You can have the best gear and be a great caster, but it
won’t mean a thing if you don’t know where to find feeding fish. We’ve covered
a lot of these things separately in other articles, but here is a quick
breakdown of the four things you really want to look for before you make that
first cast.
Water temperature
A wild trout’s water temperature range for feeding is typically between 50 – 67 degrees. Ideal temperature is upper 50’s to low 60’s. There are plenty of exceptions that you can read about in Understanding Water Temperature, but this is a pretty good rule of thumb and should be your first consideration when trying to locate feeding trout.
Check that water temperature
If you’re not already familiar with a particular stream’s
seasonal variations and trends, a stream thermometer will be your most useful
tool. Submerge it for a minute in water that’s about 1-2 feet deep. If, for
instance, it’s July and you get a reading of 68-degrees, you should, at the
very least, seek out shadier parts of the stream. Ideally, you should try to
get to a higher elevation where it’s a little cooler. If it’s March and you get
a reading of 47-degrees, seek out sunnier places and, if possible, move to a
lower elevation.
Part of this may require a little research on your part as
well. If you’re fishing in a low elevation stream where the water temperature
stays above 70-degrees for much of the year, there likely won’t be trout in
there at all, even during colder months. Again, this is for wild trout. Some
streams that might be too warm to support wild trout year round, could be
stocked with trout during the colder months.
Depth
Once you have located an area with a suitable water
temperature, you need to look for deeper water. We’re not talking about water
that has to be over your head, but something at least a foot or two deep. In
times when food is incredibly abundant like a heavy hatch, trout will sometimes
feed in shallower water. But in general, they will choose water with a little
more depth for more protection from predators.
Current
Even if you have ideal water temperature and adequate depth,
trout don’t do a lot of feeding in still pools. And even when they do, they can
be very difficult to locate and catch because they’re often cruising and
feeding sporadically. A defined current is essentially a conveyor belt of food.
Most feeding trout will be near currents, watching and waiting for food to come
to them.
Currents can vary significantly in a single run
In currents with a slow to medium speed, trout will likely
hold right in the middle of the current and on the edges. Hard currents with a
lot of speed are a little different. A
trout won’t hold in the middle of a hard current because it requires too much
energy. Instead, the trout will be on the edges of these currents or between
currents in seams and pockets.
Structure
A trout often has a few places in an area where he likes to
hang out. He may have a favorite spot to feed and a spot under a rock where he
likes to hide when he senses danger. Sometimes, you’ll find a place that looks
perfect as far as depth and current speed go, but the stream bottom may be
nothing but flat bedrock. These areas usually don’t hold many fish because
there are few, if any, safe places. Try to look for a bottom with a lot of
rocks where fish can hide.
Significant structure like fallen trees or large boulders
often attracts the bigger fish, particularly if that spot meets all of the
other criteria mentioned above. If you find any of the characteristics
mentioned above, you’re apt to find a few feeding trout. When you locate a spot
with ALL of these characteristics, you’ll likely find the most and/or the
biggest trout.
In some fly fishing scenarios, spotting fish is absolutely critical for success. Fishing the saltwater flats for bonefish, redfish, tarpon, etc. or the freshwater mud flats for carp will provide little more than casting practice if you can’t see the fish. In other scenarios, such as fishing a mountain trout stream, you can tell where fish should be by reading the water, and you can catch a lot of fish just by fishing likely spots. But even when fishing trout streams, the ability to spot fish in the water can sometimes allow you to locate and target larger fish. In the fall, this is particularly relevant in the Smokies as large brown trout begin moving into flatter, shallower water preparing to spawn.
Spotting fish can be difficult to learn and there is no substitute for years of experience and practice, but there are a few things that can help you get started. The best place to start is with a pair of polarized sunglasses. The next thing to understand is how trout see, because as you seek out vantage points from which to spot fish, you want to avoid spooking the fish in the process. Here is an article on trout behavior that goes into a little more detail. Now we’re ready to go spot some fish.
Start by looking for fish in slower water. The more broken the surface is, the more difficult it will be to see through it. If possible, try to find a higher vantage point from which to look. This will greatly reduce the amount of light refraction from the water’s surface. Just remember that the higher up you get, the easier it will be for fish to pick up your movement. Avoid standing erect on a large boulder, as your silhouette will be far more pronounced. A high bank with a wooded backdrop is ideal, but you’ll still want to keep your movements slow and minimal. If you are on a large rock above a pool, get on your belly and peek over the edge. Remember the old westerns where the Indians were looking off the rocky bluffs about to attack the wagon train? That’s the idea.
