Yours truely on the South Fork of the Sky
I have been
fortunate enough to fly fish in a number of different parts of the UK and the world
sometimes with mixed results. I would like to share with you what I consider to
be the most critical thing to do to improve the odds of having a successful,
memorable experience when fishing unfamiliar waters. This applies particularly
if you are only in the area for a short time.
Crucially you need local knowledge!!! And by that I don’t mean a brief
chat in the local tackle shop. What I
mean is you need a Guide (or if in Scotland a Gillie). Now Guides can come in
two forms, the professional ones you employ and the informal ones you just make
friends with. I have had positive experiences with both types. The professional guides usually have a web
site and they advise you what they charge. Often they will provide tackle,
transport, waders and boots but the most important thing is their local
knowledge. By local knowledge I am referring to the what, where, when and how!
Often you need some of that knowledge before you even decide when you want to
make your trip. Let me give you an
example. Pink salmon still run up North American rivers in large numbers and
they are easy to catch but they only run every other year! So without local knowledge you could spend a
lot of money on a pink salmon trip expecting a bonanza and find you have picked
the wrong year! Contact a guide before you book your trip and they will advise you
as to what fish species are likely to be present, what the license requirements
are and equally important whether there is someone available to guide you. Also you can then get a feel for what it will
cost you and the advantages of having more than just you in your party. They can also keep you out of prison! For
example if you hook a natural steelhead (not a hatchery raised fish) in the
State of Washington you are not allowed to take it out of the water, so it has
to be unhooked and photographed still partially submerged. Guides are good at
that and they know that a hatchery fish will have had its adipose fin clipped
off before being released into the river from the hatchery. After having had a guided trip and learnt some of the
techniques then there is no reason why you cannot go back to the same location (if
you were smart enough to remember it or record it on your sat nav or gps) on
your own (or preferably with a pal).
Guides and
gillies do not come cheap, however “the labourer is worthy of his hire” and after
all you are employing them not just for their time but also for their knowledge
learnt over many years. Also, they may have to spend time preparing for the
trip, checking tackle, weather and river flow rates all to ensure you have an
optimum experience. More than anything they want you to be successful because
if you are you might want to come again.
Fishing the South Fork of the Skycomish just downstream of Money Creek Campground (WA, USA)
My good friend Ryan Smith owns
The Avid Angler tackle shop and guide service in the Seattle area and I have
enjoyed wonderful fishing with Ryan and his colleagues over a number of years.
Ryan guiding on the Yakima with a trophy
However,
there is an alternative approach to using a professional guide and that is to
get non-professional, but still experienced support. I have done this successfully on a number of
occasions. In its simplest form you just make friends with the fisher further up
the bank if they are catching when you are not and find out what he is doing. Most
are friendly and helpful and some will even give you the magic fly they are
using. When going further a field or abroad I check out the local fishing club
website and join their forum. Then I post a message like “Fly fisher out from
London, England early June would like advice from local fishers”.
The responses
are not normally numerous but you only need one or two and they are usually
quality and can lead to great experiences and friendships. Let me share some
examples. A few years ago in response to a post on the Washington Fly Fishers
site I was contacted by a chap called Lonnie who suggested we meet at the
Sultan Bakery at six in the morning for breakfast and he would take me to fish
the South Fork of the Skykomish River. No
one in their right mind would turn down an invitation like that. We met up at
the bakery and at his recommendation I ordered a breakfast sandwich which was
so big that having eaten half of it for breakfast at Lonnie’s suggestion the
other half was put in a box by the bakery and taken by me for lunch! Lonnie
then drove us up into the mountains to places I would never have found on my
own. Having driven off the highway and along a railroad service access track
and hidden the pickup amongst the trees we walked into the most amazing wild river
scenery. It was staggering. I picked up all sorts of tips from Lonnie like
spraying a neckerchief and your hat with insect repellent rather than your face
and how to read the water and spot the seams where the fast and slack water
meet and the fish hang out. I didn’t do as well as he did but I have been back
on my own several times over the years and caught some lovely fish. Every time
I return to the area I let Lonnie know and we have a session or two together
sometimes he even takes me out in his drift boat. In some States it is illegal for a non certified person to take payment as a guide, but I suggest you buy lunch or the fuel which you might do for any friend.
Lonnie has a beautiful classic drift boat
Lonnie skillfully tails one of my pink salmon just before I broke an 8wt rod on another!
More
recently out in Washington State I treated myself to a new float tube to fish
the lakes from. So I posted a message saying I was fishing Rattlesnake Lake the
next day (don’t panic there aren’t any rattlesnakes, the early settlers heard
wild flower seed heads making a rattle sound and thought it was snakes)! I received a few on line suggestions as to
suitable flies to use, but the next day a chap called Scott turned up on the
water in his pontoon boat and called out to me saying he was going to give me a
master class in how to fish Rattlesnake! He was kind enough to give me some
lovely large green and black leach patterns.
He suggested I fished sub surface using my DI 3 (sinking line) and we had a
ball both catching fish up to 14 inches.
A typical leech pattern
A minkie booby
Fishing from
a float tube is great fun because you cast out and then gently paddle along
trailing the line waiting for a hit. If you hook a biggish fish it will tow you
along till it gets tired. After a couple
of hours of good sport the fish seemed to go off the boil. So using my maxim of
“if you aren’t catching change something” I slipped on a minkie booby fly letting
the sinking line drag it down. Almost immediately I was back into the fish.
Scott drifted over to see what I was doing and I gave him the fly as he had not
seen a minkie booby before (neither had the trout I think) and I felt I owed
him for giving me such a good day.
Me in my FishCat float tube on Rattlesnake Lake WA, USA
Scott giving me the Rattlesnake Master Class
I am a great
believer in the idea that giving is better than receiving so I think if one
takes advantage of someone else’s generosity one should be prepared to
reciprocate. So I am more than happy to try and help a visitor to my area get
into some good fishing.
Well I hope
I have convinced you that whether it is using a professional guide or an experienced
new friend, to get the most out of fishing in new waters you are more likely to
have success if you have some help.
