This week’s picture is brought to you by Tom.
Tom pulled this nice brookie among many others during a guided trip in the U.P. Michigan Lake area. Nice catch there Tom!

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Many times on stream you’ll find yourself prospecting or surveying by blind casting, dries, nymphs, or dry-dropper rigs to likely looking spots. Remember when you are doing this that often the feeding fish aren’t always in the deepest and most likely looking spots but are closer to edges or in the shallower parts of riffles or tailouts of runs and pools.

I have a friend (who we’ll call Herbert to protect, sorry to the Herberts out there) who almost always approaches likely looking runs and pools and immediately casts over all of the marginal and even good looking water to hit the prime spot. In so doing he invariably scares most of the fish in the run.

Occasionally he catches a few which only seems to reinforce his bad habit. When someone else does this we call it “Herberting” up the run. A better way to handle this is to fish to the less likely but closer water first then work your way up to the prime stuff.

Don’t be sucked in and immediately boom a cast over all the other fish you could have caught. If you cover water effectively you’ll have the chance to catch far more fish and you’ll still get to eventually cast into that honey spot.

This week’s picture is brought to you by Gil.
At about seven pounds, this Artic Char was landed on the Flowers River near the Flowers River Lodge Labrador Canada.

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One of the great things about fly fishing is all the cool stuff. However, many fly fishers seem to struggle with where to put it all and then struggle in finding and using it effectively.

Over the last few years I’ve tried to decide which organization system for all this stuff works best. Even though I’ve been teased for wearing a necklace, I absolutely love lanyards. They are perfect for storing the essentials like snips, hemostats, tippet, floatant, and even a few flies.

Even better, all of this stuff stays right at your fingertips for easy access. If you set your lanyard up right you can get enough on it that it becomes almost the only piece of equipment you need other than rod and reel and, if set up right, you can still keep it light and comfortable.

If you haven’t yet found that perfect spot for all your stuff, try a lanyard. It isn’t just a necklace.

This week’s picture is brought to you by Jim.
A great shot of being on the water. This picture was taken on the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta.

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It seems like every year you here of some tragedy associated with high water. Luckily, it isn’t usually fly anglers involved. However, it is always important to remember wading safety, especially when the rivers are roaring.

Always make sure to wear the appropriate footwear - preferably studded wading boots, make sure your waders fit properly and that you wear a snug wading belt, carry and use a wading staff, and possibly the best advice I can muster is just to stay out of the water all together as much as possible. Most fish will be pushed to the banks so they don’t have to fight the heavy currents anyway, so it is best to stay completely out of the water and fish in protected spots along the shore.

High water is powerful. It will often roll boulders the size of Volkswagons down stream. It is best to simply stay out of the water, but if you must, wade safe!

This week’s picture is brought to you by Bryan from the Eastern Sierra Mountains.
Here’s what he had to say, “Since the topic this week was stillwater fishing, I’d thought I would send a picture of probably the biggest trout I’ve landed to date. Caught in a float tube on stillwater. Thanks for the weekly reports. By the way, my GF caught one too the day before so 2 lifetime fish in one weekend over memorial day.”

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Most of the time when you think of nymph fishing in high water you think of using large dark nymphs like black stoneflies or prince nymphs in size 12, 10 or even 8. While these are tried and true flies for high water, sometimes they just aren’t what the fish are looking for.

Lots of tailwaters and other streams simply don’t have many large invertebrate food sources so fish won’t be likely to key on them even when the water is high and dirty.

In these situations or when the big stuff just isn’t working it is good to go to smaller flashy nymphs like the Batman Nymph, Rainbow Warriors, Lightning Bugs, Copper Johns, or a Hot Wire Prince Nymphs in size 18 to 14.

Keep these drifting deep in slower pockets near the bank where fish will go to escape the current. High water fish are often hungry and strong so be ready for hard takes and tough battles in the heavy currents.