Reading Water

[Swattie87]

Just curious, did you move on or wait him out? I have done the same and spooked fish that were worth waiting for. Some never come out, but a lot of them come out after about 30 mins. I take a slow retreat and find a spot to wait and watch. The key, I have found, is to never take your eyes off the water.

I think not fishing tailouts, in anticipation of what appears to be better habitat at the head of the pool, is a very common mistake small stream anglers make. And one that I am notoriously guilty of. It sort of depends on the time of year, but in the Fall especially, in relatively low water and pre-spawn, don’t skip the tailouts.

 

[Broodstock]

I think not fishing tailouts, in anticipation of what appears to be better habitat at the head of the pool, is a very common mistake small stream anglers make. And one that I am notoriously guilty of. It sort of depends on the time of year, but in the Fall especially, in relatively low water and pre-spawn, don’t skip the tailouts.

I never skip the tailouts, unless I am walking into the stream from a path that enters at the heart of a pool (most do) and I do not want to tangle with the jaggerbushes.

I do agree that time of year and time of day come into play, since larger fish tend to not like to sit in the tailouts in the deep of winter, and in the middle of the day in the summer. Dusk/dawn, and spring/fall or when the water turbidity affords them a little bit of protection are prime time for tailout trout.

 

[Tabasco-Joe]

1 and 2 have you best chance at the larger fish.
Especially 2 near that little bit of cover.

Larger trout like the slack water at the tailouts of pools and riffles, especially near cover that they can retreat to when danger approaches. They expend far less calories holding in that water.

So many anglers spook the best fish right at their feet when looking up through the run and often don't know it.

I'm left-handed so this would play well for me.
I would fish #1 first and then #3 from the bank.
Then move into the stream well back and work #2 then #4.

 

[rancid waders]

Do you have polarized glasses, important tool to help quickly dissect a situation. I spend a lot of time looking before I make a cast

 

[Bamboozle]

A tad OT, totally left field and sure to illicit angst and snide "cane pole dapping, not fly fishing" 😉 remarks but...

A place like this (posted by Beweav):

Is a perfect spot where the reach of a long Tenkara rod or a 10'+ tight line rod and a fixed length of line can be a VERY effective way to explore those little pockets.

 

[Mike]

Just curious, did you move on or wait him out? I have done the same and spooked fish that were worth waiting for. Some never come out, but a lot of them come out after about 30 mins. I take a slow retreat and find a spot to wait and watch. The key, I have found, is to never take your eyes off the water.

I never wait fish out figuring there’s more (upstream) where that one came from. I don’t have time to waste fishing for a specific fish when I can catch more cooperative or unspooled fish (if I spooked that one) upstream. I may double back to that spot/fish on my walk back downstream at the end of the trip, but that’s about as much extra effort as I will make. Decades of electrofishing and spin fishing have told me as a fly angler that there are more fish around each bend.

 

[PennKev]

.... there are more fish around each bend.

Amen.

The easiest way to catch a lot of fish is to not fish over spooked or disturbed fish.

 

[troutbert]

I never wait fish out figuring there’s more (upstream) where that one came from. I don’t have time to waste fishing for a specific fish when I can catch more cooperative or unspooled fish (if I spooked that one) upstream. I may double back to that spot/fish on my walk back downstream at the end of the trip, but that’s about as much extra effort as I will make. Decades of electrofishing and spin fishing have told me as a fly angler that there are more fish around each bend.

I like to cover a lot of distance (miles) when fishing freestone wild trout streams like shown in the photos.

But if most people park at the bridge and only fish upstream 200 yards, that's OK with me.

 

[Swattie87]

A tad OT, totally left field and sure to illicit angst and snide "cane pole dapping, not fly fishing" 😉 remarks but...

A place like this (posted by Beweav):

View attachment 1641240113

Is a perfect spot where the reach of a long Tenkara rod or a 10'+ tight line rod and a fixed length of line can be a VERY effective way to explore those little pockets.

Assuming there are Trout there, which it looks like there should be, I’d love to be the owner of that dock.

 

[wildtrout2]

Do you have polarized glasses, important tool to help quickly dissect a situation. I spend a lot of time looking before I make a cast

If you're referring to locating trout when you say "looking", I spend very little time doing that. It's my experience that almost all the wild trout I catch, I never saw until it took my fly. It's a rare day when I see the trout first, sitting where it's visible.

For the most part, any wild trout I might actually see are usually small natives that are holding in a calm pool. And, I don't even see that very often.

 

[ryansheehan]

Thanks everyone for all that great info!
One clarification, what exactly is meant by "slack water"
Here is another picture. Where would you focus on a stream like this? Lots going on here so if you want to just zoom in and focus on the for ground, that'd be fine!
View attachment 1641240108

That would be cheating, I've spent alot of time on that section. In fact I caught a cutthroat there one summer.

 

[ryansheehan]

Assuming there are Trout there, which it looks like there should be, I’d love to be the owner of that dock.

There are trout, but that's an observation deck not a dock.

 

[Swattie87]

There are trout, but that's an observation deck not a dock.

I’d love to be the owner of that observation deck.

 

[Bamboozle]

Another reason I like to fish slowly & methodically is I've spent MANY days fishing small wild freestone streams with two fishing buddies because it was the only logical option. We'd separate widely with each person taking a several mile long beat.

