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

I'm very much a great believer in the fact that you should use whatever it is that feels right to you. Things should just ‘fit’ if they don’t then change!

For me, fly fishing is all about the experience and to get the most from this wonderful sport then your equipment, rod, reel and all the other paraphernalia which comes with it should be an extension of you. 

When it comes to targeting larger rivers I prefer my rod to have a stiff action, that would be my go-to. I'm looking for accuracy and this means tighter loops that only a stiff action rod can provide. The other benefit with a rod of this type is the ability to set the hook with ease. The larger rivers which I tend to fish can be susceptible to strong winds (more so early season when I’m after big trout) and so a rod which can deliver my fly, no matter what the challenging conditions are, is what I'm after.

In a nutshell a 9ft 4-wt is the ideal tool for the job, my number one all-rounder.

As a caveat however, I do love a shorter 8 foot, 3-wt softer actioned rod for close quarters fishing on more intimate rivers. The trout are smaller and I get far more out of the shorter, softer rod, it’s all about enjoyment at the end of the day! 

I do love a nice fly reel to, as do most of us, it’s a little bling in an otherwise bland world. I’m all about the aesthetics’, it has to have the right look and more importantly feel to balance my outfit. I've never been a fan of noisy reels, once the drag kicks in I want hush still, that quiet and steady ZZZZZZZ, like that of an overbearing bee. Far more pleasing than the clickity racket or indeed the whaling cacophony of some models! The drag has to be sweet, so smooth that it wears a cravat to eat dinner in the living room. My final caveat for a reel is a cylinder handle, preferably machined from the same barstock as the reel itself and with rubber ring inserts for grippy grip!

Fly line choice too is pretty basic a weight forward although not too aggressive on the taper something with a little bit length on the front for a half decent, delicate presentation. Most of my fishing is done at pretty close quarters and so I also need something that has got enough oomph to load my rod quickly, however, there are lines that allow me to do both. By balancing this line with the correct leader - I tend to fish long usually 16 to 20 feet, unless of course it's very windy. I can get the presentation that I need in order to fool most fish I can get a fly over.

Colour wise with lines, nothing bright and in your face always subdued tones, dark olive being pretty much at the top of the tree.

Other accoutrements which I wouldn't be without given a good dry fly day would be, the usual sinkants and floatants, dust and other fly treatment paraphernalia. I'm also a big fan of Mucilin which is always readily applied to the tip of my fly line. It may be a subconscious thing but I definitely feel that it aids me especially with dry fly fishing applications, super high floating, and it repels water, great when false casting, more later

My other little secret tip involves a trip to Costa coffee before my little adventure not just to fill the body with caffeine but also to grab a couple of their napkins, which I use to dry my waterlogged flies before they get Frog Fannied!

Leader material, build-up, length and knots.

I could end up going down a rabbit hole with this, I do construct my own leaders for specific fishing situations, they are complex. But for the majority, shop-bought is often all that's required to fool even the wiliest of fish!

For an awful long time now I've been using the 15 foot Leeda Profil Tapered leaders which I can manipulate at either end to give me what I want. I’d suggest not going too thin, the 7lb one is just right for me as I tend to fish tippets from 0.14 down to 0.8mm.

I do like a long leader convinced that I can keep my fly from my fly line gives me more opportunities to fool the fish that I’m after. I’d also highlight, that by constructing my own leaders with tippet of decreasing diameters, usually barrel knots at the thick end and loop-to-loop at the skinny end, helps dramatically when it comes to drag free presentation. It's pretty common to see a lot of anglers with a small section of low diameter tippet at the fly end, sometimes it’s only two-foot long. I prefer to have a longer section, as the skinnier diameter isn't pushed and pulled by the current as much as a thick section would be. It’s for this reason that my actual tippet section is often around 6 to 8 feet. This extra length and the loop-to-loop connections at the skinny end cause hinging and hinging can help counter act drag. 

I learnt a lot fishing on The Hemsedal River in Norway many years ago. The guide Tor Groethe, used very long, skinny leaders in order to fool fish that had been caught time and again through the seasons. Some trout he even had names for they’d been caught so often during each season. Any hint of suspicious movement and that fish was down for the day. Long leaders and thin tippet sections often seen him win out most of the time!

