Year End Musings

It was a year full of fishing …

I had a good angling year. Did I do all the different things I wanted to do? Of course not. But it was full of learning and novel experiences. I spent the vast majority of my fishing on one stream. When not on that stream I was probably still in the same small watershed. I was able to fish that stream from top to bottom. The same for one of its primary tributaries. I was able to observe the daily and seasonal changes like I never had before.

Having the opportunity to fish so often was helpful in the obvious way of on-stream experience. But it also allowed me to relax and just have fun. I know that sounds a little silly. Isn’t fishing supposed to be relaxing and fun?

What I mean is that if I had to drive three hours each way and had much more limited time on the water I’d have been so much more likely to stick with my go-to flies and tactics. But having such extended stretches of days on the water I didn’t worry about making each minute “count” and I didn’t worry about catching fish after a while. I know some people are fortunate to always have that easy going attitude but that is not my nature. So with a more laid back attitude I was able to just mess about and try some new things.

Some of my practical take-aways for 2024

Conditions and success can vary tremendously day to day and seasonally – be careful drawing conclusions:

As a day-tripping angler this fact is easily missed. Perhaps you travel and fish and have a great day. Or a sucky day. And you draw conclusions. You credit your success to that new fly pattern or new tactic. Or you conclude that a stretch of water is “unproductive” based on a day’s failure to conjure a fish (or even see fish). Those would all be mistakes.

In fishing the same stretches day after day all I can say is that I’m often mystified. To paraphrase physicist Niels Bohr when talking about the strangeness of quantum theory– Anyone who is not shocked about a great day fishing has not understood fishing.

I had a memorable summer morning on a particular stretch of stream this summer. I could do no wrong. Fish were holding pretty much everywhere; from deeper runs to shallow edges. And they were eating a bead-head Walt’s Worm voraciously. In a 50 yard stretch I landed perhaps a dozen fish in the 15″ range in less than an hour. It was quite surprising. I was tempted to think I was a great angler. However, I went back to that stretch many times over the season and never experienced that level of success again. So who knows why the fishing was so good on that morning? I don’t. But I do know I can’t credit my superior angling skills or a “magic” fly – I happened to hit it when the fish were on. Why were they on? I was chased off of the water by a storm – so perhaps it was increased feeding associated with the incoming front? Who can say for sure?

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
-Niels H. D. Bohr (1885 – 1962)

Another example is a stretch of stream that fished fantastically in the spring and early summer. But in several autumn trips I couldn’t scare a fish. I caught nothing and saw nothing. I suspect that for reasons unknown to me that the fish and moved to greener pastures. Or maybe with low water conditions they were just tucked up under undercut banks waiting for nightfall? Who knows? But if those autumn visits had been my only visits to that area, I’d have completely written it off and never gone back. That would have been a mistake.

Often we may not fully understand the conditions have lead to our success and failure and so I guess the lesson is don’t get too high on yourself and that new fly pattern when you have success and don’t get too down on yourself (or the stream) when you don’t have success.

Have some small (tiny) Blue Winged Olive patterns always

This may not be as universally applicable as that first point. But on the central Pennsylvania limestone streams that I fished the past year, I saw tiny BWOs a lot. Maybe not every time out. But quite often. When conditions were right. In general I would expect to see them on cooler, rainy or over cast days during warmer seasons and sunny days during colder seasons. In general the bugs were pretty small – size 18ish maybe and smaller.

The emergences that I encountered didn’t usually last long – but if I happened to catch one it could be fun fishing for a while.

So from now on I make sure to keep some small bead-head pheasant tail nymphs and small olive wet-flies in may pack at all times. I have to admit I don’t always have dry flies though. But the nymphs and wets often do the trick.

I suspect it’s probably true on many spring creeks and tailwaters. So if you fish these types of water make sure to have something to put on your line in case you see those little BWO mayflies.

Do you have a particular wet-fly, nymph, kebari or tactic that you like to use for tiny blue winged olive hatches? If so comment below. I’d love to know what you do.

Actively fished flies bounced on (or near) the surface can be very successful and very fun to fish.

I haven’t written about this here at Tenkara Angler (I don’t think). But I have discussed it with Jonathan Antunez in Episode 16 and Episode 19 of the Tenkara Angler Level Line Podcast.

If you’re a seasoned angler maybe the success of this technique isn’t surprising. Perhaps it’s old hat. But we (and I include me for sure) need to be reminded from time to time. I’m certainly guilty of falling into fishing ruts and a reminder of a tactic that I haven’t done much or in a while cane be reinvigorating.

Maybe you’ve heard of a tenkara tactic called pon-pon? Chon-chon? Or maybe dapping as many in the US would call it. I have to admit I hesitate to use any of these terms, because they may be used more specifically or differently in some cases than what I’m doing. Actively moving a fly on the water’s surface is nothing new – I’d bet it’s one of the original fly fishing techniques from back in the day. It’s pretty intuitive if you watch the real bugs. As I type now I’m realizing this deserves a whole post to itself. So for the sake of this year end wrap-up I’ll just say go and give those above mentioned podcasts a listen.

But it’s certainly a technique I hadn’t employed much on the limestone streams I’ve been fishing. On those streams accepted practice is generally to nymph when nothing’s hatching and then during hatches, dead-drift tactics are prescribed. Well, this past year I bounced, skittered and pulsed wet-flies and dry flies on the surface a lot. During hatches, during non-hatch periods and when I saw ovipositing bugs. The technique was often quite effective. Way more so than I would have assumed. And it’s crazy fun to watch fish leap out of the water after your fly. I had some explosive takes that left me grinning ear to ear.

I’ll get to work on a more in depth article on how I’ve been doing it. But in the meantime don’t be afraid, to twitch, bounce and skitter flies on the surface. And listen to those podcasts.

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