Now that you’re in position, take your time. It’s extremely rare that you’re going to step up to a pool and immediately see a 27” brown trout. You have to methodically scan the pool. Start by reading the water and looking for fish where they should be. Look for obvious feeding areas in and around current lanes and foam lines. Look for areas with obvious cover under and around big rocks and/or fallen trees. They blend in REALLY well, so look long and hard and train your eye to look through the water rather than at it.
It’s hard. You’ll spot plenty of fish that turn out to be rocks or pieces of wood. I once spent 15 minutes casting to a plastic grocery bag hung on an underwater limb. It had the exact shape and movement of a trout! I was in the water and my buddy was above me, watching from a bridge. We were both certain it was a fish!
There are four trout in this photo. Can you see them?
Movement and shape really are the best giveaways and that’s why it’s so important to take your time and give long looks to those likely spots. You may not see anything at first, then you see a little movement and suddenly the fish is visible. And once you spot one, you often begin to notice others around him. Watching the actual stream bottom, especially on sunnier days, can be helpful too. The movement that you often detect is the shadow of the fish.
Another thing to look for is a flash near the stream bottom. The eyes of a trout are positioned in such a way that they look slightly upward. When feeding on nymphs on the bottom, the trout has to angle his body to see below and will often “twist” his body when he eats the nymph. When this occurs, his white belly reflects light and produces a flash. This is always helpful when looking for fish, but especially in faster water.
All of this is easier the more familiar you are with the stream bottom. If you have a favorite pool, maybe one where you spooked a big fish before, keep going back there and looking. You will inevitably begin memorizing the stream bottom and will more quickly and easily be able to differentiate between rocks and fish. Again, it’s not easy and it takes time but like most things, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
So, you’re starting to spot some fish… now what? Don’t just jump in and start casting the second you see a nice one. Keep watching. What is the fish doing? If you see a big fish just hugging the bottom, he’s not feeding and you’re wasting your time casting to him. But good news… you found a big fish. You might come back closer to dawn or dusk when he is more likely to be feeding.
This 22″ brown was spotted and observed for nearly 15 minutes before approach
If you spot a fish up in the water column, he’s likely feeding. Keep watching him. Is he looking up? Does he consistently feed to his right? Is he staying in one place or is he systematically rotating to different locations within the pool? Pay attention to all of these things and then you can plan your attack. Sometimes with big fish, you’re only going to get one shot and you want to make it count.
How much time you spend looking depends on you. I know guys that do little more than target big brown trout, and they spend far more time watching water than they do fishing. For me, it depends on where I’m fishing and the conditions. If I’m fishing pocket water on a high country brook trout stream, I’m not going to spend much time, if any, looking for big fish. I’m going to cover a lot of water and hit the likely spots. If I’m fishing a big pool on a brown trout river, I’m going to spend at least a few minutes looking before I jump in. If I’m fishing that same big pool in late fall, I’m going to look a lot more thoroughly!
As many of you know, I spend nearly 200 days a year fishing and guiding on small mountain streams in the Smoky Mountains. Creel surveys indicate that approximately 90% of (unguided) fishermen never catch a fish here. Meanwhile, the 10% who do catch fish tend to catch A LOT of them. When fishing small streams, it’s a fine line between getting skunked and catching 50, and most of the time, the difference isn’t what’s in your fly box. In the Smokies and other similar small mountain streams, approach and presentation is the name of the game and to have success, you may need to adjust a few of your techniques. Listed below are 10 tips that may make your next small stream fishing trip more productive.
Dress for Success: As simple as it sounds, one of the biggest keys to being successful is not spooking the fish. There are a number of ways you can spook a trout but it all starts with what you wear. Leave the coral casting shirts at home. Instead, dress in earth tones like olive, tan, and grey. You don’t need to be a fly fishing commando with face paint and twigs in your hat but you do need to blend in.
This doesn’t matter as much on big, open rivers because you’re usually casting farther and your backdrop is the sky. On small mountain streams, you’re closer to the fish and your backdrop is usually trees, bushes, and rocks. Brighter colors stand out against that backdrop and allow the trout to more easily detect your movement.
