Confidence in Fly Fishing
Remember how nervous you were when you did your first real overhead cast? Not the practice casting you did in the back yard - but your first time with a fly rod on a stream. You outgrew that right? Sometimes the only thing lacking to make a successful day of fly fishing is a confidence in your own abilities. And not just your fly casting ability. Confidence in Fly Fishing
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For those of you who, like me, have memories of fishing that pre-date
memories of school, think back to as many fishing partners and trips as you
can. Even those people you only went fishing with once. Then try to
recall times where the success or failure of a fly fisherman seemed to lie
strictly on the fly fisherman’s confidence. If you think about it in
these terms, I bet you can remember numerous times, when an angler’s,
confidence or lack thereof, either doomed them or buoyed then until they started
catching fish.
At times the success of a confident fly fishing angler can be attributed to
persistence. An angler, confident in their abilities is just going to fish
longer when things don’t start hopping right away. But other days when
all things are equal, the fisherman with the most confidence often catches the
most fish.
Three quick stories come to mind illustrate this.
A few years ago, I was steelheading with a couple of fly fishing
buddies. Unlike me, these guys weren’t purists and we were using
terminal gear. Although we were just dead-drifting jigs, very similar to
fly fishing, I felt about as coordinated as a monkey performing brain
surgery.
As the day wore on, more and more steelies were caught.
Huge steelies, the biggest I had ever seen! None by me. I could feel
my confidence shrinking. And I mean my confidence in all kinds of things,
like being able to read the river, being able to detect a strike. Things
that had no connection to me using unfamiliar gear. The pressure inside my
head built, until I HAD to catch a fish. I didn’t catch one fish that
day, although I finally had a strike, and set the hook so hard I jerked it right
out of the fish’s mouth. And I fished longer and harder than anyone else
on the trip.
Another story is almost reverse.
Here in Maupin, the Deschutes River
fills with fly fisherman every May and early June for the Giant Salmonfly
hatch. It is a carnival of fly fishing. One year I was drifting with
a couple of accomplished anglers, who were nevertheless apprehensive about
fishing such a well-known hatch. A hatch documented throughout fly fishing
literature. With crowds of anglers as spectators to one another.
Despite all the drift boats and bank anglers I know a spot or two that are constantly
overlooked and are rarely fished. I set both guys up with the exact
rigging I use. I put them in the best two spots and made lunch, while they
flogged the water to no avail.
Despite their long fishing experience they
were unaccustomed to the big water and the feeling of being in a spotlight, and
seemed to do everything with uncertainty. After lunch I nailed numerous
trout with virtually no effort. Pointed out fish lying behind rocks and
caught them. It was a display they still talk about some years later.
Another day I was fishing alone, in water I know like the palm of my hand,
and was getting skunked. Fishing all my usual water, using all my usual
techniques I couldn’t even get a strike. Yet I knew I could and did
catch fish in this spot, lots of fish. I kept at it until I heard a fish
jump behind me, in a riffle I hadn’t fished in years. I turned around
and cast right at the head of the riffle, and nailed what was to be the first of
many beautiful trout I caught that day.
If I hadn’t been confident in my abilities, and in the water holding fish,
I would have stopped long before. That was an instance where confidence
led to perseverance. But the other two days, it seemed to be confidence
only, that led to more fish being landed.
Maybe there is something subtle
in the presentation of the confident angler, something that can’t be
taught. Like the way some quarterbacks always seem to win. Or maybe
like in other endeavors confident people just seem to do better. At any
rate the only way I know of to develop confidence is through repeated
success. And in fishing the only way to catch fish is to do more fishing.
If you are thinking this is all a stretch, I bet you can come up with very
similar stories that have happened to you. Especially if, like me, you have
been fishing since you had a Leave it to Beaver lunch box. Give yourself
the possibility that confidence in your fishing ability does play a role, in
your catch rate. And the end result will be you spend more time
fishing. And if that is the end result of you reading this article, then
it was time well spent. Now let’s go out there and build up our fly
fishing confidence!
Cameron Larsen is a retired commericial fly tier and fly fishing guide. He now operates The Big Y Fly Company. He can be reached at info@bigyflyco.com. |
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