Approach and Stealth

I have always been an advocate of the ‘don’t worry what you wear, you’ll still catch the fish’ way of thinking! And, to be fair, I’d say that for the majority of dry fly fishing situations that ‘ethos’ is still very much the case. I have witnessed a chap approach a large, five pound plus, wild brown trout, without any fear of spooking it or ‘putting it down’ You need to be aware that this particular trout is often caught several times each year, the guy is a guide, he knows the fish personally. Now you would think, given the situation, he’d be blending right in to his surroundings, think of the film, Predator!

On the contrary,  he wore a phosphorescent, bright yellow jacket! Honestly, he couldn’t’ have been more obvious if he stood on the bank and waved his arms about like a mad man!

Yet, despite the fashion faux pas, he still caught that fish! 

These days however, as mentioned above, I tend to err on the side of caution, and find that muted colours to be more beneficial. The reason for the change of heart is competition fishing. In this particular arena any advantage counts as a marginal gain, so why not tone it down? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not head to toe in olive and brown hues and with my face covered in military camo paint, but I’m more conscious of what I wear now than I have ever been. I'm going out there and I'm trying my best to look like a tree. Sombre tones, blending in, I'm doing everything I can to remain invisible.

I often blend in so well it's not uncommon to go completely unnoticed by the occasional group of ramblers, who stop by the river to empty their bladders only to get the fright of the lives from me, standing no more than 10-yards away, and sharing a welcoming, “hello there!”

Stealth, now that’s a different kettle of fish altogether!

I’m a very stealthy, patient and focused individual when it comes to fooling fish with a dry fly. More so with this method than with any other form of fishing. I put that down to the water conditions, slower paced, more sedate flows are often where we are fishing so we need to be a tad warier. My movements, from entering the water and getting into a decent position, through to casting and even down to fly & line treatment, is considered and deliberate. I’m doing everything in my power to ensure that the trout or grayling are not aware that they are being fished for. That for me is the key, targeting a fish that doesn’t realise that it’s been targeted! Work on this premise and you’ll go a long way and certainly catch a whole lot more!

Reading The Water 

As someone that has fished running water for a long time, I kind of take this skill for granted, that is until I take someone new to ‘it’ out on the water. It’s only when I take a newbie or indeed someone with less experience than my own that I get an idea of just how much of this I intuitively possess. It’s scary really how all those years and the plethora of fishing situations become ingrained in one’s mind. These can be looked at in detail and from there a quick plan is often drawn up that allows me to succeed. You pick up on it all, it’s intuitive, micro currents, food lanes, shelter, places of safety. You key in on them and for some reason, you just know. It’s hard to put it into context.

However, for anyone that is new or indeed improving I’d try and focus on the basics, get those right and you’re good to go, the rest will come. These basics are not difficult, trout, most fish actually, tend to look for a couple of things, food (the easier it can get to it the better) and safety, that should be the focus. Find both these things nearby, let’s say a feeding lane which has an undercut bank or overhanging tree in close proximity and the trout shan’t be far away.

It’s a tough one to convey when it comes to you naturally. Patience is the key here, try not to rush in, With the dry fly we are waiting, looking, and sometimes praying for a rising fish to give themselves away. Yes, we have an idea of where they will be, decades of ‘time on the water’ helps here. But, unless they poke their heads out, then there’s no point in casting a fly, right. So although we know where to look and how to read the water, we are still at the mercy of that fish. If they don’t rise, then we are fishing blind, ‘surface nymphing’ as it were. 

We have the skills to tell us where the trout can be found but without them rising then we are prospecting, which is guessing really. This is never good with the dry fly, you’re spooking far more trout than you’re going to catch, so, in my opinion, best wait and let the trout tell you exactly where it is! 

If a fish is moving, then you take your time, look what’s in front of you, consider everything that impacts, take in the wind direction, where the sun is - for shadows - the current, the micro currents, the whole gamut is processed. Once it is, then you make your move… even then, there’s no guarantees!

Casting ability which casts are essential

Casting ability is crucial, without the skill of being able to put that fly pretty damn close to where it is that you want it to go, then you’re goosed! 

On large rivers, casting is far easier, unless of course there’s a stiff wind to contend with but for the majority it’s plain sailing. All the usual casting strokes are going to cut the mustard, but the overhead cast - any cast that is traveling back and forth on the same plain - is by far the most accurate, so there’s often no need for any others. As a caveat a lot of the small overgrown rivers that I frequent and these ‘conventional casts are defunct, there’s just no room. So, it’s an often improvised roll or other line anchoring cast, and quite often bow and arrow casts that are put to use. It’s really quite amazing what we can do in order to get a fly where we want it to go, casts made up on the spot are often the only solution to a particular problem.

