In this part of the country, fly fishing is usually not a family tradition. Most fly fishermen learn to fly fish from professionally run schools, guides, and from books and magazines they read. They learn a lot, and much that is useful, from the magazines and especially the catalogs. When I began to fly fish, I studied the catalogs like they were technical manuals. The novices build their kits, adding piece-by-piece to the image emerging from the pictures in the magazines. Often we see such anglers on the stream looking as if they had just stepped from the pages of a catalog with their favorite supplier's logo prominently displayed on every single piece of equipment they use. These pictures also have another effect for novice anglers--shaping their expectations about how and where to fish. The fly fishermen expect streamside conditions to look like the pictures they have studied--and they seek out places that look like that.

Since they typically did not grow up with this style of angling, they have little in the way of practical experience or the corrective instruction of wise elders to bring to their first days astream with the long rod. For many of them, the first few days prove frustrating, and then an expensive package of equipment is relegated to the back of the closet and the subscriptions are left to expire. For others, they may catch a few small fish, but never any fish of size and the work seems disproportionate to the reward. For many there seems to be no connection between how they caught a fish and what they thought they were doing. Sometimes, as the disappointment and frustration mounts, the fly angler may seek a scapegoat for his own failure. Very often this scapegoat is the corn or bait fisherman who is accused of fishing out the streams. The corn men are blamed particularly for stripping the river of its trophy fish. Hardly a fishing trip passes for me when I am talking to fly fishermen that some disparaging remark is not made about the corn and bait fishermen.

Instead of complaining so much about the corn men, the fly fishermen need to learn to fish better. They could fish better within the limits of their tackle if they gave up some of the ill-founded mythology of fly fishing and used their tackle for the effective tool that it can be. Effective fishing means a new fishing style for most fly fishermen. Two examples: Most fly fishermen--99%+ of the ones I see on the river--never do roll casts, so they are limited to putting flies into places that are in line with an open backcast. If you are not doing roll casts, you are not in the places fish like to lie. Most fly fishermen avoid--instead of heading for--log jams, brush piles, and complex snags on the river, but the fish head for these places instinctively. Such places are not pretty--they don't look like the magazines--but they hold fish because they give shelter and concentrate food. Here are some general concepts I have found work for me:

Fish the whole river. Fly fishermen are often like deer hunters who have that "perfect" spot in mind. They leave their vehicle and start in, not paying much attention, and suddenly they are surprised by the deer that leaps up behind them when they have passed. Fly fishermen will wade the stream for dozens of yards only to see fish rising in a place they just passed. My first and best lesson in fly fishing came from a college colleague who was an unorthodox outdoorsman. He loved custom bamboo rods, but scorned virtually every other traditional element of fly fishing. Once we were camped with some students beside a pretty stream at a large public campsite in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Late in the afternoon, he said to me, "Let's see if we can find some trout." I started out, upstream away from the crowd, but he called me back saying, "No. Let's look right here." We found a large rainbow sheltering in the shade of brush and an overhanging bank not twenty feet from where children were running about and parents were cooking supper. He said, "Trout will be where you least expect them." On another occasion, I was fishing without thinking with my Labrador retriever, Moses. I was really just out for a walk with him where he could play in the water along a gravel bar. I was doing lazy casts around a sycamore snag that had fallen into the river not ten steps from the public boat access. The brown trout that took my fly and set Moses and the water in "commotion"--as my grandfather called any excitement--measured out at 22". On most days I would have by-passed this spot.

Fish thoroughly. Some days I like to wade along, casting every now and then to picture-book lies, but when I want to catch fish, I resort to a simple method. I call it my "two/three" method: two steps, three casts. Once I start to fish, I strip line in as I take my two steps, then fish a short sweep, followed by a bit more line for a medium sweep, then the rest of the line for the long sweep. Then strip in as I take two more steps and repeat the process. Using this method either upstream or down, I can cover nearly all the water in a band about ten feet wide and at sweep intervals of about 12"-18". If the river is wide, I may retrace my steps and fish a parallel track another ten feet beyond the one just fished. A lot of the time this is boring as hell--but when nothing else seems to work, it often produces fish just as the result of the utter systematics of it all. The important thing is to try to fish into all the voids that are caused by irregular casting patterns. Somehow fish just seem to know where those voids are and "grid" or "system" fishing is a way to eliminate them.