Wade Quietly: Think Great Blue Heron and not Labrador Retriever when you’re moving through the stream. Step slowly, quietly, and try not to drag your legs through the water. Again, you’re closer to the fish in these streams and the fish are going to be sensitive to splashes and rocks scraping together. For this same reason, I don’t encourage wearing studded wading boots on these streams.
Move Upstream: Trout are going to be facing upstream watching a current for food. By moving upstream, you will be staying behind the fish making it more difficult for it to detect you.
Use Things Like Boulders to Hide Behind
Stay Low: A trout has a cone of vision that allows it to see things above it. The closer and higher up you are, the more the fish will be able to visually detect your movements. As before, you don’t have to be a fly fishing commando and belly crawl from spot to spot. Just try to crouch more when approaching a run and take advantage of natural barriers. For example, if there’s a boulder in the water, stay behind it rather than standing on it.
Read the Water: Trout won’t be just anywhere in the stream. Aimlessly casting your fly around the creek is not only unproductive, you risk spooking the good spots by throwing your line across them. Most of what you’ll find in small mountain streams is pocket water, which is just faster water interspersed with large rocks. Almost everywhere a current breaks over or around a rock creates a holding area for a trout, usually on the edges of the current and directly above and below the rock.
Look Before You Leap
Reading water becomes very instinctive with a little experience, but at first, you’ll have to think about it a little more. Look at each spot you’re approaching and consider that trout need three basic things: food, cover, and comfort. Food is typically going to be concentrated more in the currents rather than in still water. Cover is typically going to be found in deeper water and/or under things like rocks. Comfort is going to be found in places that don’t stress the fish, like slower currents rather than turbulent white water, or shade rather than sun on a bright, warm day.
Position First, Cast Second: Making a good presentation is the other biggest key to success on small streams, and one of the most challenging. Many anglers mistakenly stay too far back from their target and cast way too much line. In smaller mountain streams, you typically have a fairly large volume of water moving downhill through a narrow area. Everyplace the water breaks around a rock creates a velocity change, resulting in dozens of different current speeds. Making long casts puts line across all of these currents and creates drag on the fly. Drag on the fly means you don’t catch fish.
Attempting to overcome this exclusively by mending line is often impractical. There are too many varied currents and you simply don’t have time to do that much mending when casting to such small target areas. Your best course of action in pocket water is usually to get closer to the target where you can keep most of the line and leader off the water. This eliminates the need to mend altogether. At the very least, it will be easier to mend a short length of line on one current than a long length of line on five currents.
To get closer and keep from spooking fish, keep something between you and the fish. Stay behind a boulder or simply a fast current. If you want to drift a fly on the inside edge of a current, you’re going to approach from the lower outside of the current, using that current to conceal you from the fish on the other side. Try to get close enough to use the length of your arm and rod to reach across the current and keep line completely off of the faster water. A longer rod will be beneficial because it’s going to give you more reach, allowing you to stay back a little farther. Of course, utilizing steps 1-4 are critical to making this work.
As you move up the stream, you’re constantly repositioning yourself for the next spot. Sometimes you’re repositioning yourself within the same pocket by fishing the near current first, moving closer, then fishing the far current. Remember, it has nothing to do with how far you can cast. Rather, it’s where you need to be to control line for the best drift. In pocket water, I’d estimate that 80% of the fish I catch are with less than 4’ of fly line past the rod tip.
When you come to a bigger, slower pool, you may not be able to get as close because you don’t have the faster currents to hide you. You also don’t have the faster currents to screw up your drift. Stay back and make slightly longer casts here. Just be careful not to make long casts to the head of the pool before fishing the tail or you can spook half the fish by lining them. Everything gets broken into pieces here. Whatever you’re going to spook first, fish first.
Minimize False Casting: Or just don’t do it at all. Most of the time when fishing small streams, you’re making very short casts. In pocket water you’re often using a fixed amount of line. Repeated false casting is unnecessary and is movement above the fish. Wild mountain trout are in the middle of the food chain. They typically associate movement above them with a kingfisher or heron swooping down to eat them.
Position Carefully and Use a Longer Rod for Reach
Use a Longer Rod: There’s a common misconception that you need to have a short rod to fish small streams to stay out of the trees. Again, the idea here is not to make the longest cast possible up the stream without hanging a tree limb. You want to move closer, make short casts, and reach to keep line off of currents. A longer rod will better allow you to do that. I like to fish as long a rod as I can get away with. In the tiniest, rhododendron-choked mountain streams, that may only be 7’. But for typical mountain streams in the Smokies, it’s 8 ½’ – 9’. And yes, even longer tenkara rods can be highly effective for fishing this type of water.
