Big Water Woes

[FollowTheBlueLines]

I got into fly fishing at the beginning of this year, and the concept of bluelining is what really drew me in. The majority of the time I spent fishing this year has been on small/skinny Class A/Wild Repro. streams, and I have gotten addicted to finding new places and exploring what's "around this next bend" type of fishing. While I wouldn't consider myself even decent yet, I surprised myself and found a lot more success than I expected to. Also, starting on these types of streams really forced me to pick up some solid casting techniques.

Fast forward to this past weekend -- the girlfriend and I took a trip up to the Catskills for a long weekend of foliage sighting and fishing. Staying near Roscoe, I tried my hand on the Beaverkill multiple times and to sum it up, I was in over my head... With small streams, the structure is predictable, and there are typically only one or two lanes per cross-section of water. I feel like I can navigate this. On the Beaverkill, I did not even know where to begin.

I tried different tactics, times of day, structure/water types, and came up with a big ol' goose egg 2 days in a row before retreating to my beloved blue lines in the area and plucking some brookies and wild browns/bows. I would like to be able to fish these bigger creeks and rivers, and feel I am missing out on a huge part of this sport. Does anyone have any advice for someone in this predicament?

 

[JimNovo]

Welcome to the Major League of fly fishing. The Catskills humble very experienced fishermen every day.

You had the Beaverkill at low flows and low levels. But you also hit the river at the toughest time of the year in my opinion. Not many hatches that only happen for a few hours each day if they even happen at all. It takes years to even partially understand those rivers. All I can give you for advice is fish it more. You will learn something every time.

 

[Roofin' Trouter]

It was my experience that learning to read water saw the biggest improvements in results on big water. There may be some good videos to help the process.
Advice that worked for me was to make big water smaller . So I started breaking down a 100 ft wide crick as if it 4 - 25 ft wide cricks. Or maybe you would do better with looking at water using a grid system.
Taking the goose egg can be a part of the learning experience but stick with it and results will come.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear FollowBlueLines,

Follow the advice of Roofin' Trouter and start thinking about reducing the expanse of water in front of you into smaller segments.

Visualize where you caught fish in small streams and look for sections that show the same general characteristics. It could be as simple as fishing a pocket ahead or behind an obstruction in the larger stream. It still creates a current break, and fish will still locate themselves accordingly.

One thing that works when prospecting is doing something that you wouldn't ordinarily do on your home streams. You made no mention of the flies you tried on the Beaverkill, but swinging a brace of wets, a size 6 Chernobyl with a bead head nymph trailer, or chucking a large highly visible to you streamer will get fish to show themselves. You may miss them, but you will learn where the fish were and get better at patterning them as you fish larger water.

You also didn't mention the rod and line weight you were fishing with. Keep in mind that if you try my suggestions above, they are better done on a 9ft 4wt and even a 6wt rod is not out of the range. If you tried to fish with a little willow wisp 2 or 3wt that you use blue lining that might be part of the reason you didn't succeed.

Stay at it, one day you'll have that WOW moment and smile!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