Techniques

Technique notes

The working techniques underneath every river guide, written so they can be used at the waterside rather than admired from an armchair.

• Reading water

  Finding the 20 per cent of the river that holds 80 per cent of the fish, before you make a cast.

  Every session, before you rig up.

• Matching a hatch

  Working out what the fish are eating, then deciding whether to match it or to break the rules.

  Whenever fish are visibly rising.

• Nymphing

  Getting a fly to the bottom and knowing when a fish has taken it.

  Any time nothing is rising, which is most of the time.

• Dry-fly presentation

  Making a fly float over a fish without the fish ever seeing the leader.

  Whenever fish are looking up and the water is clear.

• Streamer fishing

  Chasing the biggest, least selective fish in the river with a moving fly.

  High or coloured water, dawn, dusk, and all winter.

• Swinging a fly

  Covering a wide river with a controlled arc, the way salmon and steelhead are fished.

  Cold water, big rivers, and any anadromous fish.

• Catch and release, done properly

  The difference between a fish that swims away and a fish that dies three hours later.

  On every fish you are not keeping.

• Tying flies you will actually fish

  A short list of patterns that covers most of a season, and what to get right on each.

  Winter evenings, before the season opens.