Post by splash on Apr 7, 2007 12:30:47 GMT
Approaching Salmon Fishing from a Trout Anglers Perspective
About 5-6 years ago, the group of fanatical trout anglers that I fished with started to become increasingly disillusioned with the UK stillwater trout fishing scene and the competition arena, with its win at all costs, petty jealousies, lack of angling etiquette and emphasis on lure stripping in particular. We therefore started spending a lot of time concentrating on alternatives like fishing for wild brown trout in both rivers and remote loch destinations, pike fishing and UK salthingyer fly fishing. I had already started serious salthingyer destination fishing five years earlier, but there was still a gap; therefore I finally contemplated salmon fishing….
Now this required a substantial leap of faith on my part. While I had caught a number of salmon and sea trout over the years fishing for trout or grayling or when spinning, my views on salmon fishing were rather extreme. There was no cause and effect; if the fish were there you caught them, if they were not you didn’t. It was in main something done by tweedie folks (still is in many places) and there seemed to be very few progressive attitudes in the game. I had a lot to learn.
Five seasons later and after a lot of mistakes, I think I’ve managed to evolve into a reasonably competent salmon angler catching around 25-30 fish a season. More importantly, I now feel a confident salmon angler and expect to catch a fish every time I go out fishing which does not seem to be the norm in the salmon fishing world. I’d like to share some of these perspectives in this thread and discuss the success factors needed to make a successful transition from trout to salmon fishing and how you can apply skills learnt in trout fishing to the salmon fishing world.
Preparation
The background reading must be done to get you up to speed on the theory. Personally, I found this to be of limited use compared with time spent on the water although the two Falkus books did provide useful background. Then I read Francis Grant’s book, “Salmon Fishing The Dynamics Approach”. It was like a eureka moment. Here was someone who was clearly thinking about things in a different dimension; how his fly was fishing all the time, the effect of current, flow, conditions, time of day, water height, fly size and weight. He was totally focused, he was totally dedicated, he was confident and he was always thinking about how he could approach a pool or a lie from a particular way. He didn’t just bang it out at 45 degrees or square, but took each pool as part of an overall days plan, well thought out and executed. I was hooked and realised it was possible to approach salmon fishing in the same dedicated way as I could approach trout fishing. people seem to be ambivalent about Grant and I have read some fairly derogatory comments about him as a man but his almost professional approach was unlike anything else I had ever read on salmon fishing and made my re-evaluate my own approach to the game
Rods, Systems, Casting and Presentation
I taught myself to Spey cast. I bought the wrong rod. I watched all the DVD’s and read the books. I asked ghillies for help. This was a very bad idea. After two seasons of indifferent and inconsistent casting and increasing frustration at not always being able to cover a pool, I decided to do something about it and went to see Eoin Fairgrieve. It took Eoin about 5 minutes to analyse my faults and set about the improvement required. After 20 minutes, he told me to put down my Thomas and Thomas 15fter and gave me a Loop Blue Line 14fter. I put the line out 30 yards across the pool first cast. “Sell the T&T on eBay it’s not right for your casting style” said Eoin. I had purchased the T&T because I loved their trout and salthingyer rods but the big Spey rod was too much for me at that stage in my salmon fishing career. I’ve now settled on Loop Grey Line and Guideline LeCie MF rods and with these I can fish all day confidently and in comfort. You don’t need to be a big caster to catch salmon but having the long cast in your armoury certainly helps at times. A good example of this can be had when fishing the collie square on the Village pool at Kincardine on the Dee, where a big cast to the far bank will see you cover more fish but in general accuracy and positioning are the most important factors in my humble opinion
The ability to place the fly precisely where you want it, in order that you can both cover the water and fish the fly effectively are success factors whether you are casting at a rising trout with a small dry fly or covering a lie at 35yards on a salmon pool. Good casting technique will help you do this, so if you are transitioning to salmon fishing from trout fishing seek the counsel of a good instructor. It sounds obvious but it’s the best investment you will make in your salmon fishing career.
