More "How To" articles

A Mentor
By Tom Gage

I have always contended that the best fishing is often done miles away from any lake, river or stream. And you might think I mean that the best fish lore is told at the Tavern, but that is not the case I wish to make, so I need to be more specific.

My best fishing often comes during the ride to and from the waters. This probably is because I know of no fisherman that is a worse fisherman then myself (all flyfishers are great fisherman, especially when there are no witnesses, but still some are better then others.) Consequently, anyone I go fishing with is likely to give me some tidbit that could mean the difference between moderate and great fishing. I would like to share some recent examples.

Last fall a couple the club members went up to Coopers creek for a weekend of fishing and camping. The upper sections of the stream can be quite tight, making even rollcasts tedious and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to untangle my line from hemlock branches. There is probably nothing I will ever learn that will prevent that from happening but Mike Bucki offered a conservation tip that had the indirect benefit of getting the hook untangled faster. Of course I'm referring to using barbless hooks, which I never really had the confidence to try till he strongly suggested it.

Luke Bowen took me fishing recently on his favorite North Georgia waters, which require one to use barbless hooks. Access to the stream is limited to certain periods of the day, so time is of the essence here. The barbless hook added at least 30 minutes of pleasurable fishing time to my day by not wasting time trying to free a barb out my shirt. I also caught and released a number of large, unharmed trout.

On the way home we were talking about how great Rain-X works for keeping your windshield clear while raining. Oliver Young suggested I apply it to my line to similarly repel water while stripping line. I tried it the next time I went fishing over at the Palisades, an area where I know every eddy. It was really amazing! Along sections that I normally had to correct the line to fish the far side of a current, the line just danced across the water. I'm going to bottle it with the name anti-drag. Its a great tip.

After loosing a box of nymphs while fishing at dusk on the Chattooga, I started to head back to the car. At the parking lot, a fellow flyfisher suggested I just fish with my only remaining fly, a dry fly. Unfortunately there were no trout rising. "Then tie on a large weight 8" from the fly and fish it as a drowned dry fly". The combination was extremely potent, making loosing the fly box worth it, sort of.

My Dad use to tell me before heading out for the day, "Take it slow, don't ruin the best hole first." Having a lack of patience is something you understand more on the ride home from fishing then before hand. One generally discovers too late the flickering ghosts zipping out of the pool you just stepped into. I now try to fish a culvert or an over-fished portion of a stream first to get in tune with the stream and attempt to stalk the stream as one would while hunting wild game. Then I thrash the "best hole".

It has been a long time since I have been totally skunked on a trip, a LDR or a 3 inch native chasing a #14 will do just fine. This is not bragging, because many of you know that I often catch fish due to no luck or strategy of my own. I thought I was the only person that caught trout while looking into my flybox as my line dead drift down stream. After a moderate day of fishing on the feeder streams to War Woman creek, Oliver Young and I stopped in to pay visit to his old school teacher who now runs a fly fishing store in Highlands. Oliver it turns out had that same experience that day! His schoolmaster knew the problem that had eluded me right off, "Fishing too fast." Since then I have caught a surprising number of fish by letting my line drift down into the tail of a pool and letting it sit there for a moment, on purpose.

Thinking of dead drifting, that's just what Joe Carriveau suggested for fishing the stumps along the stretch down to Settles bridge. Ever notice that Joe can catch fish in a hole you were just in? I was passing over some stumps because to me, the water was too still. Joe had me make a few adjustments; I caught a number of browns by jiggling the line after letting a bead head sit suspended for a few moments. The added motion enticed the fish to strike.

Fly fishing is not known as a team sport, but I think the ride to and from a stream should be. We have many great team players in our club. Anyone ever need a ride, just give a call.

If You Would Teach a [Wo]Man to Fish
By Barbara Mickelson

Did you know that the Atlanta FFC has an outreach program? AFFC member Gene Barrington has taught at a workshop for the past five years offered by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Every year, the DNR offers a program for women to experience the outdoors in all aspects -- hiking, camping, nature skills such as fire-building, pitching a tent, wilderness survival, map and compass, rifle marksmanship, boating, backpacking, hunting, recognizing friendly and unfriendly flora and fauna, canoeing, and fly fishing. This year, the program "On becoming an Outdoors Woman" was offered at the FFA/FHA center in Covington, Georgia.

Gene has taught classes in fly tying and fly fishing. "It's a gratifying experience," he says, "to take a group of women of varying backgrounds --of varying skills levels, some who have never held a fishing rod in their hands or spent much time in the woods and teach them to fish and impart my fascination of the art of fly tying and the sport of flyfishing." For the first time since he began teaching the classes, this year one of his students caught a fish on a fly she tied. The women seemed to totally energize and be excited about their newly acquired skills.

Several other members of the Atlanta FFC assisted Gene in teaching tying five different flies, holding a casting clinic, and then actual hands-on fishing in Lake Jackson. The AFFC members -- Marc Ducharme, Joe Carriveau, Luke Bowen, Tom Gage and his daughter, and myself -- seemed to have gained as much from the experience as the students.

The program grew out of a model program offered by the State of Wisconsin for women who had been in battered relationships. The psychology behind the model was to teach women woodsmen skills to build their self confidence and self sufficiency levels. In Georgia, the DNR offers the program as an entire weekend for any woman who wants to gain a closer look at nature and challenge herself. The program is so popular that there is a waiting list each year.

