DAM REWARDING
Simon with a nice dam fish.
Craig Rist
E
ven on the cloudiest of days, a walk along a man-made dam wall can produce surprising results. Although, when you think about it, maybe it’s not so surprising. A dam wall can provide both food and shelter, which
is something that all trout want. It can also have a diverse food supply with terrestrials from the wall above and both aquatic and airborne insects accumulating against the wall on the wind.
The security of the deep water along many of these dam walls gives trout the confidence to swim right up high against the wall in search of food and then drop back down to the depth, often returning on the same beat to do it all again.
Viewing platform
Craig waiting for a fish to come along the wall. Fishing News - Page 34
An angler with a good pair of polarized sunglasses definitely has the upper hand on these walls. The extra vision you gain from the elevation on the top of a dam wall certainly makes it easy to spot fish. Even on those impossible sight-fishing days with that painful cloud reflection on the water, the height from the top of the dam brings sight fishing back into the game. Because trout are often on a beat — especially brown trout, it pays to take your time walking a dam wall in search of fish. I like to stop every now and then to give them a chance to show them selves. Good places to just stop and look are those areas that look like they may have accumulated food in against the wall or when you find caddis
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or mayfly spinners flying close to the wall. Patches of weed beds or submerged timber are also worth spending some time just watching the water for a trout to materialize. That subtle rise of a trout that delicately sips down an insect or the sight of the water surface moving in a different direction than the wind are things to watch out for. Then there will be those slashing rises that are easy to hear and see, they are the come and get me if you can rises.
The Catching Once I have found a trout happily going about its daily routine, I like to take a few seconds to work out the best approach. I really don’t like casting from the top of the wall when a fish is facing me because it can easily see me against the skyline and spook off. I prefer to get down closer to the water to setup an ambush cast or get in behind a fish and present the leader and fly out to one side where they can sense the fly land, turn, see it and hopefully eat it.