Optimising Your Set Up
In early spring and at the back end, I find myself almost exclusively using shooting heads, not to achieve great distances but because its so easy to get water coverage and place the fly exactly where I want it with minimum effort even when its blowing a hooly. The Guideline and Loop adapted shooting head systems are excellent for this purpose and are easily Spey cast. Use an appropriate poly-leader or tip from a multi-tip Spey line if you need additional length to anchor the D. Spring and Summer sees an easy transition to lines like the Rio Midspey and Snowbee 2D and you have a simple system that will cover you all season
Find a Group of Likeminded Friends
Anyone who is a member of a fishing club or who has ever fished in a competition will know that sharing of information is paramount to success. The knowledge gained from listening to guys who are on the water at every conceivable opportunity is the quickest way to learn in any type of fishing. In my opinion this is even more important in salmon fishing. Why? Well two main reasons. Firstly, salmon fishing is almost always a solitary pursuit. You turn up at the river to fish or are assigned a pool by the ghillie and off you go until returning to the hut at lunchtime to compare notes. I have been lucky in that some of my trout fishing friends were also salmon fishers and this provided an introduction to the salmon fishing world. These guys have forgotten more than I will ever learn and have helped me form mental maps of pools and beats which would have taken me years if not decades to learn on my own. The best salmon angler I know once told me that it took him over 10 years to work out how to fish a particular pool and then told me precisely how to fish it. You can’t get this type of knowledge from books or from simply turning up and trying to read a pool yourself.
Many of these guys write on this forum and leveraging their knowledge is invaluable. A good example: Collie Dog and I fished Portnacaig on the Tummel last Saturday. Donnie W a forum member came down and showed us the essential features of the beat. Low water and few fish meant we didn’t catch anything but I sure felt that I knew a lot more about the beat than I would have done had gone there myself. Secondly, if you get in tow with an experienced crew, they will generally know the beat and be comfortable to fish on their own, often leaving you with exclusive access to the ghillie and yet more opportunity to learn about the taking spots on the beat. Most good ghillies know their beats intimately and are more than happy to impart that knowledge. Just ignore them when they “advise” you how to cast…..
If you don’t know any salmon fishers the forum can really help here with fishing being offered on a regular basis. If you are keen and want to get on, snap it up, you will make contacts and with a bit of luck future fishing friendships to boot. A word of warning here though and it’s an important point for anyone short of confidence. On a good beat with fish in the pools and good anglers fishing, you will suffer the occasional hounding. P.A.T five, Splash nil on the Dee one morning during last years spring run comes to mind. You must not get despondent and should take time to ask successful anglers what method they were using, how they approached the pool and what tactics they employed. You will learn quickly if you take this approach. This brings me to…
Magic Fly Men
If I had a pound for every time I have heard a variant of this story after trout fishing trips, I’d be a rich man. Consider the following .Successful angler comes in with a big bag of fish.
Unsuccessful Angler “What did you catch them on”
Successful Angler “Dunkeld”
Unsuccessful Angler shaking his head and walking off “I had a Dunkeld on all day and never had a touch”
Off course, what the unsuccessful angler does not ask was what line type, retrieve, speed, fly size, tactics, etc that the successful angler employed. This is much more important then fly pattern. There are no magic flies.
Grant recognised this in his book, choosing to take the argument even further by limiting his choice to two patterns. I love fly tying and like to experiment with fly types but this should never be to the detriment of presentation. Learn the important aspects of how to present your fly properly at all water heights and it will pay you back in spades.
Persistence and an Open Mind
The ability to rapidly adapt to changing conditions is the single biggest factor that determines the successful trout angler and in particular the guys who regularly come in with big bags and win competitions. In my opinion the same thing exists in salmon fishing with the best anglers being those who constantly look at how a pool will fish in a given height of water and adapt their tactics to suit. Modern salmon fishing should not be a one dimensional sport and the fact that the evolution of recent developments in the sport have come primarily from Scandinavia and the USA should be food for thought for the thinking angler in this country. Persistence is a quality that we all need to have its not always about plugging away hour on hour with the same methods but systematically going through your repertoire until you find the formula. This winter I caught a number of salmon while fishing for grayling. Some of these were early running spring fish and fresh as paint and were caught on small Czech nymphs or trotted maggots. It makes you think about the tactics we employ routinely.
Trout to Salmon
So gentlemen, some food for thought. An article in this months Trout and Salmon suggests that Trout fishers rarely a make good salmon fishers. Now apart from the single element of striking fish, I would contend that nothing should be further from the truth. Watercraft, casting ability, stealth, persistence, ability to read the water and adapt to the prevailing conditions are a common denominator in all types of fishing. When I fish for bone fish I know I have to strip strike, when I fish for salmon I fish off the reel, it’s really as simple as that.
