Earlier we talked about how to fool the trico feeders by getting to the streams early and staying late. Now let’s cover some fine tuning tactics to use during the peak of the hatch. A very important tactic when fishing tricos at the peak of the hatch is getting a drag free drift. This is more complicated than it might sound because a large trout that has taken over a hundred tricos already that morning expects his naturals to drift to him “just so.” Anything else is refused. For example, one morning I had been fishing to one exceptionally large brown trout for a half an hour that refused every fly I showed him. In frustration, I crawled up and sat down beside Vince Marinaro who had been sitting in the shade of an old apple tree watching my efforts. We discussed how tough this fish was, and as I sat there I realized that my arm resting across my knee positioned my wristwatch straight in line with my feeding trout…In 60 seconds he took 67 natural tricos. Finally Vince said, “Go back down there but select a different casting position. You might have had a very slight drag which was imperceptible to us but not to him.” I did as Vince suggested and caught the big brown trout on the first drift. Since that day I’ve often used this ploy with great success.
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