Reading A Trout Stream

Accurately reading a trout stream is the basic skill required in mastering all trout streams. Here are four steps which help me.

1. Stay well back and study each pool before you approach it. You are looking for the feeding stations which will enable the trout to capture the maximum amount of food while expending the least amount of energy. This could be an undercut bank, a log jam, and obstruction that slows the current below a riffle or the shaded cut beside an aquatic grass bed.

2. Determine where you need to present your fly. This required evaluating the currents around your suspected feeding station. This will be different if you are running your nymph deeply or drifting a dry fly.

3. Select the best approach which will enable you to get to an ideal location for making your presentation. Check the angle of the sun, decide if a hands and knee approach would be valuable and most of all, the best angle to use to approach your presentation location without scaring the trout.

4. Make a final evaluation of the current in order to determine the best cast to use on your presentation. This could be a straight line cast, however, if there are swirling currents around your trouts suspected feeding station you may need a slack line presentation in order to get a natural fly presentation. Good casts for this are the “Lazy S” cast where the rod is waved from side to side as the line rolls out, a “bounce cast” where the rod is stopped about 45 degrees above the feeding station, a “bounce cast” which is an over powered forward cast or a simple curve cast.

These skills become refined the more one fishes and it is the foundation for the often held belief that 10% of the fishermen catch 90% of the fish.