Side Strike

There are times when you can catch many large trout in large streams by fishing dry flies down and across stream. However, the normal strike of lifting the rod straight up simply pulls the fly out of the mouth of many of these trout. A trick I use is to set the hook by swinging the rod low to my side of the trout. This low side sweeping rod motion along with the current pulling to the side on the leader pulls the fly into the trout’s jaw where he is hooked solidly. This is especially effective when you get strikes from large deliberate browns and cutthroats.