. I suspect he also new exactly what depth to set up his cast for and had a lot of feeling for those gentle takes which I never seem to spot  

So a combination of factors - tackle and tackle set up, experience and a sixth sense on when a fish is nibbling your fly seem to be the difference between the 80% anglers and the 20%. More knowledge than can be passed on in the usual fishing log entry e.g. '14 fish to 12lbs, cats whisker'  

[Mike Barrio]

Hi Gus
Welcome to the forum

Yes, I would very much agree with your comments.

You have hit on the main point of the original post. Trying to help somebody catch a few more fish is not as easy as you would think and simply offering advice like "try a Diawl Bach" doesn't always help much

That's why I thought a kind of "small stillwater tips" type thread might prove useful? Especially tips from local anglers ....... As long as nobody expects it to produce instant success of course

Best wishes
Mike

[Sandy Nelson]

Mr Livingstone and I discussed this on friday

Its not a sixth sense, its observation, once you learn what you are looking for you can spot takes
Prioblem how do you teach it without phisically being next the person and pointing it out.

I reckon this is the only way to do it, it certainly worked with daniel

Sandy

[Sandy Nelson]

I've tried to quantify what i would tell the bairn in an effort to word what i was refferring to before.

Observation being the key, it is learning which twitch of the line to respond too, and how.
Tightenening the line instead of striking with the rod will allow you to continue your retrieve if you miss or if it was a false alarm. Lightweight flylines help, the reduced drag of a 3 or 4 wt line on the surface allows the lines to present less resistance to the fish and be moved more easily, indicating a take more readily. This helps with spotting more takes in the first place.
For a start small indicators help if you install them on the leader and not the flyline, small dryflies or foam pads help you spot the movements that covert to fish. Once you become accustomed to the indication you can remove the indicator and use the flyline as your source for movement.Greasing the first foot or so of leader at the end of the flyline can also be used (the great Frank Sawyer did this).
Figure of eight retrieves help you to stay in contact with the flies and this helps to convert hook ups.
Sinking lines are different, normally it is done by feel, but again the striking thing with nips and plucks, a tightening of the line will be more useful and allow missed takes to perhaps become additional follows as the fly has kept in a fairly constant motion.
Varying the speed of retrieve will allow you to try different depths, once you find the fish you will catch, the time spent experimenting at the start of the day will pay off later on.

The other thing to remember is stillwater fish move around so watching a feeding fish you can establish a pattern and then intercept it. casting at a riseform is pointless as the fish is already gone, casting ahead or behind the sworl gives a 50\50 chance of hitting the fish's path. The type of sworl indicates how fast the fish is travelling and how deep it is swimming, time spent watching fish in clear water will help you learn these things. then you can predict roughly where the fish is going to be when you cast.
The advantage on stillwater is a duff cast is soon forgotten as the fish has moved anyway, much less likely to spook than on the river, where the fish hold station to feed and are easily spooked by inaccurate casting.

hope this helps, i dont think i've ever typed so fast

Sandy

[Irvine Ross]

I'm with Sandy  on this.

I think experienced angler can spot the slight twitch which tells you a fish has sucked in the fly and can distinguish between that and the motion caused by wind and water. Its a bit like an experienced driver on a patch of ice. By the time your realise your car is skidding your hands have already applied the correction. You react first and think later.

The experienced angler reacts instinctively first, then becomes fully aware, and realises he has in fact got a fish on. It feels like a sixth sense because you were not consciously aware of the signal that made you lift the rod. Half your mind was elsewhere at the time. Of course you can only learn the signals as a beginner by concentrating and some people never do. They just catch the fish that hook themselves.

Irvine

[Sandy Nelson]

The sworl thing a small general rule to start from

The more gentle the sworl the higher in the water the fish is swimming

Sandy

[Colin Davidson]

hello all,

had this very discussion in the hut last wednesday, the really windy day. i'd given up with buzzers as i couldnt control the floating line and it wasnt deep enough for the intermediate. tried it, lost some flies. however one chap was managing the floater. 2 buzzers on the cast. i asked for some tips and he said "dont know mate, this only my 4th time out. i got the kit for xmas." he'd had 4 trout  int the first two hours and i'd had zilch. i had to change to heavier buzzers, longer leader and casting into the wind to get any control and start spotting takes. this is just one example of people catching and others not for no apparent reason.

i believe in the sixth sense idea as i have several times watched the line coming round and thought this is the cast that'll catch and its worked. i also agree with the sub-concious idea that the arm reacts before the brain engages because if this wasnt the case i'd be slightly worse than i am, with a dry fly!!

there is no way to teach this, as i've picked the brains of the local instructors and also the better englers on my local waters. they all agree that there is no reason for them to outperform other anglers. however... they all, if listened to closely, have made observations of a fishery they know well or of conditions on the day, that i wouldnt even of been looking for.

so there's my input here. i think keeping quiet and a low profile and your eyes open  even whilst stopping for a cuppa can make all the difference. also as stated by some of the other lads, change. change flies, depth speed size colour tail length retrieve. mainly depth and speed. keep in touch with your flies and watch eveything around you.

sorry there is no definite answer here but if there was one i'd gladly put it here.

i like the idea of this thread and i really hope it helps some other folk as well as me! 


Colin