24 February 2021
I woke up to the wind, overcast skies and some drizzle. Blair would be here in an hour or so and I thought about calling it off. If it is wet here, it is really wet in Waiohau. But then I thought the caddis flies will be all over the water and the trout will be feasting.
Blair has played around with his fly rod for the last couple of years and has caught some fish, just not with a dry fly. As you know, casting a dry fly takes a little bit of finesse and a lot of practice. He did well and caught his first trout nymphing last time we were out.
So after a little bit of tuition and abuse, he started casting a deer hair cicada with eight pound fluorocarbon as the tippet. I reckoned this is a great way to start as you can be as rough as you want. The three biggest things when casting a dry, in my opinion, are:
1) Having enough line out of the end of your fly rod before you start casting: People who just whip their rod back and forth lengthening their cast 1 cm at a time, does my head in.
2) Being able to then roll cast to lift this line up to the water surface: This then allows you to actually start your cast. There is nothing worse than watching someone try to start a cast when their line is too long, bunched up or partially sunk. It rarely ends well.
3) Casting from 10 o:clock to two o:clock: The whole idea is to follow this pattern with your forearm with as few false casts as possible. It is all about the fly line following a smooth pattern. The presentation cast is exactly the same except you drop your rod tip once the cast has been loaded forward to 10 o:clock. I am not sure what I actually do but I rarely see anyone else stick to the timing. The result is a flop in both directions when your arm casts before 10 or after two o:clock.
For starters, that is about all the advice you can give. The angler needs to feel their way in and understand the mistakes they are making. After a while I noticed Blair casting with his arm high in the air. I told him to stick his elbow on his hip and try again. Try that yourself if you are having trouble.
The first spot Blair cast to many sighted and rising fish. He was unable to place the cicada in the right place. We moved on and were above a rising fish. Blair caught his first trout on a dry fly as it was swinging down stream.
We put on a Dave's Hopper and presented from upstream again. When casting from upstream, of course, you need to have some slack in your line and be prepared to feed more so you get the most from your dead drift. Blair was hooked up with a large rainbow within a couple of casts. It was about ready for the net and made one last jump. The line broke. You know when your tippet comes back and the end is squiggly? It means your knot pulled. In my defense it was a short squiggle meaning a trout tooth severed the knot in the middle. Trout teeth end a lot of fights prematurely.
We went down to the next spot where we normally see risers to find the wind increasing. Drizzle had already started and we could not see any risers. We put on a bead head krystal olive wooly bugger and carried on down towards the lake. It was soon raining pretty hard so we took shelter under some toi toi and waited it out.
The rain slowed then cleared and the sun came out. The wind completely stopped. We carried on down river left with the BH krystal Olive Bugger. Before long Blair was into a good brown. We switched to a BH Brown Krystal Bugger and Blair caught an even better brown.
We thought we better get back up river and check the spots where the fish normally rise all day this time of year, especially since it was so calm! Of course we had to fish our way back so it took a while. By the time we got to the next spot the wind came up again and drizzle started. I put on a small Greenwell's Glory dry fly and put on some light monofilament tippet. Again it was a challenge getting the right drift. He did miss a slow strike on a nice rainbow.
The rain was steady we decided to head out. We spotted a large brown at a creek mouth just by the bridge. Blair made a perfect cast and the brown came up to sip it. Then a tiddler shot up and snatched the Greenwell's Glory dry fly from the clutches of the brown. The funny thing is that Blair thought he had hooked the brown!
We went and got some Chinese takeaways from Awakeri then had a beer and a feed. Blair knows more than he did the day before.
