Drifting for Better Results – Casey Pfeiffer

from Tasmanian Fishing and Boating News Issue 144 2021 February

Searching for Southern Bluespot Flathead — Jarvis Wall

Fly fishing has many different facets and being confident in all forms of the sport will ultimately lead to more fish finding the back of the net. The last few years, I have made a more conscious effort to spend more time boat fishing on lakes. This is because I realise that lakes can offer fantastic oppor-tunities for large fish, as well as the option of fishing a large variety of techniques. Drifting lakes in the boat is by far the best way to cover these large areas of water efficiently.

Getting Setup

Selecting a rod is often a tricky decision when fishing in rivers, however fishing from the boat makes life simple. My first and usually only choice is a 10ft 6wt fly rod. A 10ft fly rod allows better casting and more control over your flies and the fish once hooked. The extra length will also make landing fish from the boat a much easier task. Weight is a matter of personal preference, however the best allrounder for Tasmania would have to be a 6 weight. A 6 weight rod

Fishing the drift for better results

has enough grunt to cast three large flies with tungsten beads, and fight large fish, but is also light enough to By cast all day long, and multiple days in a row without Casey Pfeiffer much fatigue. Some great anglers I know prefer to fish a heavier weight, but I have found that the stress on

A 10’ #6 weight rod give you better control from a boat.

A drogue will slow and also allow you to steer your drift.

my arm is not worth the extra few feet I might get in a cast. Reels are still an important part of this set up, even if you are rarely fighting the fish on the reel. They need to be large enough to house larger size fly lines, and they need to have spare spools readily available for the multiple lines needed. A good drogue set up is the most important aspect of drift fishing on the lakes. For those that don’t know, a drogue allows you to slow down your drift for the optimum fishing speed. A well set up drogue also allows you to steer the boat for the perfect drift every time. Whether its following a weed bed or manoeuvring through trees. There are a few commercial drogues, some are made of PVC fabric, but the best ones are heavy shade-cloth type material with floats in the top and chain in the bottom. Essential Flyfisher has them. The drogue should be set up on the starboard side of the boat, allowing the boat driver easy access to steer the drogue without having to move around much. It is best set up with one continuous loop of rope that allows you to pull the drogue in the direction that you want your boat to drift. Drogues that are fixed on either end will drift straight, but this means uncontrolled drifts.

New Sector Saltwater Salty, and Sweet

Imagine a rod that casts tight high line speed loops effortlessly and turns over your leader straight into the wind; a rod that delivers the fly on target with just one release of line on the back cast and can pick it back up and redirect if the fish changes course; a rod that is intuitive and gives you constant feedback; a rod that feels light and alive in your hand and has the touch and feel needed to make short quick shots or float the fly in quietly. All that, plus a rod hand crafted with the very best components ever to grace a fly rod.

Floating lines offer the option of fishing both dry and wet flies flies. A trio of dry flies can be deadly on the water in a hatch scenario, just as fishing multiple unweighted or lightly weight flies ‘nymphing’ can be outstanding when the fish are looking for nymph sized morsels to gorge themselves on. When fishing three flies per line, my preference is a 6wt floating line, with tippet tied directly onto the fly line. My tippet section is 4.5 metres long, with droppers tied at both 1.5 metres and 3 metres. This length allows a delicate landing without being too difficult to cast, even if the breeze is up. Fly selec-tion is a matter of matching the hatch if there is one, but dry fly confidence boosters for me are a claret para dun with cdc post, possum emerger, and cdc sedge with an orange indicator. Having one fly with a coloured indicator allows me to easily identify where my flies have landed, even in bright conditions. Whilst dry flies are most commonly fished static, twitching dries can also be very effective. Twitching is just a matter of letting your flies land, waiting several seconds, making a few short retrieves and then letting the flies settle again for several seconds, and this is repeated throughout the entire retrieve. One of my favourite tips on fishing dries is to use muscilin on the last few feet of your fly line as it helps your line to float on top of the water. This allows you to easily pick

LIGHTER & FASTER

THE MOST ADVANCED DESIGN IN A FLY REEL TO DATE

NEW SPEEDSTER S MIDNIGHT BLUE

GET BUSY TYING

Sandro Soldarini displays great control while slowly retrieving a team of nymphs

A selection of lines and flies for Tasmanian lakes.

Big rainbows love fast stripped flies on sinking lines.

your line up off the water to recast while creating minimal disturbance on the surface.

