EFFICIENT FISHING

Philip Weigall likes to apportion the most effort to the best water, especially on the larger fastwater streams that flow through the mountain valleys of south-eastern Australia.

 

My old fishing mate David phoned the other evening. “So,” he asked after we’d talked weather and lake levels for a while “What are you writing about at the moment?” “Efficient fishing.” I replied, then awaited for his request for further information. It wasn’t necessary. “Uhuh” said David “Skipping the pools and just fishing the runs.” I was about to say yes, but there’s more to it than that, but David was already asking what day the stream season opened. He likes to keep his fishing simple, does David. He doesn’t watch barometers or carry three fly lines in his vest. If the trout aren’t co-operative, time for a coffee or the pub. If they’re ‘on the job’, fish till you drop. Efficient fishing? Skip those bloody pools.

            It’s a bit deflating sometimes. Here I am feeling like I could write a whole book on efficient fishing, and David thinks he can nail the topic in one sentence. Still, I bet that if I keep David locked out of the car during the next snow storm, I’ll be able to extract an admission that there’s more to being efficient than just fishing the runs. He’s not a bad fly fisher when the fishing is interesting, and I know that even on a run (his catch- all term for any water that is flowing enough to notice), he will work some parts much harder than others.

            David and I might dispute how deeply to explore this efficient fishing stuff, but he doesn’t hesitate to agree that it describes a style of fishing which is extremely important to consistent success - especially on our mountain rivers. You may know all there is to know about the insect life, carry all the right flies and cast like a tournament champion. Great - but unless you fish the water efficiently, you’ll never catch as many trout as those who do.

 

What is Efficient Fishing?

If you are already turned off by notions of working up a river like a well programmed, soulless computer, don’t be. The efficiency I’m talking about doesn’t conflict with all the relaxing, non-competitive stuff that makes fly fishing so wonderful. What it simply means is using time on the water to the best advantage fish-catching-wise.

            A few issues ago in ‘Small Streams, Big Trout’ I talked about the more fertile streams of central Victoria; waters quite different to the gravelly mountain rivers we’re interested in this time. Nevertheless, they provide a simple illustration of the efficient fishing principle. These small streams tend to have their already limited populations of decent fish constrained to well-spaced patches of suitable habitat. Let’s say that on a given water there is roughly 10 metres of this habitat per hundred metres. Angler A who spends an hour fishing 200 metres of this stream with equal thoroughness would be devoting a grand total of 6 minutes to water that actually holds trout. Angler B who carefully seeks out the trout holding water and ignores the rest will at least be fishing to trout for the greater part of 60 minutes, less the few minutes it takes him to walk from one good patch to another. Angler B cannot help but do better. Even if Angler A is just as careful with fly choice and presentation, he is fishing far too inefficiently by wasting time on water where there is only a remote chance that a trout even exists to be caught.

 

On a Mountain River

Enough of As and Bs and time/distance equations. Park the car in the shade of that grizzled old willow and walk across the gravel to the river’s edge - we’ll call it the Mittaki in honour of a couple of north-east favourites! The Mittaki is a typical stream for this part of the world. It starts as a tiny creek winding through snowgrass at 1300 metres, before it plunges down through woolly-butt then mountain ash forest, crashing over the granite with increasing force as each tributary joins it. There are trout in numbers beneath the cascades and log jams of this young rivulet, but our interest does not really begin until Mittaki River has reached the valley floor.

            The maturing river still has a steep gradient for such an old and worn-down continent, but huge stream bed boulders are no longer common, replaced largely by gravel and rubble. The unremitting noise of upper reaches is now punctuated by quieter pools and glides, although as you work upstream a riffle or rapid is never out of sight.

The surrounding mountains remain clothed in forest, however the river itself winds through flats sufficiently large to encourage agriculture and a small human population. The riparian vegetation varies from bare grass to thick blackberries, to native forest; and of course the willows are never far away.

