The Zen of Dry Fly Fishing

[JackM]

Think like your quarry.

Reading water: "If I were a fish, where would I be in this stream?"

Casting: "What is the chance I will spook my quarry (the fish) with my cast, and how can I avoid that?"

Hooking up: "Refusals are informative. The fish was motivated to respond. Why?"

"If refusals are reoccurring, change flies or perfect your presentation."

Landing the fish: "Catch a few hundred and you will know. Keep that hook firmly embedded at all times."

 

[afishinado]

JackM wrote:
Think like your quarry.

Reading water: "If I were a fish, where would I be in this stream?"

Casting: "What is the chance I will spook my quarry (the fish) with my cast, and how can I avoid that?"

Hooking up: "Refusals are informative. The fish was motivated to respond. Why?"

"If refusals are reoccurring, change flies or perfect your presentation."

Landing the fish: "Catch a few hundred and you will know. Keep that hook firmly embedded at all times."

^ the ultimate in a fishing challenge and thus enjoyment, for me anyway.

Yeah, I nymph and enjoy doing it to some degree. I strip streamers more times out of necessity given the conditions, rather than out of preference. But above Jack describes what I consider to be the most fun I can have fishing > dry fly fishing during a hatch, trying to solve the puzzle laid out before you. Good stuff.

 

[rrt]

Yep, I, too, like dry-fly fishing the best. I hardly ever fish with streamers. I probably now fish with nymphs 75% of the time, But, when I have the chance to be successful with dry flies, I knot one on, whether during a hatch or when "fishing the water." There's something special about seeing a trout take a fly from the surface. There's also something special about finding a nice trout that is difficult to catch, for one reason or another, and then figuring out how to catch him.

As Afish said, "the ultimate challenge...."

 

[poopdeck]

Zen is all about instinctive feeling not conscious reasoning with an emphasis on a clear mind which is not focused on the things going on around you at the moment.

Perhaps this should be titled sappy things men think about when dry fly fishing.

 

[troutbert]

poopdeck wrote:
Zen is all about instinctive feeling not conscious reasoning with an emphasis on a clear mind which is not focused on the things going on around you at the moment.

Perhaps this should be titled sappy things men think about when dry fly fishing.

Yes, but adding the word "zen" makes it profound and stuff.

;-)

 

[salvelinus]

"To catch the trout you must become one with the trout" - said nobody ever. Sounds Zen-like though.

 

[Acristickid]

Where the mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.


Tao Te Ching

 

[dryflyguy]

For me - when fishing dry flies, I'm just so totally absorbed in it, that everything else that's going on in my life is completely blocked out for awhile. A real escape, if you will.
Something I really never quite felt when trying to fish nymphs or streamers.

If that's a zen like experience, I'm not sure.
But it's something that never grows old for me - even after almost 40 years at this sport now

 

[troutbert]

acristickid wrote:
Where the mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.

Tao Te Ching

Yes, so add two BB shot and run your nymph deep.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

To think like a fish, I'd have to give up what few brain cells I have left.
Be the fish,Grasshopper! GG

 

[wbranch]

Many funny comments about being a Zen master to be a dry fly fisher. Haha. I prefer to only fish to wild trout rising trout with dry flies and never fish blind but would prefer to sit on the bank, or in the Hyde, than to beat the water to a froth hoping to raise a fish.

I never thought there was anything mystical about it and surely no Eastern Zen philosophies ever entered my mind. Get into a good wading and casting position. Select a pattern in which you have confidence. Don't cast any further than necessary. Use a tippet long enough, and light enough, for the conditions. Make an effective slack line downstream cast, control drag. Repeat.

I never fish traditional wet flies nor do I ever nymph for wild trout on the Delaware system with indicator, split shot, etc. I might hang a PT off the back of a dry fly but that is the exception rather than the norm. My forays into the underwater world of trout fishing consist of throwing larger #4 - #1/0 streamers on a #7 weight rod in high, off colored, water conditions. That is when I most often succeed in getting truly large trout.

None of the above has anything to do with how I fish for hatchery steelhead. In those cases I nymph with, and without, an indicator. Use as many BB's as is necessary to get down to where the fish are laying and will swing more traditional steelhead flies when the water allows. Oh yeah, I bead where it is legal.

 

[Bruno]

JackM wrote:
Think like your quarry.

Reading water: "If I were a fish, where would I be in this stream?"

Casting: "What is the chance I will spook my quarry (the fish) with my cast, and how can I avoid that?"

Hooking up: "Refusals are informative. The fish was motivated to respond. Why?"

"If refusals are reoccurring, change flies or perfect your presentation."

Landing the fish: "Catch a few hundred and you will know. Keep that hook firmly embedded at all times."

Sounds like dating advice

 

[troutbert]

What is the sound of one hand casting?

 

[JackM]

Bruno wrote:
Sounds like dating advice

We have a winner!

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Dating advice and sound of one had casting are funny!

Is dry fly fishing with a "grasshopper" the pinnacle of the zen? "When you can snatch this terrestrial from my hand, you may leave."