Yesterday one of our regulars walked in and gave me an in-depth report of his trip to Tasmania. He mentioned somewhat sheepishly that in poor light, he managed three lovely trout, dragging the fly behind him in Lake Botsford while wade polaroiding! I can relate to this as I’m sure most flyfishers have experienced this kind of luck from time to time. His story got me thinking about an early lecture in flyfishing and one reiterated in Jim Allen’s column in the first issue of FlyStream magazine. The longer your fly is in the water the more chance you have of catching fish. This simple logic develops into a whole range of techniques we learn as we progress through the sport. For example, the wet fly fisher knows to “fish the hang” or simply fish his fly till he can no further. Our tendency is to want to re-cast because we can’t help but feel we’ve already covered the likely water. However the experienced wet fly fisher shows self control and fishes out the cast, keeping his fly in the water longer.

This early lesson has slowly developed into a competition with a friend of mine. When it comes time to leave, we both need to wind the line back onto the reel. So, during the last cast of the day, we simply cast the fly (with probably more focus than shown through the rest of the day because this is a competition after all!) and then fish the wind in. We retrieve the fly using the reel and we try to impart as much action in the fly as possible by speeding up and slowing down or being jerky with the retrieve. The whole thing lacks finesse but it seems to work all too well. Maybe because we make it count, or maybe it’s just that our fly is in the water for that little bit longer. Regardless, fishing out your bad casts and being confident when your fly is in the water is important, and will result in more fish at the end of the day.