Reprinted with permission – Rainbow, Brown, and Brook. The rainbow is a westerner by birthright and includes the steelhead, and the brook is a native easterner, but it is not a trout. It’s a char with Maine and Eastern Canada, where the big boys get caught. All three ‘trouts’ found on the Eberle Farmstead. This illustration by world-renowned watercolorist Thom Glace.
After a time, some come to reason that trout fishing ‘ain’t’ all that complicated
By Skip Clement
I watched my friend, Angie Roth, work a tricky portion of a stream on her family’s property, Eberle Farmstead. The large patch of heaven almost bordered three states. The riverine freshwater geography encompassed most of the situations one could encounter.
I heard her say to herself at a tough spot reach: ‘It wouldn’t be the best ploy to take on difficult casts if a softer, easier cast is possible.’
Follow this thinking:
- Be patient and fish every run or pool slowly from the tail-out.
- Resist the temptation to rush up to the head of the pool. You could easily walk past the best fish in the pool, or worse still, you could spook fish up the run.
- If you screw up your cast, let the fly drift back to you before recasting.
- Lifting the line and fly off the water to recast after it has landed off-target is guaranteed to spook your target fish.
- Rather than attempting elaborate reach and curve casts – reposition yourself and employ a simple cast and a drag-free drift.
— Tom Lewin
Making it easier, not harder.
