Marc Petitjean

Photos Barry Ord Clarke

1, Choice of equipment Rods, reels, fly lines, fly floatants, clothes, glasses and other useful items.

Can I be rude? For me a line, reel, and rod are nothing! A good set up is the one that I forget! Because nothing should be between my mind and the place where I want to put the fly.

I do use some floatants on my flies. When I make the body of my flies I twist the feather, and by twisting the feather the mucus from the fish can enter the structure. The mucus of the fish is not good for flotation so that’s why I prefer to use CDC floatant and to put it on the body first so that the mucus cannot penetrate, this is the first point, the second point is because the body is a bit oily its much easier to clean. I never put oil on the CDC wings because when you cast the wings touch the body and the floatant I apply to the body will be enough for the wings. I only put CDC floatant on the body itself.

Before I start fishing, every time I tie on a new fly, I apply a drop of CDC floatant only to the body. Why do I do that? because I realized it's very hard to know or remember which one has been oiled and which one not. Every time I tie on a new fly I will apply CDC floatant to the body.

Polaroid sunglasses are very important. I prefer light lenses because as you get older you have less capacity to see well. Sometimes it not an advantage to see the fish well coming to the surface to take the dry. Very often you can strike a little bit early, so you need to train yourself, if I am fishing on a river that I do not know and the fish are a bit slower, I will take off my Polaroid glasses because I prefer to see the take, instead of seeing the fish before.

About fly line for me whatever you put on the water, and it is very easy for me to demonstrate what I am saying, whatever you put on the water even if it is translucent / transparent  will cast a black shadow on the bottom, so choose a piece of water with a depth of about 20 cm an make a demonstration for yourself, use an intermediate line which is usually clear or translucent, put the line on the water and you will see a black shadow on the bottom. So that’s one point, for floating lines I don't care about the color. 

2. Leader material, build-up, length, and knots. 

I always try to extend the leader so there is a big distance between the fly and the fly line. I used to use leaders that I made with Kevlar because they penetrate the air very well, they have a very small diameter and are very heavy, but people don’t like to treat that kind of leader. These braided leaders a very accurate even in the wind because air pressure does not have that much effect on those types of leaders but as I said the disadvantage is that you need to care for them quite a lot, and you need to grease them before you start fishing and after four or five hours the grease is gone so you have to let it dry and treat it again. Now I use monofilament tapered leaders.

A tip I could give, in small rivers I use short leaders, with these short leaders I believe I am more accurate, on wide rivers with no wind I prefer very long leaders three to four meters. On our rivers here in Fribourg I can fish with leaders which are not longer than one and a half meters.

I like knots which are quick! I like very much the perfection loop because it gives the fly more freedom and looks like it not attached to the leader itself. The great disadvantage of that perfection loop is that it is probably not the strongest, but I prefer to go up on size in tippet strength and use the advantage of the freedom and movement between the leader and the fly given by the perfection loop.

4. Reading the water.

The answer to this question could be not just one book but hundreds of books! It depends on the water itself, so it could be a lake a normal river, a mountain stream so it is always different, do we have deep or shallow water? We have a very special river in Switzerland called the Emme, I remember the first time I went to the Emme I was fishing close to both banks and finally, 2 hours later the guy who took me with him said Marc the trout are only in the middle! I said it's impossible, Ok he said do as you please and he continued to catch one trout after another. At the end of the day he said come with me I would like to show you something. In the Emme, there is some deep pressure in the middle of the river where the fish rest, so the fish are in the middle of the river so you cannot see them and you walk on them! So that’s why I said I will not answer the question because there are so many different rivers or options that are related to a special environment that I simply can't give an answer because there are hundreds of options.

5. Casting ability which casts are essential.

I remember when I started I was not able to do what I can do now 30 or more years later. What I can say is, is that the main mistake is to cast too far which is very often wrong because long casts are not precise and on top of that it's very hard to set the hook, so it is much better to find the right place allowing me to put the fly precisely where I want.

6. Entomology, what should we know.

There are several answers to this question, the first is what is important in entomology? I would say not that much, when you are in Switzerland you have very often people who say Baetis Rhodani, Baetis Alpinus and so on I hate that! You know why? Because you cannot classify a species of a  subimago, you have to wait to get an example of the Imago and you would probably have to look through a magnifying glass  to see if at the bottom of the wing to see if there are 2 or three veins, so you cannot  answer properly.

I very much like the way they describe it in the U K, BWO Blue-winged Olive because in Europe we have probably more than 400 species which have the same characteristic which is an olive body and a blue wing. I do have a lot of respect for entomology but entomology and fly fishing are not the same, so for me it is very important to determine if the fish are feeding on insects which have a tail or not that means if they are Ephemera, Plecoptera, or caddis or whatever and how big they are, so if you are right with the type of fly you use, right with the size you will be successful. 

8, Fly selection, Size, shape, materials, which flies are essential.

I Like your question !!! and I am sure you will not be surprised if I say I only use one material for tying flies which is CDC because I do think that CDC is a very good material for all tying. Now I will explain why! I will not just say it is a good material; Of course, it is good material. If you can remember I started to be known around 1980 and I sent some samples of CDC everywhere and since the eighties, you can see a popularization of CDC all over the world, so this is not only me that noticed that it is a good material for tying flies it has been known everywhere as good material, and why ? because of the structure, if you see the barbel there are very small barbs on the barbel itself and these barbs catch two things, air or water and it provides movement, and movement is equivalent of something which is alive, and alive means protein and the fish we are looking for are just looking for protein that's all, so maybe it is not nice to say that, but they are opportunistic feeders and they are calculating even how much energy they are going to lose by reaching the surface and how much they are going to get if the difference is not beneficial for the fish, the fish won't rise. 

9. Presentation and drifts.

This is a very very important part of fly fishing, you can have the best fly, but if you are not presenting correctly you will not have any success so you have to take particular attention to that. I would say sometimes I will be behind the fish sometimes I will be square with the place I want to reach the fish, sometimes I will fish downstream, it depends very much on the situation of the trees and bushes, and there is one thing more I would like to talk about, we should never forget that in nature they are free those insects and by the fact that you have a leader attached to your fly the drift will never have the correct speed, by definition you have a brake provided by the leader itself, some very good fly fishers develop techniques which will reduce the effects of drag so we really have to think about that. How many people say Oh I missed that fish but the drift was probably not the right speed so the fish has taken right on the top instead of fly entering the throat, so we have to think about that. I know that on the surface it's very easy to see the fly but its very hard when it is under the water, in another way we should keep in mind that probably 80 percent of the food of the fish is taken under the surface so we may have some missed opportunities but we have so many more options or opportunities to catch a fish that we should not complain, just study.

10. Upstream or downstream? See previous answer