Look forward to your feedback
Splash
About 5-6 years ago, the group of fanatical trout anglers that I fished with started to become increasingly disillusioned with the UK stillwater trout fishing scene and the competition arena, with its win at all costs, petty jealousies, lack of angling etiquette and emphasis on lure stripping in particular. We therefore started spending a lot of time concentrating on alternatives like fishing for wild brown trout in both rivers and remote loch destinations, pike fishing and UK salthingyer fly fishing. I had already started serious salthingyer destination fishing five years earlier, but there was still a gap; therefore I finally contemplated salmon fishing….
Now this required a substantial leap of faith on my part. While I had caught a number of salmon and sea trout over the years fishing for trout or grayling or when spinning, my views on salmon fishing were rather extreme. There was no cause and effect; if the fish were there you caught them, if they were not you didn’t. It was in main something done by tweedie folks (still is in many places) and there seemed to be very few progressive attitudes in the game. I had a lot to learn.
Five seasons later and after a lot of mistakes, I think I’ve managed to evolve into a reasonably competent salmon angler catching around 25-30 fish a season. More importantly, I now feel a confident salmon angler and expect to catch a fish every time I go out fishing which does not seem to be the norm in the salmon fishing world. I’d like to share some of these perspectives in this thread and discuss the success factors needed to make a successful transition from trout to salmon fishing and how you can apply skills learnt in trout fishing to the salmon fishing world.
Preparation
The background reading must be done to get you up to speed on the theory. Personally, I found this to be of limited use compared with time spent on the water although the two Falkus books did provide useful background. Then I read Francis Grant’s book, “Salmon Fishing The Dynamics Approach”. It was like a eureka moment. Here was someone who was clearly thinking about things in a different dimension; how his fly was fishing all the time, the effect of current, flow, conditions, time of day, water height, fly size and weight. He was totally focused, he was totally dedicated, he was confident and he was always thinking about how he could approach a pool or a lie from a particular way. He didn’t just bang it out at 45 degrees or square, but took each pool as part of an overall days plan, well thought out and executed. I was hooked and realised it was possible to approach salmon fishing in the same dedicated way as I could approach trout fishing. people seem to be ambivalent about Grant and I have read some fairly derogatory comments about him as a man but his almost professional approach was unlike anything else I had ever read on salmon fishing and made my re-evaluate my own approach to the game
Rods, Systems, Casting and Presentation
I taught myself to Spey cast. I bought the wrong rod. I watched all the DVD’s and read the books. I asked ghillies for help. This was a very bad idea. After two seasons of indifferent and inconsistent casting and increasing frustration at not always being able to cover a pool, I decided to do something about it and went to see Eoin Fairgrieve. It took Eoin about 5 minutes to analyse my faults and set about the improvement required. After 20 minutes, he told me to put down my Thomas and Thomas 15fter and gave me a Loop Blue Line 14fter. I put the line out 30 yards across the pool first cast. “Sell the T&T on eBay it’s not right for your casting style” said Eoin. I had purchased the T&T because I loved their trout and salthingyer rods but the big Spey rod was too much for me at that stage in my salmon fishing career. I’ve now settled on Loop Grey Line and Guideline LeCie MF rods and with these I can fish all day confidently and in comfort. You don’t need to be a big caster to catch salmon but having the long cast in your armoury certainly helps at times. A good example of this can be had when fishing the collie square on the Village pool at Kincardine on the Dee, where a big cast to the far bank will see you cover more fish but in general accuracy and positioning are the most important factors in my humble opinion
The ability to place the fly precisely where you want it, in order that you can both cover the water and fish the fly effectively are success factors whether you are casting at a rising trout with a small dry fly or covering a lie at 35yards on a salmon pool. Good casting technique will help you do this, so if you are transitioning to salmon fishing from trout fishing seek the counsel of a good instructor. It sounds obvious but it’s the best investment you will make in your salmon fishing career.