Accuracy is Everything: All of the best small stream fly fishermen I can think of have two things in common. They know exactly where to position themselves before making a cast, and they are great casters. Unfortunately, great casting is often associated with double-hauling 110’ of line, and that’s hardly what I’m talking about. These fishermen aren’t making long casts. But they can put the fly exactly where they want it the first time, the second time, and every time. In pocket water, if your first two casts are off target and/or drag a little bit, you still might catch a fish on the third cast, but you’ve probably already spooked the big fish of the hole.
If you’re not one to practice casting in the backyard, you should be. If you are, don’t just try to cast it as far as you can. Instead, practice with 20’ of line and less and try to hit a small target. Try to do it with an overhead cast off both sides of your body. Then try to do it side arm. Now try to do it with a roll or circle cast. You’ll find that the more you practice off the water, the “luckier” you’ll be on the water.
Keep Moving: In small streams, especially in pocket water, you’re going to catch more fish by covering more stream. Identify the likely spots in a pocket or run. Put a half dozen drifts in each spot and catch your fish. If you miss a couple of strikes, put a few more drifts through and move on. If you don’t get a strike, don’t spend an hour there changing flies until you do. Move on. This doesn’t mean speed fish the stream, as you still need to be methodical in your approach. But when you get good at reading water, positioning and casting accuracy, you’ll be able to cover the water quickly and efficiently.
If you’ve ever fished with me or have read more than two articles in this newsletter, you undoubtedly know how much I emphasize the importance of water temperature when fishing for wild trout. Often in the summer, it can be too warm in many places, causing trout to be lethargic or even migrate to cooler water. In winter, it can be too cold, causing changes in metabolism and a shut down in feeding. In early spring, you’re often fishing right on the edge of good water temperatures. Throughout the day, you may encounter totally different feeding behaviors – from hour to hour and from pool to pool.
Though it’s not quite this exact, 50-degrees is kind of the magic number we’re looking for. When we see water temperatures at or above 50-degrees for the better part of the day, we typically start to see actively feeding fish. This is due to not only the change in metabolism, but also the increase in bug activity. It can be deceiving, though, when we start to have these warmer days but the overnight temperatures are still getting pretty cold. It may be late morning or early afternoon before the water has had time to warm to a “stimulating” temperature.
So forget what your granddad told you about getting to the water at dawn. That’s great advice during the heat of summer. In early spring, it will usually only give you a lot of casting practice. There are always variables based mostly on weather. But your best fishing this time of year will probably be between 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Sleep in, eat a late breakfast, get to the water around 10. You’ll have time to gear up, and enjoy your afternoon.
This is also not the best time of year for making that 7-mile hike to a high elevation brook trout stream. With very rare exceptions, your water temperatures are going to be considerably cooler at high elevations. This is the time to focus on lower and mid elevation streams.
The heads of large pools can be great locations for feeding trout
Now that you’re at the right place at the right time, there are other things you want to look for. While slower pools often fish poorly later in the year, they can be great places to fish in early spring, mostly because of the abundance of food. The best hatches, at least in the Smokies, occur in the spring and you can target a lot of feeding fish in these pools. Dry fly fishing can be at its best on early spring afternoons and it’s a great opportunity to find a larger brown trout feeding on the surface. Even if there is not an active hatch, there are plenty of bugs preparing to hatch. Drifting nymphs along the bottom, particularly near the heads of these pools can be very productive.
The other advantage to larger pools this time of year is they typically have less tree canopy. The water gets more direct sunlight. Seeking direct sunlight is counterintuitive to many fishermen. But in the early season, it often means warmer water. And even if the sunlight isn’t significantly warming the water, it is likely stimulating more bug activity. This will in turn, stimulate fish. Still, bright sunlight can have a negative impact on fish and their willingness to feed. I try to seek out and pay particular attention to the “sweet spots.” Sweet spots are good holding water that has a nice mix of sun and shadows.
Finally, when choosing days to fish this time of year, really try to pay attention to the overnight lows more than the daytime highs. Warmer overnights will better maintain those water temperatures we’re looking for. And don’t be afraid to get wet. A warm rain can raise water temperatures and turn fish on quicker than anything this time of year!
