Kiel continues his introduction, with a walk/ wade up a typical freestone trout stream.

In part one, we looked at some important gear and rigs for fishing a stream. Next, we’ll explore the water, beginning with understanding the different spots on a typical stream, and how to approach them.

Reading the water

I’d say one of the most challenging parts of fishing a stream, is guessing where the feeding trout might be without actually being able to see them. This skill is often called ‘reading the water’ and, in many ways, it’s about percentages. It starts with the knowledge that mostly, trout in a freestone stream are drift feeders. That is, they hold more or less in one spot, while relying on the current to bring food to them. They usually aren’t cruising like lake trout.

While there are lots of places in a river where the trout could be holding, it helps enormously if we can narrow that down to where they should be:

1. A safe place to hide from predators, such as:

• Broken water
• Undercut banks
• Logs & log jams
• Deep water
• Pocket water

2. Feeding lies, being places with a good supply of that drifting food, where the trout also don’t have to use excess energy to get that food. These include:

• Seams
• Riffles
• Bubble-lines (foam is home!)
• Indentations
• Head of a pool
• Tail-out of a pool

Combine 1 and 2 – for example a bubble-line right along a submerged log – and you have the trout equivalent of the jackpot.

Identifying these different places on any given stream will aid in fishing the water more efficiently.

Up a stream

Here’s a crash course on a typical freestone river or stream, where we’ll walk upstream and encounter different types of water. And to stress the point from part 1, keep in mind throughout that, whatever or wherever we’re fishing, providing a natural or ‘dead’ drift for your fly, is one of the most effective things you can do. Mostly, the real trout food will move approximately at the pace of the natural current, so if your fly isn’t behaving the same way, that can be a red flag to a trout.

Tail-out

Heading up our stream, we first find the tail or tail-out of a pool. (Even the term ‘pool’ is rubbery, with the line blurred between a run, a glide and a pool. Sorry!)

This where the water gradually accelerates out of a pool into the rapid or riffle below. The tail can be a good place to find fish rising or nymphing in the water accelerating out of pool, although decent drifts can be a challenge because you’re often casting from faster fly-line dragging water, into slower. The tail-out is a great place for swinging flies, but we might save that for our third trip out, or another article!

Pool
This is usually the deeper, flatter part of the river, where, in the smooth, slow-moving currents, the trout will have to hide from predators in between feeding. Without a hatch or insects falling into the water, pools can be harder to tackle, with feeding fish spread out somewhat randomly. As you walk past, it’s worth a look through those polarised glasses from the list in part 1, especially along shady edges. Arguably though, at this stage of your stream fishing career, it might be best to save your effort for where the current becomes more obvious towards the top part of the pool.

Seams

Slowly walking upstream, we start to find some seams (the boundary between faster and slower water) as the current picks up pace towards the upper part of the pool. Seams are formed when water hits a rock, log, or any other object disrupting the main flow. By holding just off the fast water, trout can find shelter from the full force of the current, while still having easy access to a lot of the food coming down in the main flow.

Seams are certainly one of the best places to put your flies, although an accurate cast and drift is necessary to keep your fly or flies in that Goldilocks zone – not too fast and not too slow! By the way, seams can form on bends. As the river twists and turns, there will be those slow/ fast boundary hot-spots on the inside and outside of the bends.

Head of the pool

This is where shallower, fast-flowing water from upstream, meets the slower, deeper pool. Depending on stream flows and other factors, this can be an area well worth fishing carefully and thoroughly. The trout here have the benefit of broken water and the pool depth for cover, but also access to all the food being swept down from above in the main current.

Riffles

This is the somewhat chaotic rippled water, often above or below a pool, formed in shallower, steeper areas as the current flows over riverbed rubble and gravel. Often overlooked as ‘too shallow’, in fact riffles can be excellent trout habitat. The turbulence and mottled bottom make it easy for trout to hide, while the faster water creates the ‘freestone’ (loose stones) feature that comes with lots of spaces – read aquatic insect habitat – amongst the river-rocks and pebbles. Riffles are best fished with short casts due to drifts being messy. Really focus on any minor depressions or structure (e.g. larger rocks). Often, all of these mini features will appear as slightly darker patches in the riffle.

Pocket water

Again, pocket water is found in the faster, steeper sections of the stream – in this case, where larger rocks or logs create slower, deeper pockets in the chaos. Often these areas are hard to fish and wade due to the quick, messy currents and sudden changes in depth, but the trout love the cover and food provided. As with riffles, this is a place for close combat and short casts.

Undercut banks

Anywhere you find this feature with the current nearby, make sure you drift your flies nice and close. Once again, there’s that magic combo of cover and food.

Bubble-lines

Well-known guide and mate Mr Scott X would egg my house if I didn’t list bubble-lines: ‘lines’ in the current where the foam and bubbles from faster water upstream concentrate. In Scott’s opinion, focusing on bubble-lines is rule number one when stream fishing. The beauty of a bubble-line is it’s almost a perfect white marker of where the much less visible drifting food is also concentrated.

Casting and drifts

As a rule, shorter casts are your friend when fishing freestone streams. It’s easier to be accurate (and not snag those trees behind!), you can see your fly or indicator better, and it’s not as difficult to get a good drift.

On that, there’s no avoiding the fact that good drifts take some practice and skill to achieve, and as mentioned earlier, the right drift is paramount. Unfortunately though, it’s very easy to get drag (the opposite of good drift) on streams. For example, landing your flies in a seam but your fly-line in the quicker water, will result in the quicker water dragging your fly-line downstream faster than the water you’ve landed your flies in.

To aid in good drift, we often need to throw an upstream mend, mid-drift. That’s achieved by flicking your rod tip upstream with the fly-line following. This will extend your drag-free drift by putting a loop of slack in your fly-line, thus delaying the time it takes for it to straighten and ‘drag’ on the fly. The amount of line we mend, and how often, will differ depending on water types. Generally, on the slower water, the larger the mend. Fast water, shorter drift, shorter the mend.

An upstream mend cast can help too. On the last cast before your flies land (the presentation cast), point your rod upstream to lay a mend in the line before it hits the water.

High-sticking (fishing with your rod tip high above the water) can also help with a good drift by minimising the length of fly-line available to ‘drag’ on the water, though it only works with short casts.

If your fly is travelling faster than the bubbles and bits in the current, you’ve got drag. So be your own critic and change things until your drift is right. Trust me, the trout notice.

Practice

When it comes to fishing streams, there are many different casts you could learn (like reach casts) and lots of mends too. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by all the possibilities. But really, getting off the couch, heading to the hills and actually fishing a stream, is the best way to practice the techniques above. It all makes so much more sense when you’re standing in the water actually having a crack!

Take your time, and most of all, have fun.

Further reading: for Victorian stream options, see Philip Weigall’s two guidebooks Flyfishing North-east Victoria, and Flyfishing Western Victoria. For Tasmania, you can’t go past Greg French’s bible Trout Waters of Tasmania. For Australian trout streams generally, just search the regular blogs on this site.