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Earlier I already did attempts to organize mistakes of anglers that threw me in the eye during the 10-15 years of my work on the rivers of the Kola Peninsula. Unfortunately we can not always be appropriate to engage in a radical therapy or even surgery in the treatment or correction of mistakes and tactically wrong decisions when fishing for salmon. It happens quite difficult to explicitly state the need for change the stereotypes of fishing. It is easier to help the angler, who has not yet sustainable habits and views on how to be and how to fish salmon. Most of this lability depends on the success of fishing.
So I think it is very useful short but informative article by Paddy McDonnell about the tactics of salmon fishing.
You can click on the link and see the original or read it here.
Or you can look at the forum
Dumb Distance -
or Casting without Thinking
Paddy McDonnell
When we first start we are keen to cast as far and as well as possible.
For most men the emphasis is on the far before the well. The problem is that we are so focused on the casting that
we forget that its purpose is to put the fly in front of the salmon, at
the right depth and moving realistically. There's a full explanation in
the Fast Food and
Broad Beans post, but to recap briefly, realistic means;
·
In the right direction
- generally obliquely across the flow, with the fly facing somewhere in the
range 10 - 70 degrees to the current. Salmon are less likely to be
stimulated by objects coming straight at them or heading directly away.
·
At a sensible
speed - the things the salmon's brain recognises as food - nymphs, flies on the
surface and small fish - do not travel at warp speed.
But if we cast without thinking, then realism goes out the window and our
chances of catching a fish head the same way. Let's look at a practical
example of this sin.
This is the House Pool at Tomatin at +12" on a perfect day in
mid-September. There are plenty of fish in the river and at this level
they run freely (indeed they were when this photo was taken - we caught nearly
30 that week). They enter through rough fast water at the far left.
Just out of shot to the right is shallow water that will cause them to check,
pause and think, which is just what you want - nice alert fish in short halt
lies. You're fishing from the bank in a grass meadow. Your natural
urge is to fish all the water in front of you: after all, covering more water
creates more chances, doesn't it? So off you go, determined to reach 30
yards and more, as marked by the red line.
Then what happens? You put out a lovely cast to A and feel really
pleased with yourself. Oh dear! The line swings round nicely until
it checks in the dead water around the big rock in the middle. The nearer
half of your line carries on downstream. Your fly (1) now starts to
accelerate upstream, wasting the far 10 yards of the cast
completely. You put in an upstream mend to compensate, but as the fly
passes below the rock it starts to accelerate downstream (2), wasting the
middle 10 yards. By the time it's sorted itself out and you've regained
control, you're almost at the dangle. Out of a 30 yard cast you've had no
more than 6-8 yards of effective fly movement.
Let's start again. Look at the surface of the water. You will
see more movement and standing waves suggesting lies this side of the rock than
beyond. Indeed, the majority of the salmon are right in front of you:
I've marked 2 good lies in yellow. A series of 12-15 yard casts will
cover over 60% of the fish in this picture, with your fly under control and working
effectively throughout. Mathematically that gives you 8 times greater
chance of catching a fish than casting 30 yards.
The bottom line is that the biggest fish taken in this
pool in recent years was lying about 6-8 yards out, so please engage brain and
read the water before casting!
Far Bank
Fixation - or Standing on Fish
As novices our attention is magnetically drawn to the far bank. The water
there unfailingly looks darker, deeper and more promising. If the far
bank is lined with interesting rocks and features, the attraction grows even
stronger. For men, the fact that it's a long way away makes it almost
irresistible: why commit just one sin when you can do two? Or even
more? So off we go, happy sinners, casting to our maximum and beyond,
tempted to wade ever deeper to reach the salmon nirvana under the far bank.
But despite our best efforts and the expenditure of enough testosterone to make
every hen fish in the river have a hot flush, we don't get so much as a
take. Our failures spur us on to even greater efforts: if we try harder,
put on a stranger fly and cast more often, we shall surely succeed. Sadly, we don't.
Why not?
