So are you saying its pointless to cast the fly round the river unless you spot a fish ?
better off standing about having a tea
Not pointless Julius, just not my thing. I'd rather wait and drink tea than cast onto water blind and potentially spook the good fish before i even know where they are.
Over the years i have learned that i prefer to fish with dry-fly and spiders, for them to be more effective i need a feeding target. So its a confidence thing more than anything. Some people have more confidence in fishing wet flies and are happy to swing the flies with the current in the manner of salmon and sea-trout fishers. They catch plenty fish although personally i find i catch a lot of smaller fish doing this and not many decent (12"+) fish. I'm much happier being able to see where my fly is and knowing i am covering a feeding fish, it becomes a personal challenge to present the fly in a way that the fish will take it and thats what gives me the buzz
I know a few of us are very much the same in this, but everyone is different in what makes fly fishing their passion.
I Prefer to catch bigger fish so i spend time watching the river looking for those fish i regard as decent size. It takes time to recognise them from their rise-forms, but once you have seen a few it gets a bit easier, if you tie that knowledge with learning how to read the river and get familiar with the kinds of places that good fish like to live then you have the beginnings of an addictive future chasing big trout. We had a wee post on the main forum a while ago that had some pointers to help get started with this.
http://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=6239.0Another good reason for waiting and watching is that as many large fish will often be close to my bank as there are close to the other side, this makes them much easier to reach and present too, if you start fishing straight away you will never see them as they spook and often swim across river to continue feeding, one of the main reasons a lot of people often believe that all the fish are over the other side. The fish don't know sides they just know a good lie that brings them food.
I had this one last month from a spot that was only 15ft out from my bank, I only had to wait about 10 min before i recognised that it was good fish feeding steadily, i was lucky that day as no-one had fished the pool for at least 2-3 hrs before i saw the fish, so he was rising quite confidently, he was approached on hands and knees and it took 3 cast to get the drift right. It was dryfly (DHE again) sized to match the olives that were hatching.
Spending time watching will also help you figure out what the fish are feeding on, i find once i spot a feeding fish i then try to spot the flies that are drifting towards it, as i spot them i will track them down over the spot and see which ones the fish will rise for. This years observations so far have me believing that the fish only really choose to eat Olives (of all sizes and shades) they will take other flies opportunistically but only seem to actively wait and feed on olives. (this so far only applies to the first 3 months)
Hopefully that helps answer your question. The way i fish is a choice and it represents the way that brings me the most pleasure, however it has taken 30+ years to reach the stage where i have the patience to realise that is the case. I know some of my fishing mates have more patience than i have and consequently have a better catch rate of even bigger fish.
So there is nothing wrong or ineffective about casting around the river, but if you want to catch better fish more regularly then taking the time to wait and watch as well as learning the habitats and food that the fish partake of all combine to improve your chances.
Cheers
Sandy