The real key when it comes to casting is more about the fly settling on the water. It has to be gentle, deft and without fuss. No false casting, or certainly not lots of it, to get that fly where it needs to go. 

I often feel that by getting myself into a position that suits the fishing situation that I am faced with, then my casting distance is kept to a minimum. This simple trick, offers greater presentation with far less line on the water, less line out the rod rings means less drag!

Entomology, what should we know.

I’m not as fully ‘up to speed’ as I should be with this part of my dry fly game, but in all honestly, I’ve never felt it was crucial to my success. I’m well aware of what hatches and when, although like other anglers, there is the odd occasion where I get caught out, but rarely. 

I can recognise most insects for what they are without too much microscopic observations. For me, it is the insect’s size and to a lesser extent, colour that interests me the most, and of course sways me when it comes to fly selection. As mentioned I know what’s what, so I tailor things to what I know. An example would be spinners in June, the main falls are to be Blue Winged Olives and Medium Olives & Olive Uprights, of course there may still be some huge mayfly too, but you’d be a blind man not to pick these out….you get where I’m coming from? I use a spinner pattern to suit those flies, dropping or upping the size to suit what I feel the trout are locked on to. 

The fact that I have fly boxes which cover every single thing that you can think of that we can find here in the UK, and also in Iceland, Tasmania, Spain, and Eastern Europe, means that it’s a really bad day if I’m stuck when it comes to fly choice! To be fair look at Bob Wyatt’s limited number of patterns, they work all over the world, the flies in my fly box works on that premis.

I often feel, and I’m sure there are many other anglers who are in the same camp as myself, that it’s very much more about the stage of a particular fly that we should look at closely too. Get the silhouette and the fishing position right and you’ll fool the fish far more often than you would otherwise. Is a trout really going to snub its nose at a fly that has three tails when it has been feeding quite happily on ones that has two, I doubt it!

Rise forms Can they tell us something?

Although for the majority this is yes, and blatantly so, there are times we can get caught out, I’ll explain later.

We all know that smallish sips are from trout taking ‘trapped’ insects, and most often very small ones, midge, aphids, black gnat and the like. These sipping rises can be seen through the summer and usually under the safety of tree branches in slow moving water. The rise forms are barely noticeable to the majority but to the hardened dry fly aficionado, they are blatant and unmissable! I find these feeding fish to be the most challenging, pattern choice needs to be bang on, as does presentation as the trout are usually siting an inch or so below the surface. The fly needs to be in a place where the trout can see it, the trout’s ‘window of vision’ is limited and so if your offering is even an inch off target, you’ve not chance!

On the opposite end of spectrum there are the overly exuberant splashy rises, you literally can’t miss them. Often this is what’s observed when there are larger flies on the water or even above the water at times! I’d be looking at sedge’s skittering across the surface, damsel and mayfly above the water and hawthorn stuck in it! The trout can’t help but give themselves away when they are after these larger prey items. A caveat to that would be that often these jumping splashy rises are from smaller fish, less clued up ones. Not always mind you but for the majority of the time these won’t be the biggest trout in the river!

Then we have the type of rise forms that push water, the river bulges as the fish swims up and turns on an emerging insect before it gets to the water’s surface. It can even happen at the point where the insect is in the meniscus and about to hatch. An easy meal for the bigger residents of the river. 

Next up it’s the classic head & tail or more like head, dorsal, tail rise. The type that you see when fish is in a confident feeding mode. This is the one we witness most often with a trout taking duns in ‘steady’ water. The trout will take up a favoured position in the river or stream and from there it’ll mop up everything that comes its way. Many times when you observe them feeding in this manner, they can move a lot, covering a wide area to intercepts their prey. Pool tails, just as the water starts to speed up at the tail end of the pool is a favoured area for this rise form. It’s also the place I settle down on the bank early season when the big trout come out to play here in the UK. It’s not uncommon to watch these big fish work a sizeable area of the river as they hoover up everything that goes by. You see a trout rise in one area, then the same fish pops up four or five feet to the left or right. They cover an awful lot of water when the first big hatches get underway, looking to get some food in their bellies to gain some condition back after the rigours of spawning.

