FLOAT EXPERIENCE

ALASKA FLY FISHING

Let the wind do the work When the wind is too strong to cast, this technique works well. Use floating line so the wind will carry the line ahead of you. Now kick your fins at an angle between the wind direction and the direction you want to go. By balancing the force and angle you can tack along the shoreline. The fly will move ahead of you and at an angle. This alows you to fish an area where you haven't moved though and won't. Fly Casting When I was a really little kid I remember fishing with my dad. He would bait my hook, cast the line out, and then we would sit and wait. We had great conversations. Every once in a while we would drive up to still water and he would reach for his fly rod. On those days my job became removing the fish from his hook. He would look at them and tell me if they were dinner. In either case by the time I was done with the fish he had another on the line. Of course I wanted to fly fish. I was about 12 when he gave in and taught me how. We went out on the lawn and spent hours getting me to cast just right. That was over 40 years ago. Now I am going to try to pass that on over the Internet. I have seen other sites that attempt to teach fly casting on the net. I'm not sure it can be done. Most of them miss or under emphasize the most important part, the stops.

Some people teach that the casting motion is done from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock others teach 10:00 to 2:00. I'm going describe the physics. The force applied to the line is perpendicular to the end of the rod so as the rod passes straight up you begin driving the line down toward the ground. The classic loop of a cast forms because the line at the end of the rod is driven down slightly. At the same time most of the line is still moving forward. When you stop the rod the line forms the classic casting loop. The 11:00 O'clock to 1:00 O'clock rule is a guide for how far to move the rod. you must move the rod far enough to apply force to the line. If you go to far you will hit the ground or water. Now the most important part, timing. When you start stretch the line in front of you. Bring the rod back to about the 11:00 o'clock position and stop. This stop is firm and held until the line extends behind you. The timing is crucial. If you bring the line forward too soon you'll hear a cracking sound like a whip. Your cast should be quite. You might also hear a whoosh sound this also means you didn't wait long enough. When you bring the line forward you stop the rod to get the line to extend straight out and then let it settle down on the water. In a perfect cast the line will be straight and the fly will hit first. If the cast is not long enough pull some line out of the reel. Hold this line and repeat the same casting procedure. When the line is moving in front of you allow the line to shoot out in front of you. You can work the line this way and keep working the line out but the more line you have out the more power you need to apply, the higher you need to stop and the longer you need to wait for the line to straighten. I have seen other sites that are about the joy of casting. I understand their passion. I hope you develop that attitude but I am about catching fish. The longer you want to cast the more practice you'll need. As for catching fish, twenty to thirty feet is plenty of line. Now that I have become a floattube fisherman I will tell you that casting is not essential to catching fish the biggest fish I've caught were taken while trolling with a streamer or a nymph. There are times when I cast a fly to a spot and the fly just drops on the water with a perfect touch and I know that if I don't catch a fish I need to change flies. The reason I know this is because I can read the water and their must be a fish there.

Reading the Water

First I think we need to discus fish behavior. I'm writing this while waiting for the ice to go out. When the water goes out reading the water is more about reading the bottom. If you look for sand patches along the shore you'll find large fish in spawning colors. Mudler minnows are agreat fly this time of year. As the year moves on the trout will look for water about 60 degrees. As the water temperature rises the fish will move deeper but when they go too deep the oxygen decreases so the fish will only go so deep. In most of Alaska's lakes the limit is about fifteen feet. In shallow water you have bugs, leaches, freshwater shrimp, minnows, and all food. The larger fish become pray for eagles, loons, and other birds. For these reasons the nice fish are along the edges of any drop-offs. They hide under logs. When you see lily pads if you cast be tween them you can pull nice fish out of them. If you see tall grasses growing from the bottom the large fish swim through it. The bottom line is hide from the above attack by staying deep, swimming through or under anything available. While they are hiding they lurke in ambush of all the above food sources. So when you look for a lake the amount of food in the lake is influenced by the amount of shallow water. Shallow water increases the temperature and in Alaska that means rapid growth so start by looking for shallow water, then the hiding spots.

Once when I was trolling, with sinking line, I saw a tree coming up behind me that had fallen onto the water. The area under the tree was about 20 feet deep. This was a great habitat for large fish. I would normally stop and cast down the log and retrieve the fly across the length. Today I pushed the rod under the water and under the log. My fly went under the tree after I had passed. I caught a fish that was about eighteen inches long. I recommend trying new stuff and when it works let me know.

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