Here's a good example of a
magnetic far bank, the highly productive Garden Pool at Tomatin
House. The main flow runs down the far bank for most of its length, past
an array of interesting boulders until it reaches the shade of the wood on the
left. The water under the far bank is deeper, darker and far more
attractive than the shallower clearer foreground. The middle is just plain
boring. For years I assiduously cast my fly to land as close as possible
to the attractions on the far side, whilst wading down a line 1/4 to 1/3 of the
way across.
Trying too hard
In his long-running and outstanding Spey casting DVD, Michael Evans uses a
phrase - "if you're working hard, you're working too hard". Simon Gawesworth calls it 'bashing'. If
things aren't going right we tend to apply more effort and energy in the
sincere belief that if we work harder, they'll come right in the end. I
suppose it's a a man thing and the product of testosterone and our Anglo-Saxon
work ethic: these are good things in many areas, but in salmon fishing excess
effort and aggression usually leads to things getting worse, not
better. The salmon are unimpressed by our exertions and cannot be beaten
into submission. They take when they feel like it, not when we've earned
it.
Please don't confuse effort and persistence. We need persistence to
overcome the inevitable disappointments and frustrations of salmon
fishing. It took me 4 season to catch my first Scottish fish - small,
stale and weedy in the darkness of the last evening of the week in the 4th
year. There were many lonely times when I felt pretty despairing about
the whole thing: when contemplating the results of yet another dire cast; when
trudging back to the lodge empty handed; when celebrating my friends'
successes; and when paying the bills (and justifying them). But
persistence is the foundation of experience, and if nothing else, in those
early years I learned that muscular effort was a very poor substitute for sound
technique and calm thought. Low morale is bad enough, but it sinks
further and faster when combined with physical exhaustion, aches and pains.
The purpose of this post is to help you avoid that condition.
Casting
This article is not a casting tutorial: the written word is no substitute
for properly qualified practical instruction on a river. I took lessons
when I started and I still take them today in order to iron out bad habits and
to improve. However, it's in casting that trying too hard is immediately
apparent, happens most often and generates the most frustration. When
casts persistently go wrong, your line is telling you to seek help and
coaching. When they go right it adds huge pleasure to your fishing.
Does your cast look something like this? The mid-section hits the
water too soon; the end-section runs out of steam; and the tip collapses in a
heap. I still do these, and it's usually as a result of trying too hard
and applying undue physical effort. Unfortunately our immediate reaction
is to try even harder and to apply more power to the forward cast, which makes
things even worse. Before we do, let's stop for a moment's thought.
Did we feel resistance in the forward stroke or did it feel a bit like punching
air with an audible swish as the rod went forward?
If you felt proper resistance, then you're not far from success, but you must
take the excess muscle out of the business. You tried too hard and
carried on applying power until the direction of movement of your rod tip was
downwards rather than forwards. Try the following simple trick, and you
may be surprised by the results. With your upper hand, hold the cork between
forefinger and thumb only (if your rod is 15' I'll allow an extra finger).
Now you can't welly it. Relax, look up and try a couple of
casts. Behold, you'll get 80+% of your maximum range, nice and straight,
because the rod has done the work, just as it ought. (With grateful thanks and
acknowledgement to Jim Curry who showed me this trick in last year's brush-up
session).
If you were punching air, then the rods just wasn't loaded by the weight and
resistance of the line. It's most likely that you were putting too much
effort into the back cast and swing, which mucks up the formation of a good
D-loop and leads you to break the 180 degree rule.
Viewed from above it probably looked something like this. The main
weight of the line is not aligned with the direction of the cast: most of it is
offset by 45 degrees to the right. As a result the energy you apply
doesn't load the rod: indeed, half of your effort is wasted as it always will
be when the line rod and cast are misaligned. When you start the forward
cast the line won't follow the movement of the rod tip towards the target.
By putting too much effort into the first stage of the back cast you throw the
line upstream, leaving only about 10% to form the D-loop behind you. This
often happens if the fly is sunk and/or you are using a sink tip. You
give a good heave to get it out and you just keep on heaving. You're in
such a hurry that you cut the corner between back and forward movements, rather
the correct circular track to bring the D-loop behind you. Don't try so
hard: just do a nice easy downstream roll cast to bring everything up to the
surface and break the water's hold on the line. Then you can make a nice
smooth swing to create a well aligned D-loop.