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

Broken Dunn

Sparkle DHE

Hawthorn

Cul De Canon: https://youtu.be/mAT5E4lI5ho

As I mentioned, you’re probably bored of reading it, I focus on the basics and that certainly rings true when it comes to fly choice. Flies that sit on, in or even just subsurface (emergers and shuttlecock styles) are all that’s needed. You can if you wish fancy them up a bit, but really, there’s no need to, the trout don’t mind at all!

I rarely fish with anything lager than a size 10 when imitating flies (mayfly being the only exception) and similarly nothing below a size 20. The flies that we have here in the UK are such that patterns tied on hooks from 20 up to 10’s cover all the bases. Then of course we have hook design, again this has an influence over the size of fly, some size 18 dry fly hooks are as small as other size 22, it’s a minefield, so in order to ‘KISS’, I stick to a few choice styles in order for me to get what it is I need from my patterns. 

I like a traditional style dry fly hook for creating my Dunns, Parachutes, hackled dries and many sedge flies. I use this hook in smaller sizes for midge, caenis and also green fly and Griffiths Gnats and most of my sedge flies. The Tiemco 103BL being the stand out if I’m after trout of certain size, it does everything that I need it to do. However, when I’m after bigger fish I look to the partridge SLD2, being a slightly meatier hook I feel that it gives the driver some leeway should they need it. 

I tend to create my emergers on very specific hooks too, there’s no need for fancy styles here either, most curved hooks are going to do the job. I prefer the Hanak 390 or Klinkhammer hook, it’s a near circle and for that reason it’s my go-to for ‘emerging styles of fly’. Klinks, CDC emergers and the like are what I tend to use this particular hook style for. The shape helps when dishing out proportions making it an easy hook to tie on. No matter how you build the fly that hook design is such that you are guaranteed to get a good proportion of the fly’s body sub surface and it’s that which is what I’m after!

The other hook that I favour is the Hanak 360BL, it has the short curve, log shank and straight hook eye that favour sedge flies at the point of escaping at the surface. My flies are constructed of foam and fur and don’t really float as hitch a ride just under the surface. This is the hook of choice for me when it comes to my Grannom patterns, I just prefer it, used it (or similar) or decades so why change?

Like many dry fly anglers, I experiment with hooks ‘occasionally’ but it often ends in failure, now this could well be down to operator error but the above hooks, for me anyway, are failsafe’s and I keep coming back to them time and again. 

Materials, though that’s a whole different ball game, I’m happy to use anything in order to get what it is that I want from a pattern. All manner of deer hair, buoyant furs, oily feathers and foam are whittled into my ‘dry flies. Each material offers me a different opportunity, a small but subtle difference to my fly and how it behaves, which I feel makes all the difference. 

The one thing that has come into my possession, we secured a lot prior to the World Championships in Tasmania, is possum fur!

WOW! This stuff, not a million miles away from our own pubic hair in feel and texture, YUK, I hear you say, but it’s unreal when it comes to floatyness though. Certainly more buoyant than CDC and deer hair, sadly it is rather bulky when tying in, it’s a real pain in the ass to tie with too as it’s very slippy, it just doesn’t want to stay still! For emerger style patterns, stick a loop of this on the top front end of the hook, I find it unbeatable!

Presentation and drifts.

I think the first thing to take into consideration is the water that you’re fishing in. I look to see where I should be in order to make my fly drift in the way I need it to in order to cover my target. By getting this part right then you’ve won half the battle! Watercraft yet again is the key to successful fishing. The other point to note is false casting, keep it to a minimum. And whatever you do be sure not to false cast in the direction of the fish. Your line picks up water after being on the surface ( not so much when you use Mucilin) and on each false cast you spray this moisture back onto the surface. These false casts, before the final delivery should be aimed to the side of the fish, so as not to raise any alarm bells.

The delivery itself should be delicate, years of practise helps but so does a light line. You’d be surprised just how well a 2-wt line can load a 4-wt rod you know! Don’t get me wrong, stiff winds will put paid to this but, in the main, most river rods can deliver these lightweight fly lines. Your leader to is a great help when it comes to both presentation and drift. It’s make up, lets us transfer the energy from the cast so that the fly can go pretty much where we want it to. Its length can be tailored to suit the fishing, windy days and ‘fastish’ water, nice and short. Faced with flat calms and pool tails, it should be very long, keeping the fly line well away from the fly!