Optimising Your Set Up
In early spring and at the back end, I find myself almost exclusively using shooting heads, not to achieve great distances but because its so easy to get water coverage and place the fly exactly where I want it with minimum effort even when its blowing a hooly. The Guideline and Loop adapted shooting head systems are excellent for this purpose and are easily Spey cast. Use an appropriate poly-leader or tip from a multi-tip Spey line if you need additional length to anchor the D. Spring and Summer sees an easy transition to lines like the Rio Midspey and Snowbee 2D and you have a simple system that will cover you all season
Find a Group of Likeminded Friends
Anyone who is a member of a fishing club or who has ever fished in a competition will know that sharing of information is paramount to success. The knowledge gained from listening to guys who are on the water at every conceivable opportunity is the quickest way to learn in any type of fishing. In my opinion this is even more important in salmon fishing. Why? Well two main reasons. Firstly, salmon fishing is almost always a solitary pursuit. You turn up at the river to fish or are assigned a pool by the ghillie and off you go until returning to the hut at lunchtime to compare notes. I have been lucky in that some of my trout fishing friends were also salmon fishers and this provided an introduction to the salmon fishing world. These guys have forgotten more than I will ever learn and have helped me form mental maps of pools and beats which would have taken me years if not decades to learn on my own. The best salmon angler I know once told me that it took him over 10 years to work out how to fish a particular pool and then told me precisely how to fish it. You can’t get this type of knowledge from books or from simply turning up and trying to read a pool yourself.
Many of these guys write on this forum and leveraging their knowledge is invaluable. A good example: Collie Dog and I fished Portnacaig on the Tummel last Saturday. Donnie W a forum member came down and showed us the essential features of the beat. Low water and few fish meant we didn’t catch anything but I sure felt that I knew a lot more about the beat than I would have done had gone there myself. Secondly, if you get in tow with an experienced crew, they will generally know the beat and be comfortable to fish on their own, often leaving you with exclusive access to the ghillie and yet more opportunity to learn about the taking spots on the beat. Most good ghillies know their beats intimately and are more than happy to impart that knowledge. Just ignore them when they “advise” you how to cast…..
If you don’t know any salmon fishers the forum can really help here with fishing being offered on a regular basis. If you are keen and want to get on, snap it up, you will make contacts and with a bit of luck future fishing friendships to boot. A word of warning here though and it’s an important point for anyone short of confidence. On a good beat with fish in the pools and good anglers fishing, you will suffer the occasional hounding. P.A.T five, Splash nil on the Dee one morning during last years spring run comes to mind. You must not get despondent and should take time to ask successful anglers what method they were using, how they approached the pool and what tactics they employed. You will learn quickly if you take this approach. This brings me to…
Magic Fly Men
If I had a pound for every time I have heard a variant of this story after trout fishing trips, I’d be a rich man. Consider the following .Successful angler comes in with a big bag of fish.
Unsuccessful Angler “What did you catch them on”
Successful Angler “Dunkeld”
Unsuccessful Angler shaking his head and walking off “I had a Dunkeld on all day and never had a touch”
Off course, what the unsuccessful angler does not ask was what line type, retrieve, speed, fly size, tactics, etc that the successful angler employed. This is much more important then fly pattern. There are no magic flies.
Grant recognised this in his book, choosing to take the argument even further by limiting his choice to two patterns. I love fly tying and like to experiment with fly types but this should never be to the detriment of presentation. Learn the important aspects of how to present your fly properly at all water heights and it will pay you back in spades.Persistence and an Open Mind
The ability to rapidly adapt to changing conditions is the single biggest factor that determines the successful trout angler and in particular the guys who regularly come in with big bags and win competitions. In my opinion the same thing exists in salmon fishing with the best anglers being those who constantly look at how a pool will fish in a given height of water and adapt their tactics to suit. Modern salmon fishing should not be a one dimensional sport and the fact that the evolution of recent developments in the sport have come primarily from Scandinavia and the USA should be food for thought for the thinking angler in this country. Persistence is a quality that we all need to have its not always about plugging away hour on hour with the same methods but systematically going through your repertoire until you find the formula. This winter I caught a number of salmon while fishing for grayling. Some of these were early running spring fish and fresh as paint and were caught on small Czech nymphs or trotted maggots. It makes you think about the tactics we employ routinely.
Trout to Salmon
So gentlemen, some food for thought. An article in this months Trout and Salmon suggests that Trout fishers rarely a make good salmon fishers. Now apart from the single element of striking fish, I would contend that nothing should be further from the truth. Watercraft, casting ability, stealth, persistence, ability to read the water and adapt to the prevailing conditions are a common denominator in all types of fishing. When I fish for bone fish I know I have to strip strike, when I fish for salmon I fish off the reel, it’s really as simple as that.
Look forward to your feedback
Splash