What you're looking for is more like this. You
can see that the critical heavy section of the line is almost straight behind
the cast direction, i.e. at 180 degrees. All of the forward
motion you put into the rod transfers directly to the line. The job of the
lighter bit out to the right is to stick lightly to the water when you start
the forward cast, thus creating the tension that loads the rod and bends it to
work like a spring. When you stop your right hand, the rod carries on
straightening, throwing the weight of the line straight ahead.
The whole thing of not trying too hard becomes even more important if you are
using a modern short-headed line or a shooting head. Too much muscle or
hurry and it flies all over the place - everywhere except into your D-loop.
Just slow down, relax and look up.
Why do I say 'look up'? When we're trying too hard we tend to lean
forward, tense the muscles and look down at the water surface. This will
always make us follow through beyond the stop point by which stage our
upper/right hand is following an increasingly steep downwards curve. Try
the forward cast motion using just your right hand, without a rod, and watch
the track that it naturally follows past your ear. Look down and repeat;
and then up and repeat. Any downward motion of the top hand in the
forward cast will make the near end of the line hits the water first.
Just like shooting the shot/line goes where we're looking, so if we raise
our line of sight our shoulders are further back, and we'll find it easier to
hold the stop on the forward cast and project the line in the desired upward
trajectory. This gives it the time in the air to turn over to its full
length and straighten before it reaches the water.
Above all, remind yourself that the line you're trying to throw only weighs a
couple of ounces, so only apply forces that are proportional to that
load, and let the rod do the work. It's simple: your forward cast bends the rod
by accelerating the mass of the line; you stop; and then the rod throws the
line (not you!).
If you're getting really frustrated and explosive, take a break: chocolate's
wonderfully soothing; avoid coffee (you get even more twitchy); and remember
that more than 2 units of booze will start to degrade your timing (or in my
case, puts me to sleep).
Contemplation
and reflect - antidotes to excess force
Salmon fishing is a rare and often expensive privilege. As a result
we want to have a fly in the water every minute of the day. However, it's
difficult to combine focusing on improving your casting with fishing well.
Instead there is huge value in going off to a quiet stretch, early or
late, where no one's watching. You're not there to fish, but to explore
and learn how you, your rod and your line interact with each other. It's
the same lonely solace that golfers endure to get better, but you must learn
the basic principles first. Practice without principles leads to deeply
embedded bad habits, whereas practice of principles leads to excellence.
By the way, it's got to be on water because grass just doesn't provide
the right type or level of drag.
Because a fly line is not rigid it behaves in ways that don't always make sense
to us (I'll spare you the maths). The Snap T or Circle Spey cast is a
case in point. When we accelerate the top of the rod downstream,
downwards and inwards to the bank, why does the tip of the line fly upstream in
precisely the opposite direction? Why can you cast a lot of line off the
water with a Double Spey, when even half that amount will kill a Single Spey
stone dead? If getting the line up and moving back can be such a heave in
a Single Spey, why does it lift so easily with a Snake Roll? With your
rod and line combination, what is the critical amount of line you need behind
you for a Roll cast to go airborne?
So once you've found your secluded spot, explore and experiment to gain
understanding of how and why the line behaves in response to different
movements of the rod. Without the pressure of fishing or spectators you
can break your cast down into sections, stop, look and start again. Above
all, you can confirm and embed the basics: you won't be a good Spey caster
until you've understood the dynamics and mastered the Roll and the Jump Roll.
And whatever else you may try, don't step into the river with people watching
and attempt a Snake Roll unless you've perfected it in lonely isolation.
Fishing
Having got in a bother with the casting we tend to transfer the same excess
of force and energy to the fishing. We speed everything up. We're
so keen to cast again that we strip in too quickly. We're so busy being
busy and cursing ourselves that we don't look at the water and and adjust our
angles, actions and tactics. How many fish do we unknowingly miss as a
result? And worst of all, we commit another sin, forgetting about the
fly, which is the subject of next week's sinful post.
