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Tailing Troutand Fishless Days

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Little Pine Lagoon

Little Pine Lagoon

Logan Reid

You’ve just looked up the weather on your favourite app for tomorrow morning, and with excitement you see that the conditions for the first couple hours of light will be perfect for tailing trout. You set up your five-weight fly rod with a floating line and a 4 metre leader, tie on a fly you have confidence in, and then put it in the car ready for what tomorrow brings. Then try and get a good night’s sleep for the planned early start.

The alarm goes off at 4 am and you’re hoping that two things will be play out. One: the conditions will be good, like the forecast and fish will be moving around in the shallows. Two; you hope two hours of sleep will do you for the long day of fishing ahead. It’s now time to get out of bed, switch the jug on to make yourself a coffee or hot chocolate and turn the car on to warm up. After you’ve made your warm drink in a thermos you hop into the car and head off to the edge of the lake. The time is 4:45 am and you can see the first bit of light, you walk down to the water, which is only a short 50-metre wander, and there right in front of you, you see your first trout! You unhook your dry fly and present it nicely to the fish. The fish starts moving towards your fly and the adrenaline starts to kick in. The fish is right underneath your fly and you’re ready to strike and set the hook. But the fish continues past your fly so you re-present to the fish and it swims under your fly a second time. It might just be that fish that doesn’t want the dry so you move on to another fish only a few metres down the bank and present your fly again but the same outcome occurs.

Okay, it’s time to try something different. You tie on a small unweighted wet and the next fish you see you cast half a metre in front and half a metre across from the fish and give the fly a little bit of movement. The fish sees your fly and immediately reacts and bow waves to your fly. Here we go we’re about to get a take. The fish comes right over to your fly and just sits behind it for a while before refusing your fly leaving you wondering why he bow waved it in the first place.

A little disappointed but not discouraged, you look for another fish. You’ll have five more opportunities before the sun comes up and shuts the tailers down. You get the same reactions to your fly by the most of the trout. Apart from the last fish, this fish bow waves to your fly and takes it! The adrenaline makes you do a marlin-worthy hook set and the fly comes right out of the fish’s mouth. That was your last chance of the morning, bugger!!

Fly choice for tailing trout

For tailing trout, I like to use a small unweighted wet fly in about a size 10 hook. The reason I like a wet is that I believe the fish is more likely to see it when it is tailing and looking at the bottom of the lake. Another reason is you often get some pretty cool takes with fish bow waving towards your fly. My go-to wet flies are Fur Flies, small black Woolly Buggers and also Mr Simpsons, they both have a slow sink rate which hovers in a fish’s face and won’t sink to the bottom. Sometimes

I’ll use a single dry fly or a dry dropper rig for tailing trout. When fish are not in the mood to chase flies, a dry dropper is a great way to sit a nymph in front of a fish and get a take that way. If you have a lot of weed growth where you are fishing and a wet fly or a nymph is getting stuck on the bottom then using a single dry fly is often the go. Good dry flies are Red Tags, small black beetles and Shaving Brushes or emergers.

Line, Leader and Tippet

The fly line I have been using for a while now is the Scientific Anglers Amplitude Smooth Infinity line. This line is good for both long casting and fishing short. To this, I’ll add a 9-foot tapered leader (2.5 metres) and off the end of that I’ll add about another metre of 6-pound tippet. All up my leader and tippet system will be about three and a half metres in length meaning that my fly line is a long way from the spooky tailing trout.

Rod and Reel

For tailing trout, I like a lighter rod, something like a four or five-weight fly rod, but a six-weight is fine too. Lately, the rod I have been using for this is the Pisces Turbo in a 5-weight. It’s a nice rod that has a powerful fast action that can punch into the wind if needed but is also able to present a fly lightly without making too much disturbance on the water for those still and calm mornings. The type of reel really isn’t that important as all they are is a line holder. You just need something with a smooth drag to not break off fish when they run after you set the hook in shallow water. The reel I am using at the moment is the Orvis ClearWater Large Arbor II reel. The smooth drag is the reason I like this particular reel but as I said before the main part of a reel is just a line holder. Other reels that are suited for tailing trout and are budget friendly are the Flylab EXO fly reel, ECHO ION fly reel and the Sage spectrum C series fly reel.

Adding Movement

Every day on the water is different. Some days fish will want movement added to the fly, some days all they need is a static fly. You won’t know what they want until you try something. A static dry fly is often a good way to start as having the fly just sitting there is unlikely to spook a fish. But sometimes a static fly won’t be noticed by a fish tailing and feeding heavily amongst the grass. Sometimes giving your dry a skate across the water when the fish is within a metre of your fly is enough to get him to turn his head up as he notices the disturbance above him. Though probably my favourite way to target a tailing trout is with a small unweighted wet fly cast a metre across from the fish and a metre in front of a sighted moving fish and then retrieved with a figure eight in a fishes feeding line. I believe that having a fly subsurface means that it’s easier for a fish to see it, also it’s very exciting to see a fish bow wave over to your fly after it has noticed it!

Tracking A Tailing Trout

I find that the best way to catch a tailing trout is to cast in front of him and strip a small wet fly in front of him. But how do you know which way the fish is travelling in? You will need to watch a fish and observe him. Is he moving in a straight line or zigzagging? Is he moving from right to left or left to right? These are important things to find out to make a plan and maximise your chances of fooling a fish.

Enjoying Time On The Water

If you’re not enjoying your time on the water then what are you there for? Look, catching fish is great but it doesn’t always happen. So make the best out of your day on the water and remember to enjoy it. The true test of a fisherman is to see how many fishing trips you can go on without catching a fish and not giving up. I had a two-month dry period last season where I just couldn’t catch a fish. I could find fish and get touches but I could put it all together, but that’s fishing. These days are important though, it’s when you learn the most! Those days on the water will leave you wondering why the fish were so tough and you’ll try to work them out in your head for next time.

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