Cast accurately. Go out in the yard or to the soccer field and practice. Success with trout often comes in inches. This is sound lore for fly fishing that goes back to the days of Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton where the advice to the novice was to "fish the stream by inches." Many times I have found that the difference between a take and a pass is less than two inches. I have drifted flies past trout that I could see and until I got the fly almost on their nose, they never moved. When I first learned to flycast, my old high school coach had us out on the playing fields casting to the plastic "hoola hoops" placed like rise rings on the ground. That called for accuracy of a yard or a bit less. That is a good way to start, but as your skills improve, try casting to a Frisbee thrown out into the yard. When you can consistently hit the Frisbee, try casting to a stick driven into the ground or to the base of a small tree. When I fish snags--which hold lots of fish--I find that my practice casts to a small vertical target like a stick help me get onto the fish.

Imitate trout food. Do not try to "match the hatch." Probably the worst idea in trout fishing is matching the hatch. The `hatch' represents the final stage in the lives of aquatic insects. Many anglers are instructed--and hold the instruction as the most sacred cow of fly fishing--that you have to match the hatch. Matching the hatch--selecting a fly that resembles the insects currently hatching on the stream--is good advice if the trout are actively feeding on what is currently hatching. Many days they are not. Despite the lore, trout don't feed that much on midges and very small insects. And they often ignore the hatch to feed on the nymph form just prior to hatch. Most trout food--90% or more--is taken on or near the bottom and consists of the benthic or drifting forms of aquatic life: nymphs, larvae, crustaceans. Trout spend most of their time feeding in a way that is more similar to carp than the manner shown on the covers of fly fishing magazines. Fly anglers often give themselves a 90% penalty by insisting on using flies suitable for only 10% of the trout food. When you purchase flies you should purchase them in roughly the same proportion that the fly represents in the trout diet--about nine sinking flies for every one floating fly. And you should be prepared to use split shot or sinking tip lines if you want to catch the really big fish. Floating lines just have too much lift to let nymph flies get down to where trout mostly feed. If neither of these is your style, you should learn how to use the current to sink your floating line to get the fly down to the feeding zone of the fish.

Learn your river. The day is past when successful or ethically responsible fishermen--whether bait or artificial--can ignore the character of the river as a whole eco-system. If we are interested in the future of angling, we must become aware of rivers throughout their courses including the distant peripheries of their watersheds. Often the quality of a local fishing hole may be affected by river events occurring miles away. Fly fishermen the last few years on the Elk River, for instance, have discovered the effects of agricultural siltation occurring many miles from where they fish. Successful anglers need to know the ins-and-outs of their river--everything from the seasonal hatches and water color to the smell of the river. I study maps a lot, partly to give me an overall sense of the lay of the land along and around the river; partly for identifying the small tributary streams that may only run into the river after a downpour or during the late winter. The small streams are the insect nurseries for the river and the water just downstream of their entry point is often rich in invertebrates--and rich in trout that feed on those invertebrates. I also try to note the agricultural practices occurring from year-to-year along the river. When farmers are cutting hay close to the river, the displaced grasshoppers often mean that hoppers and other terrestrial flies will work unusually well. Sometimes I just walk the bank trails peeking at the river--and checking the spider webs to see what they hold. And I always try to note where birds are feeding over the river. If birds are feeding above, fish are feeding below.

Study the water. This is the most important part of angling. Figure to spend at least as much time looking at the river as casting. It means paying attention--close attention--to every possible lie of a fish in the course of the river. Sometimes this may mean squatting to view the river at a low angle to note the differences in reflected light coming off the surface. Often pockets or sub-surface eddies that never cause a wrinkle or ripple in the surface are detected by differences in reflected light. Fish into those differences: the hidden pocket may be a rest or feeding station for a trout. Search for every differential in flow that you can detect and fish the edge line of the flows. Trout will wait in the slower flow for food to be carried past in the faster flow. This is especially true of the relatively thin 4"-8" band of slow water on the back side of the main flow in turnholes. The trout will often be hovering next to the bank out of the swift flow. Watch the flow of leaf litter and woods trash on the surface. The lines of current below are often indicated by the surface load carried along. Watch how fish move in the water; they will show you how to direct the path of your fly.

