How to improve your fly fishing
Want to catch more fish? Here are stillwater fly fishing secrets and tips to help you increase your catch rate when fly fishing for trout on stillwaters.
1. If the sun comes out, fish deeper
Where other animals have eyelids they can squint, or pupils that can constrict to help block out bright light, trout do not. They can't squint and their pupils don't constrict.
Their eyes are adapted for lower light levels, so when it's sunny, they don't feel that comfortable and they'll drop through the water layers to find deeper water where less light has penetrated. When the sun comes out, make sure that you change to fishing deeper, otherwise the trout may miss your flies.
When it's sunny, fish deeper.
2. Fish more than one fly
You never know which fly is going to work, so while you're trying to find out what works, you'll increase your chances of success by fishing several at once - one on the point and one or two on the droppers.
More often than not, the flies chosen will consist of a bright attractor pattern, such as a blob, and some drab more naturalistic patterns, such as buzzers, nymphs or cormorants, on the droppers. The trout may be drawn into the gaudiness of the attractor but end up taking one of the naturals.
Fishing several flies at once will increase your catch rate.
3. Leave plenty of room between your flies
If you're fishing several flies on the same leader, ensure you leave plenty of room between them. As a general rule of thumb, a gap of about five feet is recommended between each fly.
Your top dropper can be tied five feet from the end of the fly line, the second fly goes five feet below that, and the point fly goes five feet past that. This gives you a nice long 15 foot leader with three well-spaced flies.
Experts reckon fishing the flies closer than this reduces your catch rate. If you're fishing brightly coloured flies, then the rule of thumb is that you should leave a 10 foot gap between them, as fish can get spooked by two bright flies placed close to each other.
If you're fishing several flies, leave at least a five foot gap between each one.
4. Remember that stillwaters aren't still
Although they're called stillwaters, and all you'll see from above is a bit of surface ripple, stillwaters aren't actually still beneath the surface. The wind action on most lakes causes the water to move constantly, which means that food is always on the move with the trout following it.
Trout in rivers usually position themselves with their noses pointing upstream so they can effortlessly consume anything that drifts past them. Trout in stillwaters can behave similarly and will sometimes position themselves into the wind.
Obstacles, such as points and islands, also affect the movement of the water, so look for the areas where the water is being driven to locate the feeding trout.
Stillwaters aren't actually still and trout follow the wind and water movement.