             

                                                      Variations

Without taking so much as a step up Mittaki River, it is already clear that it does not offer a single uniform habitat for the trout, but rather an endless series of micro-habitats. Unlike the small stream described earlier, the vast majority of the river is hospitable to trout so we are seldom confronted with the black & white situation of no fish here/some fish there. The trout population is high and the river is ideal trout water.

             What we do have though are areas which are much better trout- wise than others. Basically these areas offer more food, more shelter from predators, easy holding positions; and on occasions, refuge from errant conditions such as flood, heat, or low oxygen levels. If these areas can be identified from the ‘also ran’ water, then the first requirement of efficient fishing has been met. Obviously the prospects of catching a trout (and often a quality trout) are greatly improved.

            The second requirement is less easy to describe. Among those areas on Mittaki River where there are more and bigger trout, there will always be select places where the trout are more catchable. Picture a bubbling riffle, ankle to thigh deep. The broken surface and mottled gravel bed provides concealment from predators. Insect nymphs and larvae thrive among the stones; hatches are common. In spite of the strong flow, depressions, obstructions and the simple friction of current over rocks all provide places where the trout can hold station with minimal effort. In all, the riffle as a whole is likely to hold a good head of trout, including some large ones, and these will be further concentrated in certain spots.

            The beauty of the riffle is that the trout are also catchable. The fly can be put right where the fish want it: if they’re even half interested in dries, there is a good chance of luring one up to the top when the distance is half a metre or less, and if they want a nymph rolling along the bottom, fine. This can be easily achieved in shallow water. Moreover, the currents in a riffle are inclined to be fairly even, accommodating long drag free drifts. The current speed and turbulence encourages a quick and reckless response from the trout rather than a considered appraisal of the fly that can lead to rejection.     

                               

Our riffle wins on all counts: the numbers and quality of fish are there, and this spot is also well suited to taking fish on the fly. A 3 metre deep chute flowing at jogging pace might contain lots of superb trout grubbing for caddis larvae on the bottom, but they will be very difficult to target with fly gear.

 

. Only one half of the equation is met - the trout are there alright, but that isn’t much use if the water conditions conspire against their capture. As we wander up our river, we need to find the places that provide the whole package - where trout are not only present in good numbers, but catchable as well.

 

Get the Best From Average Conditions

All streams of comparable character to Mittaki River experience periods of intense insect activity which can take the form of a hatch or emergence (when aquatic insects swim to the surface to emerge as adults) or a fall (when terrestrial insects land on the water by accident, or when insects of aquatic origin return to the water to lay eggs). Either situation excites a spectacular response from the trout. It is also memorable for the angler casting to trout rising all over the place! These events can understandably become ingrained in our thoughts to the point where they dominate our angling effort.

            The problem is that true ‘rises’ only occupy a small percentage of the total fishing time available on a mountain river - maybe an average of an hour each day. Sometimes the rise doesn’t happen at all. Now the efficient angler will devote plenty of effort to make the best of a good rise, no doubt about it! What he won’t do though is wander aimlessly around the river for the other 90% of the time, relying upon a good hatch or fall to make his day. Efficient fishing calls for a thoughtful approach during those long ‘riseless’ hours on a typical day.

 

            Let’s go back to Mittaki River on such a day sometime in peak season (November to April). The conditions aren’t brilliant, but they’re not bad either. The water temperature is fine (somewhere between 10 - 20C) , the flow is clear and strong - nothing you can’t wade without feeling threatened, and the sun is warm enough for shirtsleeves. There’s a rise or bulge here and there certainly, and polaroids give up the odd glimpse of a fish (forget applying NZ style polaroiding - the water isn’t clear enough, and the trout aren’t big enough). Most of the time though, there is no blatant sign pointing to the places where the trout are concentrated, and where there is a good chance they can be lured to the fly. To fish Mittaki River efficiently, we need to find those special places.

 

 

 

 

 

Finding and Fishing the Special Places

To provide a tidy guide to locating and fishing special places, I’ve compiled the accompanying table. Remember, in this context Mittaki River is representative of virtually any medium/large mountain valley stream in the south-east - they are all remarkably similar when it comes to the principles of efficient fishing.