Examine gut content. I keep very few fish, perhaps a half dozen a year, and most of these I decide to keep in terms of the location where I am fishing. When I get home and clean the fish, I carefully cut out the gullet, stomach, and intestine and remove all the contents into a shallow white dish. Then--with the points of two knife blades-- I sort and count the entire gut content. I don't try to do a scientific identification--just a general typing: flies, bees, ants, beetles, hoppers, mayflies, midges, snails, sow bugs, etc. The gut will tell you what the fish are actively feeding on and will tell you the relative proportions of food in that portion of the river. Note that gut content can vary greatly in just a few yards of river length. As I fish, I always carry a sharp knife and dissect any dead fish I find. Many of these dead fish are catch and release fish that were poorly played or handled, but their gut can still tell you about the benthos or drift food. I also examine any guts I find on the river bank where fishermen have cleaned their fish before going home. Sometimes when I see people cleaning fish, I walk up and ask them for their fish guts. In all the fish I have dissected--and many I pass on to professional biologists for scientific typing--I find very few tiny insects. Less than 1% of gut content I have examined has been smaller than a #16 fly.

Don't listen to the experts. Advice derived from experience is generally good and the people with experience usually have the practical knowledge to justify the advice. But it is better if you acquire the experience for yourself--it is both more satisfying and more reliable. Many times when people ask me what to do or how to fish I reply, "I don't know. Just tie something on and throw it out there. See if it works." That is not really good advice, but it is mostly how I learned to catch trout. How many times in hunting camps, in books, and along river banks have we all heard the experts give us their absolutes: "Deer never..." "Turkeys never..." "Trout never..." You don't have to fish very long to discover that trout don't read books or magazines--or listen to experts. Early in my fishing I discovered that trout fishing was filled with don'ts and never's--advice that worked once somewhere and then was passed along as part of the infallible lore of trout fishing. Go to the river. Tie something on. Throw it in. If it works, remember it. If it doesn't, try something else. Write your own book.

Change flies often. This is related to the point just above. When I began fly fishing I soon made it a rule to change flies at least after every catch. I know our temptation is to keep fishing what works, and some days I do that just because it is fun to catch fish. But in my first few years, I changed flies each time I caught a fish. I put the flies in order on a small patch on my hat and somedays I was amazed at the variety of flies that took fish. Sometimes I found that a half dozen different flies worked in the same riffle or pool. There is no one exact fly for any river or any fish. If you keep changing, you build up your knowledge of what works and that will give you alternatives for slow days when you favorite fly is not working at all. Some days I use what I call "cross-matching": if a hatch is coming off, instead of fishing an imitation of the hatch, I will change flies and use a deep nymph or streamer. Big fish often feed beneath the smaller fish feeding on the hatch.

Expect to lose flies. The pictures of the old vest with the used salmon flies make us think of flies as heirlooms. Try thinking of them as bullets. Hunters don't expect to get their bullets back. I have never lost as many flies on a fishing trip to equal the cost of one afternoon of shooting sporting clays. Flies are expendable. Trying to save flies and tippet causes anglers to favor water that fish don't favor. The thing that causes anglers to lose tackle is the very thing that protects the fish: cover. That is why the lie is difficult to fish--it is good shelter for the fish. If it is easy for you to fish, it would also be easy for ospreys and herons to fish. A Great Blue Heron will attempt to take a 14" trout. For that reason, survivor trout become very selective in their choice of cover--and very difficult to present flies to. If you are doing left-handed roll casts into the slot under the bushes against the bank, you are going to lose flies; when you are successful, you are going to catch trout. Learn how to tie compound leaders from your tippet spools--and bankside monofilament if need be. It takes a few minutes, but it will free you from the worry of running out of packaged leaders from the fly shop. It will also give you time to study the river as you tie the series of knots. I fish a lot better now that I stopped worrying about my store-bought leaders.

Fish all year [if legal]. My outdoor partner and fellow columnist here, Benson said to me once. "Smith, I think the difference between us and other fly fishermen is that we fish the river all year long. We see the river and the fish in ways other people don't." He was exactly right. We fish in rain, fog, drought, wind, snow, storms. We can't often go when we would choose to, so we go when we can. This has meant dealing with frozen fingers, ice in our guides, high water, and wind. But it has also meant catching fish under a wide variety of conditions and discovering trout behavior we would never see in the summer. Sometimes winter fishing is actually easier, particularly for the nymph fisherman. When hatches are occurring, the number of life forms on the bottom is reduced--so there are fewer nymphs in summer than there are in winter when hatches are thin or do not occur at all. The most diverse gut of any fish I have taken was taken in February and included twelve different species of food in the gut. Hatches can still occur in winter though; I once captured a brilliant emerald green mayfly midstream in a snow storm. Learn to fish muddy water. I have taken trout when the water was too muddy to see my fly or my boot bottoms.

Fish a lot. The best way to catch trout is to be on the river. No one ever fished too much.

Gerald L. Smith

Sewanee, TN

June 1994

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A version of this essay appeared in Tennessee Valley Oudoors, 1994.