Andrew Fowler looks at how the little things can make a big difference to your fishing.
Since reading Malcolm Gladwell’s thought provoking work some years ago I have found myself appreciating its application in so many spheres. I have perhaps over-stated the concept in conversation, or applied it in situations where the idea hangs on by a thread more slender than your 7X tippet, but hear me out with this application to the art of fly-fishing.
For those of you not familiar with the book “the Tipping Point”, let me first recommend that you read it, and secondly let me attempt to enlighten you in as erudite a fashion as I know how.
“The concept is that a few critical and seemingly minor differences in circumstance or approach, when encountered or applied together, can make an enormous difference to the outcome, without it ever being immediately obvious why the outcome was that way.”
So let us look at that all too common fly-fishing scenario, where one angler catches fish, while his colleague does not.
Before I fall into the trap of oversimplifying the reasons for the above outcomes, let me start out by saying that I accept the notion of the fall of the dice. Chance. Fisherman’s luck. I have also been careful not to explore why you might catch on one day, and not on the next, or on one water and not on another. Those pairings give rise to a vast array of possibilities, beyond the scope of this simple essay. Let me also say that all too often I have been the one fishless at day’s end, notwithstanding my observations below.
So let’s return to the two fly-fishermen with such varying fortunes by day’s end.
I witnessed this some time back, when two good friends of mine returned from a day on the river. These two did not know each other well at the time, but I was unable to join them, so I facilitated that the two of them should fish together. At the end of the day they dropped in to see me and I enquired as to their success.
My one pal humbly offered the ‘fish landed’ statistics, in as under-stated a way as he knew how. (HP we will call him, for Humble Pal). His colleague standing beside him shot off a “fisherman’s luck” comment of some sort. It was dark at the time, and my family had spilled out onto the driveway under the stars to greet my friends on their return, so I can’t be sure of this, but standing there under the stars, I think I then saw something. I think I saw the former, give a single shake of his head indicating something to the contrary. Maybe I imagined it. Mr “ Luck Guy” (let’s call him LG for short) didn’t see the subtle shake of the head. I can understand why he didn’t see it. He was not looking for it, and he glanced away at the instant it took place. The fact that he didn’t see it, and that HP timed his subtle gesture to me so perfectly, is poetically indicative of the issues I set out below.
LG you see, had caught 3 fish. HP had lost count, but said something in the order of thirty. Knowing him as I do, it was more like forty.
Why the difference?
I can hear you asking: Was one a rank beginner, and the other an expert? Do they fish in a noticeably different way? Did one have tackle more suitable to the conditions that day?
None of the above Sir. Nothing so obvious. I have fished with both. They have both fished for enough years for it not to make a difference. The tackle is similar. And if you sat on the hill above the river observing the two leapfrogging pools below you, you would not see anything to give it away.
You would have to descend from the hill, and you would have to watch and look out for the following:
HP stands well back from the river, tackles up decisively, and quite quickly, and does so with one eye on the tackle, and the other on the water.
LG approaches the water first, and wades in. Then he takes his time to get out some tippet, inspect it, measure it, tie it on, etc, all the while engrossed in the task to the exclusion of all else going on around him.
As you set up your tackle you move. Your hands move. Your rod moves. Every movement is a potential alert to the fish, every new angle presented by your tackle to the sun, is a new angle with potential flashes of sunlight. Do the fiddling and the moving of arms to retrieve tackle from pockets, before you enter a zone where the fish might see you.
HP allows his eyes to rove quickly and intensely over the water, searching through the surface film.
He does this without moving his head. LG looks around at the water surface. You can see him looking around. His head swings this way and that.
Imagine piercing eyes. Concentrate on looking through the surface film, not at it. And again, minimise your movement, even just head movement, when “in the zone”.
HP steps in beside a bush, or against a shadowy backdrop. He uses any cover there is, even if it is just a blade of grass. He doesn’t exactly leopard crawl in, but he uses whatever cover there might be, and he kind of….. ‘slides in there’. And by using that cover, I mean he often stands beside a bush or rock, instead of away from it. LG walks forward to the ideal casting position. Make no mistake, he does so with what appears to be stealth and care. He moves slowly, he considers where he will stand, and he approaches with a level of care that should , on the face of it, see him catch fish.
It is remarkably effective to even stand beside a dark or shadowy object. Stand against the steeper of two riverbanks, take a step down into deeper water to bring your profile below the skyline.
Search out the longest clump of grass. It may only obscure the flash of your belt buckle, but that alone could spook a fish. Move in as smooth and flowing a manner as possible.
If LG doesn’t see a fish, he plies his Fly across the run or pool in successive careful casts, from left to right, or close to far, in a logical sequence of deliveries that see the water covered from end to end. HP may put in a cast in the lower margins near to him, but he then quickly puts in the critical finest shot in the sweetest spot in the pool. In other words HP doesn’t allow a series of casts close to, but not in, the sweet spot, to potentially spook the fish that lies in the sweet spot.
The chances are that the fish in the pool will tolerate just a few false casts over them before they spook. This is true on all but the most cloudy and windy days, or in fast white water. So make every cast matter, and make those casts that matter, first. If the fish are less spooky, you can alter back to a more thorough covering of the water, and you may in fact catch more fish that way. But when fish are spooky, nothing counts quite like the first cast. Some of the thin delicate water we fish in South Africa dictates that on a bright day you will get only one cast per pool or run.
HP shoots accurate casts in low, and almost aggressively over spotted fish.