Another great floating line technique is nymphing. Since the majority of a fishes diet is subsurface, this can be a great way to go when fish are looking up, but there is not a lot of action on the surface. Tasmanian lakes are a classic example of great nymphing water, as the fish seem to be looking up a vast majority of the time, even if they’re not rising. This is a technique that has been popular for a long time in the United Kingdom, yet was extremely uncommon in Australia until recent years. Like most techniques new to the country it was introduced by competitive anglers after seeing the tech-nique used in international competitions. Suitable flies for nymphing are often unweighted, but sometimes light beads are used to help get the flies down faster. Weighted nymphs are particularly good on days that are a little windier than ideal, as they sink faster, you get to fish more of your drift in the correct water column, despite the boat drifting faster. Retrieves for nymphing are varied. On still days a favourite of mine is to fish static. These means only retrieving your line just fast enough to stay in contact with your flies, while allowing them to sink slowly without being pulled. Takes are detected by watching the bow of your line between your rod tip and the water, sometimes a take can be a subtle tick, other times the fish slam your flies and there is a quick and distinct pull as the line straightens. Strip striking while keeping a low rod tip is most important when nymphing, if not the fish will almost always be lost. It pays to vary your retrieves between long slow pulls, short twitches, and figure eighting at different speeds until you find what the fish are after on any given day. As with any lake fishing, the fish will often eat the flies as the sink, so after every cast lands a few pulls to straighten the line and get in contact with your flies will give you a much better chance of hooking and landing a fish when it decides to eat.

Going Deep

Sinking lines are ideal for almost any lake because you can use them in any type of water. If you can find where the fish are holding, sinking lines give you the opportunity to catch those fish, without depending on a hatch or perfect weather conditions. Lakes with weedy bottoms, drop offs, or soaks are ideal because they give you a great idea of where to start your search for fish. These areas are known to hold food, while also providing cover for the fish, which makes them perfect areas to tar-get. The most important information to understand about sinking lines is how the sink rate system works. Lines can be found in weight classes to suit the rod, but the sinking rate is measured in Di. Which is the inch rate that the line sinks per second, with no interference from flies. These meas-urements are made in inches, not centimetres which pays to keep in mind. So a Di 5 sinks at 5 inches per second, and a Di 7 at 7 inches per second. Simple once you know! Sinking lines also come in intermediate, fast intermediate, and sweeps, which are a totally different kettle of fish. An intermediate line is designed to sink very slowly, and sit just beneath the surface of the water. A fast intermediate sinks slightly faster than the intermediate at a rate of around 1.5inches per second and is suitable for depths up to 1.5 metres. Sweep lines can be found in Di 3 to Di 7. The sweep line sinks at the rated inches per second in the middle, but the tip of the line sinks at about half the pace. This makes them ideal for fishing over weed beds where flies are likely to get caught up regularly, and impact your time spent fishing dramatically. The ideal lake box will include each of these lines on spools, with one or two reel casings to make for easy changeovers. Most times I will keep my the same flies tied on, and just snip my tippet off at the fly line loop, change over spools, thread the new line through the guide, and tie the tippet with flies back onto the loop. Often I see anglers not chang-ing lines because it will take too long, but with this set up I can change lines and a minute and be back in the game with a greater chance of success. Tippet set up for pulling on sinking lines is very simple. As the tippet section is quite long, there is no need for a tapered leader, and using one will actually make casting much more difficult, particularly in the wind. My typical set up is for three flies, however these can be tied with longer tippet sections and two flies if necessary. I start with a tippet section tied directly to the braided loop on my fly line 4.5m long, I then tie on two droppers. These droppers should be tied at 1.5 metres and 3 metres from the loop. I prefer to tie my tippet in one long section, with droppers tied onto it rather than tying on in sections. This is because I find it twice as fast to tie, and I also find it to be stronger. For any lake fishing tippet size should be determined by the size of the fish in each lake. My go to is 0.20mm, but often I will fish lighter if the fish are finicky, or heavier if I know the majority of fish in the water a very large. Not all tippets are created equal, so do some research, and try a few out and until you find the one that is right for you. In my opinion confidence in the product is often more important than the product itself.

Get Drifting

Weather will always play the most crucial role in what technique is most effective at any time of day when drifting the lakes. Whilst having good gear, and being able to punch out long casts is im-portant, good decision making will ultimately decide whether or not you are successful. Trial and error and getting out on the water in any and all conditions is for sure the fastest way to learn, but any-time you’re on the water, you’re in with a chance of getting the right drift. Casey Pfeiffer.