Brian was up. We'd spent the day sighting browns in heavy cover and got a few good breaks. Most fish were straight ahead, both he and I could see them from our respective vantages. This one was different. Plain to see, my vantage was gold. He sort of saw the fish when he stepped on the bank and I showed him where. I think he was more relying on the sporadic rises to position the fish. The trouble was that the rises were not always on spot with its lie, often to the right. And with that, his cast landed slightly to the right and a foot downstream of the trout.
To this point of the day, he'd not had to rely on my communication, having been able to see the movement of every fish we'd spotted. This was different. As his cast land, the bead headed nymph plopped. The fish's lateral line keyed up and detected its presence. It turned a snaking 180 a foot to its right, moving downstream.
"Here he comes!" I called.
As the well laid out nymph began its pendulum drop in the water column below the dry, the large brown took the nymph and continued downstream with the flow of water. I saw its large, incredibly large, white mouth open wide. "Set! Set! Set!" I called to Brian. The dry fly never moved. Brian had no reaction. The fish continued down, its large, incredibly large, white mouth opened once more to release the nymph as I continued to call. Finally, after a two seconds of calling, he set. By then the fish had left the nymph alone and had become reclusive, shy.
I described what had happened. Having anticipated the dry fly movement, he missed it altogether. Having seen everything, I was beside myself. We both were enthralled at the engagement, mind you. We left that moment with a clear understanding that when the spotter calls, the angler responds in a controlled manner.
We stepped 5 yards upstream and a nice brown was coming slowly down the middle of the current. I called to place a cast 2 rod lengths up, literally anywhere mid stream. His cast hooked to my shore, a rod length away in the bright afternoon sun. The fish had already moved downstream of the cast. The plop of the nymph dropper was again picked up by the lateral line. The nice male turned 120 degrees and came back upstream, angled right at the bank below my feet. "Here he comes!" It rose in the water column. Like watching golden trout feed, it flared its pectoral fins to slow. But it lurched forward. "He's giving it a good look". And then its large, white mouth opened and closed. "Set! Set! Set!" I called out. By my second "Set!", the fish was well hooked.
In both cases, the browns relied on the lateral line to pick up food falling into the water. It was glorious to watch, a completely enthralling set of engagements. The day had gone that way for us. But it served as a reminder that the downstream take/feed is such an important thing to be aware of. It likely happens a third of the time as our casts don't quite cover the 'proper' water when fishing tight to structure, unable to cover the fish with the best drift above and down to the fish's location. It's in those circumstances I really try my best to get a good look to spotting trout in order to help my guests with the best chances of landing what is often a very nice brown. Sight-fishing is a wonderful game. And there are many opportunities in Alberta to enjoy it. If interested in joining us next season, please email info@flyfishalberta.com
Cheers
Dave Jensen