On paper this is not an ideal situation, however if you took your time and didn't madly dash upstream and around every bend looking for the next great looking spot, we'd all catch plenty of fish even if we ended in the back end of another guy's water because the fish calmed down.

In my life I've seen MANY feeding trout ignore or get over some crazy things like cows walking across and about pooping on their heads at Falling Springs, a couple of kids on rafts at Cross Fork, deer blasting across Slate Run, ducklings making a bee line to pick Tricos off the water along with adult ducks & geese beating the water to a froth at more than a few Class A limestoners.

The common denominator in all situations was if I just stood there awhile and puffed on my cigar, before I knew it, the fish were back at it even when it was not something they might see every day.

 

[PennKev]

Thanks for that reply! Could you explain what a deep downstream pocket would look like? I think of the still water behind a large rock when I think of a "pocket". Something like this

No, I am talking about the area in a run where a defined current "tongue" tapers off, the current seams disappear, and the water has significant relative depth. Essentially the area just downstream of the bottom left corner in your original photo. This would be more well defined in higher flows and exactly where this occurs and where the fish are holding at any given time would be heavily influenced by the water levels. A run doesn't always have this feature, but it is common on good streams.

 

[Swattie87]

Talking small streams mostly, but you can extrapolate this to some degree on larger streams too.

IMO what makes a “good” stream is not necessarily the number of fish in it, but how many “good” fish holding spots it has. Fish will find these spots. On good streams, these spots are nearly constant. This is the least common denominator on all my favorite streams…Good, consistent “fun to fish habitat”. In the second picture with the observation deck, this is what I’m talking about, at least in the section pictured. (I don’t know that stream, and don’t tell me what it is. It’s more fun to find it on your own.)

On not so good streams you may have to walk 50 or 100 yards between “good” spots. And the good spots will hold fish, but there’s just less good spots.

 

[Beweav]

That would be cheating, I've spent alot of time on that section. In fact I caught a cutthroat there one summer.

Serious!? Ha! I just grabbed an interesting photo off of google images, this is not my picture!
Sorry to expose your stream! That was not my intention.

No, I am talking about the area in a run where a defined current "tongue" tapers off, the current seams disappear, and the water has significant relative depth. Essentially the area just downstream of the bottom left corner in your original photo. This would be more well defined in higher flows and exactly where this occurs and where the fish are holding at any given time would be heavily influenced by the water levels. A run doesn't always have this feature, but it is common on good streams.

Thanks for explaining that! This makes a lot of sense. And I believe I often walk past those areas to get to top of a run.

 

[Broodstock]

I never wait fish out figuring there’s more (upstream) where that one came from. I don’t have time to waste fishing for a specific fish when I can catch more cooperative or unspooled fish (if I spooked that one) upstream. I may double back to that spot/fish on my walk back downstream at the end of the trip, but that’s about as much extra effort as I will make. Decades of electrofishing and spin fishing have told me as a fly angler that there are more fish around each bend.

Mike I agree with this for almost all instances. I originally said that some (a small minority of) fish are worth waiting for. For the few worth waiting for, I like my odds. Most are not.

I will say that it does depend on how I feel that day, how fast I am moving, etc... If I have the time or if I am only fishing a few hours. I agree that there are always more fish up around the bend and I have a strong desire to keep going. As Swattie said, it depends on how good the stream is. On more marginal water, there might only be "good" spots every 100 yards or more, and those might not all hold large fish. Moving away from a known large fish might not always mean a shot at another. What Bamboozle said also resonates, as the constant push upstream might not always be an option for different reasons. On a hot summer day I once ran out of drinking water, almost got dehydrated, and had to get very creative to get back to my car on a section of marginal tailwater that I did not have time to wade back down. I pushed too far upstream.

One of my favorite things about this forum is learning such a wide variety of perspectives and techniques. It makes me a better angler.

FWIW - this fish was one I waited out. He only took 15 mins to come out of the leaf litter he went into after I spooked him. He ate the fly on the first drift.

 

[Bamboozle]

One place I routinely wait for fish is at the Letort where the absolutely worst thing you can do is move around a lot looking for fish versus stopping dead in your tracks when you see one and waiting for it to resume normal behavior.

The other places are streams where the trout population is extremely low and the first fish you see may be the ONLY fish you see. When I was a kid, I fished a lot his time of year at Section 04 of Ridley Creek, a Stocked Trout Water in Delaware County. Section 04 is no longer stocked by the PFBC, but in those days that stretch was stocked pre-season and in-season only.

Section 04 got hammered during trout season and it got warm in summer so while I have no scientific evidence, I have to assume there weren't many holdover fish from a previous year's spring stockings, yet I almost always managed a trout if I worked hard.

I still remember one particular day spending hours on the water and seeing only a single emaciated trout by a bridge and investing what seemed like eternity before I caught it on a very small sized Lazy Ike. I had other similar days where I was lucky not to be skunked unless I waited, worked and waited some more...

However when the population of trout is high, I'll blow past the Mensa trout if they refuse my offerings and throw the same stuff at the morons upstream. 😉

 

[ryansheehan]

I’d love to be the owner of that observation deck.

Happy to take you any time you want to go!