            The first step is to break the water up into sections; the next (and harder) bit is to break those sections up into smaller pieces again. As we progress up Mittaki River, the more obvious areas show clearly - pools, rapids, riffles and so on. Admittedly there are always some grey zones - like when a riffle is almost a rapid, or defining where a pool starts and finishes - but for the most part these features are quite distinct. Even at this early point, as efficient anglers we are subconsciously ranking these sections, getting pretty excited about some and virtually dismissing others.

 

            This day, a long glassy pool is passed by without so much as a cast. We look hard at the shaded water on the far bank (the bank with a tad more current) but only a rise would make us stop and cast. Approaching the rapid though, our interest increases with the current. Experience tells us that this area will hold a nice head of fish. We can’t see them - excepting a single splashy rise - but we know they are there. No doubt there were also plenty of good trout back in the pool, it’s just that the chances of actually catching one here are much better.

            We don’t barge down and start casting at random. Close scrutiny reveals a number of subtle features within the transition from pool to rapid. That bubble line flowing steadily along the outside edge of the willows, and the current seams on either side of the rapid above will both get a thorough peppering with the dry. The trout have been coming up well to dry flies today despite a lack of natural rises. If they weren’t taking dries so freely, we might devote ten minutes to tumbling a heavy nymph over the drop-off where the shallow fastwater meets the deep pool. Maybe next time.       There’s also the interesting back-eddy behind a fallen rock on the far bank. A fishable drift would be impossible from this bank, but if we walked back down and crossed over, it would be feasible to fish... let’s see how we go with the bubble line and seams and then decide.

            So a day of efficient fishing on Mittaki River progresses. It is not an exact science. We continue to make some decisions based on nothing more than gut feeling or whim. Still, consciously or not, we are constantly searching for that patch of water that’s a cut above the rest, and then evaluating how much effort to put into it. When I say ‘effort’, I am not simply talking about number of casts, but care in presentation, how many times (if at all) to bother changing flies, and so on.

            As I said before, my table and the ratings reflect a typical day, and the higher the rating for a spot, the harder it should be fished. On average, I would expect to put little effort into a pool tail during daylight, and conversely I would work the depressions in a riffle like a starving cormorant! I’m flexible though, and if I stumble upon a rare situation where the tails are alive with slashing fish and the riffles are barren, I’ll quickly switch my loyalties. The efficient angler must have an almost ruthless ability to discard techniques or places that aren’t working.

 

 

 

 

 

A WALK UP MITTAKI RIVER

Overall Position	Special places	Tactics	For	Against	Rating
Tail of pool	Towards centre of tail, between where water starts to speed up as it exits the pool and where it first breaks into the next rapid or run.	Approach as close as possible, fish a short line. Low floating or imitative dry, shallow nymph.	Fair lie, sometimes favoured by a couple of large fish, usually holding several small/medium fish.	Very difficult to achieve good drift. Fish fussy in smooth water and easily spooked.	4

 

Body of pool	Deeper bank, especially under overhanging vegetation or steep grassy bank.	Prospect with low floating or imitative dry on long line, or fish a nymph very deep and slow.	Likely to hold a good population of larger fish.	Fish often not actively feeding. Excessive time for fish to examine fly; poor response to ‘blind’ dry, fussy attitude to deep nymphs. Difficult to present fly without alerting fish.	2
Top of pool	Bubble line, back eddies on deep bank. Overhanging vegetation or steep grassy banks are a bonus.	Drift low floating or imitative dry in bubble line (attractor worth a try), or pile cast into back eddies. Deep nymph bubble line, mending until nymph is bottom bouncing.	Likely to hold a good population of larger fish. Increased current speed - less time for critical examination, fish more likely to be in feeding mode.	Can be tricky to get the nymph down quickly enough, and if trout are lying deep they are unlikely to take a dry.	5
Rapid/ Pool boundry	Drop-off (where river bed falls steeply down), seam separating main current tongue and side water. Pool ‘eye’ is highly regarded in NZ, but is a mediocre daytime proposition here.	Fish seams thoroughly with buoyant attractor dry. Tumble deep nymph over the drop-off from right angle position, allowing down currents to drag down.	Excellent holding water for large, actively feeding trout.	Exact presentation and drift required with nymph or dry.	8

