I often fish with buddies or guys in the fly
fishing industry of sorts. Fishing in a
group is so different than fishing solo.
As luck would have it, I had a
break in my schedule, so I planned a quick trip to some local water to chase
big browns. When one fishes often
enough, they will eventually have one of those amazing days on the water that
we as fly fishers consider to be “Epic”.
Arriving in the blackness of early morning, I
got all geared up with that blanket of stillness and quite that only comes in
the very early morning hours while in the wilderness. No crickets, no bird songs, just the distant
sound of water following its course down river.
I turn on the headlamp which makes stepping around sagebrush and
boulders to reach the river’s edge a bit more forgiving. After finding a spot riverside to sit, I wait
until the sun peeks above the ridge. Not
able to see, I focus my attention to the subtle sounds that surround me. Do I actually hear fish rising, or is that
just my mind playing fish tricks on me…?
First light comes and I make my way into the
shallow waters. I move slow, very slow,
as the darkness will still not allow me to see or track my fly for some
time. When the sunlight finally reached the
waters that held my attention, I begin to hunt for heads. My set-up is a short 7’-6” Bamboo 4wt. I have WF fly line, a 50” Cutthroat Furled
Leader and my 4x tippet stepped down to 5x.
The over-all tippet length is approx.. 6’-0”. The fly of choice is size 22 Trico Spinner. Approx. 16” above my fly, I have a very small
orange New Zealand Strike Indicator. The first couple
of hours, I had the spot all to myself. Lots of small Trico’s being
sipped by big hungry trout. I actually fished the same pool of
water all morning. The run was approx.. 75’ long and 8’-0” wide. I
first pulled fish from the upper section of the run and then made my way down
with longer drifts and more fish. Once I got to the end of the run (that
I could reach from this position) I simply started fishing the upper section
again. I was able to hook, net and land fish after fish from this
hole.
This system of thread furled leader, the
strike indicator and a small fly is absolutely deadly. The furled leader lays down so gently / quietly
and allows for unparralled mending for drag free drifts. The strike indicator lands more gently then the
fly, therefor there is absolutely no surface disturbance.
As mentioned, I was fishing very heavily
pressured trout on a very busy section of water. My leader, tippet, indicator and fly drifted
over the heads of these trout time and time again without putting the feeding
fish down. Casting was not fast and
furious as I had to clean my fly of moss on just about every cast. But taking the time/effort to clean my fly,
dry my fly and achieve a proper drift paid off very often. No I did not hook a fish on every drift, but
it almost felt as if I did.
This is my favorite type of fishing. Spot, stalk, cast and catch. If you fish small flies to finicky trout, you
really should give this system a try.
Many fly fishes believe you need long (12-14’) clear leaders and tippets
to hook large pressured trout. That is
so not the case, what you need is perfect Presentation, great drifts and a
quite delivery method. When those items
come together, you have a truly winning combination.
Link below.
New Zealand Strike Indicator System:
Mike Morin
