Establishing a Pattern

It was a Saturday morning and Bill Dance was tearing up his local bass pond and endorsing a new hard-body crankbait on national television; it had a wide wobble and a long soft tail.  As his rod went bent along every point and tree branch, Bill said something that I will never forget, “The wrong lure in the right place is still better than the right lure in the wrong place”.

           

Mr. Dance was certainly not prospecting Kentucky Lake for a magic school of bass on off-shore structure that day.  Even more ironic was the amount of time spent discussing rod, lure, and tackle during that episode.  Professional bass fishermen are primarily distinguished by their ability to locate fish.  In bass fishing, establishing a “pattern” is locating fish in a specific set of environmental conditions and attempting to fish those same factors across the lake to put more fish in the live well.  To find a pattern, bass fisherman pay great attention to where they catch fish, not what they catch fish on.  Typically, once fish are located, they can be caught using a variety of techniques and lures.     

           

If we are fishing the upper Fryingpan, location may not be as relevant as a good pair of polarized glasses and some trained eyes.  When we make the transition to fishing bigger water like the Roaring Fork and Colorado, attention to location can pay dividends.  The same environmental conditions come into play: current speed, depth, water temperature, light levels, shade, food, spawning ritual, moon phase, water levels, time of day, time of year, structure, cover and so on. How often do we hear an angler ask: Where are you finding your fish? How are you rigging that leader?  What are you using?  If our presentation, rigging, and location are off, that special fly or lure is obsolete. 

           

Experienced float fisherman capitalize on location throughout the year and often throughout the day.  A boat may leave the ramp in early August fishing streamers up against the bank or putting caddis and spinners in tight on the seam to raise trout looking up.  In the afternoon, those same fish are likely seeking cooler flows and more oxygen out away from the bank as temperature and light level increases.  A cloudy fall afternoon with baetis hatching may call for dropping some weight and getting that fly in tighter to the softer flows and seams to find more suspended fish.  Where fish are feeding in the water column is a frequently overlooked aspect of proper rigging and boat or wading position. 

Now, in the heart of winter, a softer flow in the middle third of the run or pool is the ticket.  Bombing the egg rig deep will sometimes fail as fish move into calmer flows to feed on midges.  The key may be rigging a shorter, lighter leader and getting rid of the egg that was so magical in November.  A slowly falling rig will stay in front of these midge grazing trout longer and trigger more strikes.  Trout often use the same type of water to feed on certain insects throughout the year.  Fish pushing into the heads of riffles and runs during the Mother’s Day caddis emergence is a prime example.  Once we dial in where the fish prefer to feed we can direct our attention to those areas of the river, effectively ruling out a lot of water.  Fly selection can be secondary.  

           

On a given day, many anglers ply the same water here in the Roaring Fork Valley.  Many fisherman and guides leave the shop full of hope.  Some days we catch them and some days we don’t.  My father reminds me that there are a million and one excuses for why the fish are not biting; a perennial favorite is barometric pressure.  It can be hard to admit that we just could not catch them, outwitted by a fish.  The term “slow” fishing can be an ego defense mechanism.  Rest assured, on tougher days when we are in the struggle box, there is a fisherman bright eyed and bending somewhere on the river.  He is either full of luck or has figured out a piece of the puzzle that we have not.  Perhaps this is the challenge that motivates us, keeps us coming back to the river.  

Article by Chris Kish

Photos by Kirk Webb, Chris Kish
Reprinted from Taylor Creek's annual publication, The Fly on the Wall 2014