 

Rapid	Seam, back eddies, immediately behind and in front of large obstructions (stumps, boulders etc.)	Attractor dries or indicator nymphing on a short line.	Trout take recklessly and are hard to spook.	Larger fish may absent unless food supply is substantial.	7
Riffle or run (broad, shallow medium fast areas with gravel bed).	Alongside overhanging vegetation or steep grassy banks, behind or in front of obstructions, any ‘steps’ or depressions in the bed.	Medium length line, attractor dries, shallow nymphs.	Riffles are rich in food and cover, so a prime daytime feeding area. The trout tend to be active and decisive takers, and not too fussy about flies. Good drifts are simple and the fish are not easily spooked.	Other areas may carry a better proportion of big trout (but the big trout in riffles are among the most catchable)	10
Glide (mod. fast, medium depth - water creased but not broken)	Uniform potential, perhaps a slight preference for steep grassy bank or overhanging vegetation.	Imitative or low floating dries, shallow nymph. Fish a long line.	Reasonable fish population, including larger trout. Even current for good drifts.	Fish can be extremely selective, and somewhat inactive between hatches or falls.	6

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Other Times

If the trout start rising or bulging, the guesswork disappears from efficient fishing. A feeding fish is a catchable fish, and with practice better trout can be identified from the smaller ones. Our table of special spots will still have some value, but as an initial guide only. It may well be that some fine rising trout are still favouring the depressions in the riffles. However the long flat pool we previously rated poorly may now feature some chunky sippers.

            Efficient fishing when the trout are rising is very subjective. Often it comes down to what the angler actually wants. The trophy hunter may choose to ignore large numbers of risers in his search for a big snout sneaking insects from a hidden eddy deep beneath the willows. The casting may be next to impossible, the drift difficult, and fly choice critical. For this angler though, the possibility of a single monster is worth more than the certainty of 10 easier fish from a riffle or rapid where more modest trout will slash at any vaguely suitable pattern.

 

There are other occasions on Mittaki River when efficient fishing does not conform neatly to the table. The problems of successful deception are greatly reduced at night, so fishing where the trout can easily locate the fly , and where you stand a better chance of hearing or seeing rises becomes a priority. The flat surface of pools and glides now offer advantages over the faster rapids and riffles.

            During spate, places that give trout refuge from the turbulence of the main current are the efficient fisher’s target. The same spots also provide a realistic chance of presenting the fly where the trout can actually find it. Try the inside of wide bends where newly inundated gravel bars can create temporary and relatively gentle riffles. Search backwaters well away from the main flow, and any bankside depressions that have been inundated, such as stock access points. In general, favour the places away from the full force of the river.

            When a heatwave arrives and water temperatures creep up into the low 20s, three special places stand out to the efficient angler. The obvious one is the broken water of the riffles and rapids. Here the overall drop in the oxygen content of the river is boosted. Cooler inflowing creeks provide limited but very productive water in the small strips of chilled water that form where they enter the river. Finally, look for cold springs. These are almost impossible to locate by chance, but if during hot weather you stumble upon concentrations of fish in a particular spot for no obvious reason, make a mental note - chances are a cold spring is responsible.

Whether the trout are rising or invisible, or whether the river is low or high, I guess that efficient fishing always comes back to what you actually want from fly fishing. The important point is that you are fishing to something, rather than casting away up the river hoping for the best. You want to spending half an hour trying to entice a nice trout from the tail of a pool? Good for you! When a rise finally comes despite awkward drifts and jumpy trout, it is all worthwhile.

 

Your mate who has headed up to the next run seeking some faster action is also fishing efficiently. For the time being, he just wants to catch as many fish as he can, and he knows the places that will provide what he wants. Perhaps we could summarise by saying that an efficient angler doesn’t always catch the most or the biggest trout, but he could if he chose to!