The utter panacea for us now is, ZERO drag, get any and its goodnight Vienna, not always of course, but 9 times out of 10. So for me it’s all about ariel mends, again like everything keep it simple. If the current is moving left to right, as it tends to be, the mend is done to the left or upstream, this simple little trick can give you loads of drag free drift.

As long as you have the ability (this can be done by cast selection, positioning and leader construction) to introduce some kind of slack line into the forward cast then you should be able to do what it is that’s needed. 

A point to note however; don’t think that it’s all about drag-free drift. Quite often, I use a very simple method, and I’m sure there are far better anglers out there that use it too in order to catch a trout. I have dropped a fly perfectly in front of many fish, everything is spot on, I couldn’t place the fly there any better by hand. Yet the fish refuse? With another cast, just as the fly nears the fish, I tension my line and then fly starts to skate, I’m talking full on duns and Klinks here, and the fish will nail it! Feeding response they can’t help it?!

Upstream or downstream?

It’s all about angles really isn’t it, get these right and you can get close enough without spooking fish and as an added benefit, you get less drag! Most of us progress up stream and so our casts tend to be upstream. This is fine and it does for many situations however for me and I guess so many others there are better options. I’ll happily cast from anywhere near my target. If you were to draw a circle around a fish then I’ll look to cast from the most advantageous point of that circle. I’d also highlight the fact that at times your normal casts - and where you can cast from – can be massively restricted so learn to adapt or expect to fail!

I like to target rising fish from below yes, don’t we all, but not directly below. I shall take a position directly parallel with the target and come downstream a little. I’m looking to get my line to travel over that 45-degree angle. This lets me put my fly where I want it and it gives me enough river to play with so that I can introduce ‘loose line’ to prevent the onset of drag. With the longer leaders that I often favour, I can collapse this too on the forward cast for an even more subtle presentation. I’ll often loop-to-loop shorter tapering sections on my leader and the benefits it brings allows for even better drag-free drift! 

There’s been many an occasion where a downstream cast is the only sensible option, more so on small rivers where space is at a premium. Although we do present a fly downstream it’s rare that it’s done in a direct line, it’s a tough one to get right, that’s why. If you don’t have enough line, the fly can start to skate as it gets to the trout, worse it starts bulging and pulling at the surface! The other side of the coin, is too much slack line and you end up striking as if out hunting trophy marlin.

In an oversized nutshell; As with upstream fishing, the angles help us, so best to use them for downstream too!

Fighting Fish

Oh Yes, the ultimate connection, The Lightning Thread, the coming together of us and the fish, it truly is sublime, nothing like it! But once you have that magical connection it’s imperative that you keep it, there’s no room for complacency now!

I’m occasionally reprimanded by those fishers that are close to me for being a little hard on the trout when it comes to the fight. I think that this ‘play them hard’ philosophy is down to the competition angler in me. I’m convinced that if I get this one in quick enough I can go catch another. Foolish really, but it’s a hard habit to break out of.

However, saying that it kind of works for me, not always mind you, but definitely the majority of the time. I think that this is the case because I’m always a little over-gunned, let me explain.

My tippet tends to be a little on the heavy side when I’m using dries and there’s a reason for this. Tippet with dries seems to be less of a factor than it is with nymphs, just why that is, I don’t know, but it’s bloody true. YES, there are times when you need to go skinny, grayling in pool tails normally, but I’d rather try with a thicker tippet and fail, as I can the drop down in diameter and go again. 

The flip side of that is that if I fish too thin and get pinged off on the strike or the fight, there’s nowhere left to go. Worse, the trout is swimming about with your fly in its face! With a good balanced outfit, a reel that has a buttery smooth drag, is there any that doesn’t these days, and a sensible approach when playing them, keep that rod tip bent and don’t flatten the rod out, you’ll be good as gold and land that fish 9 times out of 10!

My one caveat to the above, is when you hook a big fish in a big river, when it moves you move. The reel will cope yes, but the longer that connection becomes, the line shooting off down a set of powerful rapids with a big fish on the end, it’s inevitable I’m afraid. But if you can keep up with the fish, it’s easier said than done and times, and you are able to maintain a shortish line, you should be able to control the situation to a degree. 

Finally, no matter what size your quarry is, the faster you can get them netted, the better. They’ll have more vim and vigour in the tank and swim off strongly with a bit of luck. Fish are precious so bear that in mind!