If you watch him cast, his forward cast is pulling the line taught in his line hand as it peels out over the water, giving him the tension required for a good stopped cast.
LG Floats in high delicate casts that descend slowly onto the surface from way above the finning Trout.
This is possibly an unusual and controversial tip. It is borne out of my personal experience that a high casted fly that floats down gently for some time, definitely spooks fish. The trick is to shoot the fly in low, while still achieving a delicate presentation, as well as dropping enough slack line to aid a drag free drift. Your rod, line, leader and fly, and the balance of weight become important here. Practice is also important. Another spin-off of such narrow loop, “forward thrust” type casting, is that it inherently only gives you the slack that you put into the cast, by way of a stopped/tuck cast. A high gentle feathery cast, puts slack near your fly, true, but it also causes your line to land first, and your leader and fly thereafter, and drag therefore sets in earlier. That high gentle cast also won’t help you in blustery windy conditions. Critically, the high willowy cast means it will be a second or so before you have recovered line and gotten in direct contact with your fly, and this so often means missed takes as the fly lands.
A further note: I fish furled leaders on rivers. They are home-made, and incorporate fine nylons as well as fly-tying silk. The silk absorbs water over time. On a windy day, punchy casts are aided by a slightly waterlogged furled leader. This still floats, but it is heavier. A fresh dry leader may give you that willowy cast that we are trying to avoid.
When HP spooks a Trout (and he spooks as many as we all do), he curses, reels in, and moves on. LG carries on fishing.
When a pool or run is disturbed, it is over. Don’t even bother. Just move on. If it was a particularly good pool, come back to it later.
LG moves very slowly up the river, but his time is spent casting, not watching. HP probably moves a bit too quickly a lot of the time, but he doesn’t hang around in a spot that has already seen half a dozen casts. Very occasionally he will do that, when he has spotted a honey hole that he just can’t let go of, but in the normal course he moves along.
There are many excellent fishermen who will advocate slowing down. Strange as it may seem, I am not contradicting them here. If slowing down means spending more watching and stalking time, and no more casting, then you will indeed do better. But don’t take time to move up the river on account of you covering each likely spot with a hundred casts. Many of us lack the patience to hang around at one pool without actually DOING something. If this is you, no fear…just move along more…don’t fish more.
HP Flings the Fly in with the absolute minimum of false casts. LG has reduced the number of false casts in recent years, but if you actually count, he still outdoes HP three to one.
I can’t stress this enough. As a general rule, your chances diminish with each successive false cast.
So contemplate for a moment that if the fish will be spooked after say five false casts: you can divide that up into 5 presentations, each with a single loop over the water, or have just one presentation in which you use 5 false casts, to get your distance and aim perfect. I am advocating the former. Sometimes you will need a second, or at VERY most a third loop over the water, but get yourself seriously focused on reducing this, and watch your catch rate improve.
LG needs to watch his line hand and retrieved line, to see where things are at. HP never looks down there. His eyes stay forward. The difference is that LG sometimes has slack gathering on the water near the rod tip, and HP does not. In fact LG’s rod tip is probably on average 10 to 15 inches higher off the water surface in front of him at any given moment, than HP’s.
Eyes on the water, and nowhere else. You will be astounded how much you miss when you even glance down. Glancing down causes motor accidents and missed fish.
And that low rod tip thing: it’s about being ready to set the hook. Fish beside a novice, or someone with more exposure to stillwaters than running water, and watch him miss takes for this reason. Typically it happens as the fly hits the water, and a lightning fast Rainbow grabs it, and spits it out again before you can say “LG”!
HP notices things, because his eyes are on the water. He understands the value of that. He used to be in the habit of watching his back-cast. At the time, that impressed me because he hung up less than I did, but he berated himself, and managed to ditch the habit, so as not to take his eye off the water. He has always understood the importance of that. LG doesn’t watch his back-cast. He never has. His eyes are on the water a lot of the time, but LG misses stuff.
I am at risk of repeating this tip, but the point here goes deeper. LG does look at the water a lot. But he just looks at it, and not ALL the time. One’s eyes need to be looking at it, and through it, and hunting for something at all times.
LG casts into a tight spot with the utmost care. Care that is, not to lose his fly. HP throws caution to the wind, and gets it in as tight as he can. When he doesn’t screw it up, it is pure poetry to watch him get a fly under an overhanging branch. When he screws up it’s a real mess, but somehow his ego isn’t attached to that at all. He screws it up a fair bit, but he keeps pushing the envelope so to speak, and I think he is getting better, the more he tries his hand. When HP does screw up, again, he curses and moves on. LG curses too, retrieves the fly, and carries on fishing the same run.
Getting adept at pushing a fly in under branches and overhanging grass is a winner. The only way to get better, in my humble opinion, is to be reckless about it. Try the impossible. And if a buddy is watching when the fly scoots into a space the size of a CD….well I hope he is someone who will congratulate you!
LG and HP are both the nicest guys you could ever meet. They are great buddies. Neither of them has a competitive bone in their bodies. I like to think that I don’t either. But one catches more fish than the other. They both have access to the same waters. They both see the same magazines. They probably fish an equal number of times each year. I enjoy the company of them both equally. They both have similar flies in their fly boxes. I don’t think either one of them fishes bigger or smaller flies than the other, or weights them more, or less. They are both intelligent and successful blokes.
But one catches more fish than the other.
Go figure!
Fisherman’s luck!
Andrew writes a great blog that you can take a look at HERE
