How to Read the Water

This is a very, very typical riffle, run, pool situation that you guys are going to see on a trout stream. What we mean by riffle, run, pool, that we were talking about a little earlier was, the fact that this area that I am looking at right here is the riffle. It's broken water, it's choppy, it's relatively shallow; if I get into it, you can see, it's relatively shallow. And in most situations the fish aren't necessarily right up here in the riffle. But on the flip side, when we looked at insects before, a lot of insects live in this kind of water, so this is kind of the buffet line. This is the conveyor belt that's bringing food down to those fish. So as I kind of walk downstream, this is a longer riffle. It's kind of that shin deep, that kind of a situation. But as I keep moving down, you are going to see that the depth is going to start to change, and it's going to move into what we call the run. And what the run is, it's going to kind of start right around in here. What the run is, is it's going to be a little deeper piece of water, and it's going to be better holding water for fish. There is going to be larger boulders in the bottom, places for trout to hide behind, and they have all of that food coming down towards them. So as I keep going down, you will see that it continually gets deeper; this starts to get into more of the heart of that run. It went from shin deep, to getting closer to knee deep, keep strapping down. So a lot of times in a hatch situation or when insects are coming off, the fish will line up in this area and intercept those bugs. In fact, the mayflies that we talked about earlier, the blue-winged olives. The blue-winged olives all hatch up in that skinny, skinny riffle water. And then as they are sitting on the surface and their wings are drying, they are floating downstream, and the trout will be lined up in these areas, intercepting them. Now, you have the riffle, you have the run, and a lot of times run is a wonderful place to find fish, but a lot of times the deepest water is going to hold some of the biggest fish, and that would be called the pool. If I keep walking down, you are going to start to see the pool. And a good idea of how can you identify the pool is, you can see there are bubbles on the water, and there is what's called a bubble line. That's where faster water and slower water can meet, and that will show that there is current changes, and a lot of times it's also indicating depth. So I am going to walk down here and show you where the pool would be. Still nice deep water, good holding water for fish. And now we gain some depth. And in fact, I don't want to walk a whole lot further, because it's going to kind of fall into the abyss. But this water is where you are going to find big fish, and that's where we are going to start. Where are we going to actually start fishing this? Do you run right into the riffle? Do you go right to the run? Do you jump right into the pool? How do you go and break this apart? Now, the key thing to this is that everyone of our spring creeks is the exact same thing. Riffle, run, pool, they might be longer riffle, run, pool sections like this, or they might be compact and shorter. Let's take a look at how we fish this. Now, what we are going to do is we are going to approach this. We just talked about the riffle, run, pool situation, and if I am fishing a dry fly, or I am fishing a nymph, or anything like that, I am typically casting it upstream and allowing the current to come down to me. So I will be making a cast kind of upstream, or up and across, and allowing the fly to come back down to me. So I am going to sneak in there and try to make a couple of casts. Sneaking in real slow, trying to be stealthy. Don't cast shadows. And a lot of times my first casts aren't over the water, they might be over the bank itself, and then make your cast into the water. See, I am allowing that fly to drift down naturally. I would systematically work my way forward, all the way up from the bottom of the pool, into the run, and then into that riffle itself. Make one more cast in here. I have got a little bit of salad. What I would do then is sneak out, get myself into position, and make my cast back up. Kind of systematically working all the way back up. The only time this may change is if I have rising fish or fish eating on the surface just in front of me, oh, it's awfully hard to resist not going in and casting to those fish. And then continually working up into that run. Nothing here. Move on up. Keeping a low profile. It would keep working all the way up, and that's how I would fish this section. Maybe one more cast in there. But as you can see, it's an art form. It's a combination of what flies do I use, how do I find where the fish are, that riffle, run concept, and putting it all together. When you can finally put all of those components together and start catching fish effectively and efficiently and delivering the fly where you want to, the whole sport really comes together for you. It's just an absolute joy. But keep getting out there, don't get frustrated, and keep after it. Until next time, we will see you on the river. This one is kind of devoid. There are so many different insects that are in here, and that's what I want to talk about is caddisflies, mayflies, stoneflies, maybe some of the scuds, that are freshwater shrimp, which make up an enormous population of what the trout's diet is in this river system. That's a high protein item for a trout, and that creates big trout.