Tony E
5 Jun 2023
Good things take time ... and so does consistently hooking trout.
Treat each sighted trout as the only one you might catch for the day and take the time to adjust your rig to maximize the chances of hooking up. This may mean taking off a weighted nymph to cast a dry fly to a fish in shallow water, or when fish consistently reject your standard offerings try “down-sizing” the fly and tippet to find the successful combination.
When casting to sighted trout, think about the angle of the sun in relation to the fish in the water and reduce the risk of putting it down by casting the line wherever possible to the side that will not project a line-shadow.
Optimize your fishing time by limiting false casts to a maximum of three or four, before getting that fly down into the water. Focus on getting the first cast into the zone as the chances of success tend to decrease significantly with each subsequent presentation, especially with brown trout.
Take the time to adapt the size and colour of strike-indicators when nymph fishing, to suit the prevailing conditions. Use large, easily seen indicators in dull light, high water conditions or with heavily weighted flies but when fish are spooky adjust to very small indicators (even none sometimes). Black indicators work really well in strong glare situations.
Sharp hooks definitely catch more trout. Bumping across the rocky bottom of our rivers dulls the hook-point on weighted nymphs, but even chemically sharpened hooks can be touched up with a small hook hone to make sure they are “sticky-sharp”.
Continuously check your tippet, testing it for wind knots or abrasion and change it frequently between landing fish, so that when “Mr Big” does come along he’ll be in big trouble!
Good things take time and so does consistently hooking trout.