After fishing in the lake using flies they had tied, the students and teachers were reluctant to leave, and stayed after class to talk more about fishing. One of the students, Sally Richardson, had so much fun she and a friend attended the November meeting of the AFFC.

If you would like to participate in sharing your fly fishing skills next year at the workshop, contact Gene Barrington at (770) 271-3335. Gene also teaches a regular class for AFFC members on fly tying the first Wednesday of each month at the Bass Pro Shop in Norcross.

If you have a wife, daughter, or other female friend who wants to learn more about outdoor skills, register for this three day long seminar (a bargain at $125 because it includes lodging and meals and all the instruction and materials), contact Beth Brown at the Georgia DNR (770) 918-6400.

Happy Landings

You schedule a fishing trip and take off from work to drive to a stream nearly 100 miles away. You load up the car with a few hundred dollars of fine fishing gear and leave for the stream. It is great to be wading in the stream in the cool of the mountain air with the sounds of hidden cicada and birds in the beautiful forest of hemlock, pine and cedar. North Georgia is truly beautiful in the spring.

All is well, and even gets better when a young eleven inch rainbow trout strikes your line and tries to pull the fly rod out of your hand. What happens? You are suddenly aware of the fact that you do not know how to LAND THE FISH. You let go of the fly line with your free hand and the trout starts running. The MONSTROUS AUTOMATIC REEL on your flyrod looks like a jigsaw puzzle to you. But for a helping hand and quick instruction from your fishing partner you might have lost the trout. Suddenly, you remember how to catch a fish with a pole, line, and hook; and, you land the fish.

So, here is my version and specific procedure for landing a fish with a flyrod and a net. You have probably already read about how to control the fly line when casting and setting the hook. These two activities should put you on the stream just after picking up slack in your line and sinking the hook as needed. You have the fish hooked and the fish is doing what hooked fish do....run, jump, and pull for its life.

You should be doing what all flyfishing fanatics do:

1. Taking a deep breath and relaxing with joy. (A soft yell won't spook the fish.)

2. Controlling the fly line with your first two fingers of your rod hand against the grip.

3. Controlling the fly line with your free hand holding the line that is stripped, and beginning to strip more line with the free hand -- as the pull of the trout and the tension due to the bending capacity of the rod and tippet size are matched to perfection. Leave the reel alone.

4a. If the tension of the line due to the bending of the rod is bringing the trout toward you then you continue to strip more line in with your free hand. Let the line either fold in the palm of your hand or let the line fall freely below you in the water or ground, (or stripping basket if you dare.) Continue until the trout is close enough to you with the flyrod at a vertical position. You can now reach the trout with your net. At this point, hold the line tightly with the rod hand and reach for your net with your free hand. Land the fish with the net in your free hand... head first or tail first, which ever goes in best without a jumping match. Continue to relax.

4b. But, if the pull of the fish is exceeding the tension capacity of the rod and tippet rating, STOP RELAXING, reduce rod and line tension by slowly letting out line. If this does not work, point the rod toward the fish and let it run. Strip line off the reel fast enough to keep from breaking the line (or rod.) When the fish slows down or stops the run ok, now... calm down and increase rod and line tension by slowly RAISING the rod and stripping line in from the fish as fast as needed to keep tension on the line. (Stripping may have to be quite fast either in or out if the trout decides to run like mad.) It is at this point that you may experience the greatest satisfaction in fishing. That is to have complete control of yourself and the trout (maybe) so that you and the trout hold positions. The trout swims up stream with no progress and you maintain tension on the line without stripping. The rod tension is enough to equal the tippet strength but no more. You both are working hard but not getting anywhere. It is a little like "time out" in a ball game. You both are equal in pull in your frozen positions but believe me, there is more to come. As you or the fish begins to move about again continue to give and take line by stripping until the fish can be brought within reach of your fish net. Land the fish with the net in your free hand...tail first may be best with this monster to keep him from starting another wild run or jumping spree. Should he not want to stop now then relax and have another round with the fish. Do the same thing again, and again until you have landed the fish as promptly as the fish will let you. Fast landings are generally easier on the fish which is best for all but sometimes risky for the fisher.

5. Take a deep breath. Proudly, measure the fish inside the net in shallow water with wet hands. (I have my net frame marked up to 23 inches for trophy trout measurement.) Promptly and properly return the fish to the stream as your photographer snaps your picture. Anything over 23 inches I will manhandle and use my cloth yard stick.

6. Untangle and reel in your line. Getting back to the fishing trip and the eleven inch trout you caught. You were like a "pro" when you landed the fourteen inch rainbow later. And your concern for not hurting your five inch rainbow when you took the hook out provides you with credentials that all catch and release trout fishers are proud to have especially with barbless hooks.

When you consider these were the first rainbow trout that you ever caught and that you are my lovely daughter, I am very proud. (Yes,I remember you gave me the fly tying vise a long time ago, the gold thread that were the gold ribs of the Bead Head Hares Ear fly that you used to catch the fish, the fingernail polish, the yarn, etc, but what can I say but THANK YOU for such good fishing.)

Happy Landings, Patsy!!!

(submitted by Luke Bowen)

To learn more about Luke Bowen, click on the following link: Gone Fishin'