Simple Steps to Becoming A Better Fly Fisherman

Practice casting – Standing on the edge of a parking lot and seeing how much string you can sling: this may be fun, but it’s not the most effective use of your fly casting practice time. Practice your casting with a purpose. Work on specific casting skills, such as: accuracy, tight loops, hitting the target at odd angles, or casting under an overhang. Adding another ten foot to your cast is of little practical use if all your casts are ten foot off the target. Learn to cast a heavier fly – I know many fly anglers who possess moderate casting skills. They cast well enough to catch a fish or two in calm winds; they cast well enough until you hobble them with a weighted fly. Rig them up with a medium size Clouser or a Merkin, and their casts fall completely apart. Now it’s easy enough to tell yourself, “but I don’t like casting weighted flies.” That may very well be true. I too would prefer casting only lightly weighted flies; but know this, by not possessing the skill to cast a heavier fly, you are definitely missing out on fish. Especially bottom feeders like bonefish and redfish, and almost any other gamefish in colder weather. If you observe bones or reds rising off the bottom to catch your fly, it’s a good bet that you are missing fish. A good rule of thumb for both reds and bones: use as heavy a fly as the conditions will allow. So what does that mean? If your fly disappears down into the grass, rather than dancing along the bottom; then your fly is too heavy for the conditions. If it’s slick calm, and your fly lands with a big splat; then your fly is too heavy for the conditions. If the reds and bones are having to rise off the bottom to eat your fly, then your fly is too lightly weighted.

As winter settles down upon us, you may need a fly that is heavy enough to probe the depths of a pot-hole or an undercut bank. The mere fact that your fly can sink to the bottom is not necessarily an indication that the fly is heavy enough for the fishing conditions. Every strip of the fly line will tend to pull your fly off the bottom; then there is wind and tidal current to contend with. In colder weather, the strike may be subtle. As you probe the deeper holes, if fly is so light that you lose “contact” with the fly, if you cannot “feel” what’s happening at the end of the leader; then you are probably missing some fish.

Learn to fly fish in the wind. If your fly rod only comes out those “Goldie Locks” days, you know, when everything is “just right”; then you fall into that class of fair weather fly anglers. Fair weather anglers never develop the skills necessary to fly fish when the wind is up. Tight casting loops and the high line speed necessary to punch a fly into a breeze can learned on the practice field; but line management and boat handling are two skills best mastered out on the water. Leave the spinning rod at the dock, force yourself to overcome the challenges of fly fishing on a windy day; I guarantee it will make you a much better fly angler on the “Goldie Locks” days.

Learn the basics of leader construction. Learning how and why fly leaders are tapered will make you a better angler. I use a very sophisticated and difficult to remember leader construction formula for about 90% of all my backcountry fishing. The formula works wellforboth8or9 weight outfits: Butt section (30 lb mono) – the distance from finger tip to finger tip of outstretched arms (or, about 6 foot); second section (20 lb mono) – the distance from outstretched left hand finger tip to right shoulder (or, about 4 foot); third section (15 lb mono) – distance from outstretched fingertip to arm pit (or about 2 foot); to that I will add about a foot of bite tippet (20, 30, 40 lb fluorocarbon, depending on the targeted species). That all adds up to a little over 13 foot of leader material; but, subtract the line necessary for one perfection loop and 3 uni to uni knots, and my leader ties up to something a little less than 12 foot total length. If you want yours a little shorter, simply subtract a few inches from each section of the leader.

If you like a leader with a stiffer butt and one that more easily turns over into a headwind; then try: 8’of 40lb, 1′ of 30 lb, 1′ of 20 lb,18” of 15 lb, plus bite tippet. This should tie up to little over 11 foot of leader. I also will tie this leader with all the sections made from fluorocarbon. Fluorocarbon sinks; thus, with this leader I can easily tick the top of grass is six foot of water. This is also important to remember when fishing top-water flies; too much fluorocarbon can easily drag your top-water fly under the surface. If you are mostly fishing with an eight or nine foot leader then your catch rate should definitely be increased by learning the casting skills necessary to handle a 12 or 13 foot leader. When bonefishing my leader is often 16 or 17 foot long.

Leader sections should be tied with the same type of mono from section to section. Mixing different brands or material formulas can result in having leader sections with varying stiffness. Hard mono vs. soft mono for leader materials; I’ll leave that debate to you. Just remember, if you mix soft mono with hard mono sections in your leader, you may end up with a poorly performing leader. Matching leader butt section to your fly line is also an important consideration. The butt section of the leader should be approximately as stiff as the tip end of your fly line; otherwise you may have a hinge point.

Hang tough and do yourself a favor: take that fly rod fishing on a windy day.

Capt. Harry has a saltwater fly fishing resume that dates back to the days when Three Dog Night was at the top of the charts. He is a professional fly tier, whose flies are available at West Wall Boats in Port Charlotte, 941-875-9630