Fly Fishing Part 1

Even though this method isn't popular here, I think a bit of extra knowledge about what fly fishing is, what tackle is used and what you fish with won't hurt. Who knows, maybe we'll get fly fishers of our own who manage to catch trout in our mountain streams with a rod, and not with electricity the way some of our countrymen do it now.

First off, I'll say that fly fishing uses a line, not ordinary monofilament (I'm sure some anglers know this).

So....

The line

Special fly line is used exclusively for fly fishing. It's what lets you cast a light artificial fly to the right distance and fish it at a certain depth. It replaces both the sinker and the float. It's precisely the line that sets fly fishing apart from all other fishing methods.

In this age of technical progress it's getting harder and harder for an angler to find their way through all the new products coming out, especially since manufacturers compete with each other, putting ever newer fly lines with different specs on the market. But I'll try to give you their main parameters. Fly lines are grouped according to three characteristics: taper, weight and sink rate. These characteristics are reflected in the marking that every line comes with. Such designations are made up of three parts (see the bottom of the page).

First let's look at the number in the line designation, which defines its weight. Since a line can come in different lengths and tapers, it's customary to count the first 30 feet (about 9.15 m, i.e. the length of the part of the line that can be in play during the cast*). The weight of this section is designated by an AFTM class from 1 to 12. This is an international designation, shared by all fly tackle manufacturers. Of course, no angler remembers how many grams are hidden behind each number, so just for the record I'll list these values (see p. 16). The weight (in grams) is given to within a few tenths. How heavy a line should you use? That depends on the fishing method, casting technique, fly size, water temperature and personal preference. For trout and grayling, lines from 4 to 8 are used.

* The length of the leader is not counted.

When fishing small flies and fine leaders, I'd recommend lighter lines, since a heavy line can cause a fine leader to snap. Lighter lines are also good for dry fly and nymph fishing at short range.

Heavier lines are used for fishing large flies and for wet fly fishing. A heavy line is easier to cast in strong wind. When fishing with one outfit, you can't keep changing the line. If you need to switch to a heavier or lighter line, that inevitably means changing the rod as well. Every rod is marked with the line class it can be used with. Longer rods usually go with heavier lines. For a beginner, the best choice is an outfit (line + rod) of class 5-6. Such a set can come in handy in practically any situation an angler might find themselves in. Whether heavier tackle makes sense in many situations is debatable. True, on big rivers it's easier to fish with such tackle, but it can turn out too heavy if there are no big fish in the water. Nobody enjoys playing a 30-centimetre fish on a rod that could easily hold a 10-kilo one. Worldwide there's a trend toward ever lighter tackle. I support it, but I'm not an unconditional follower. Where it makes sense, heavier tackle should be used. For example, when we have to fish at long distances on fast-flowing rivers or when we need to make roll casts, but above all during competitions, when it's important not only to enjoy the fishing but also to catch as many fish as possible.

There are three main line tapers: L - Lewel - level along its whole length; DT - Double Taper - double tapered; WF - Weught Forward Taper - thickened at one end.

Level lines are the lightest and have the advantage that a line worn at the end can be shortened.

However, they're awkward to use and so are rarely used. I don't advise buying them. The line anglers use most often is the DT. Its tapering ends ensure good transfer of energy from the line to the leader, which allows accurate casting. With these lines, of course, you can't cut off a worn section, because then you'd end up with an L-type line. On the other hand, once one end is worn, you can reverse the line on the reel and keep fishing. That way the life of the line is doubled. A DT line allows excellent casts up to 16 m. On longer casts, problems come up related to overloading the rod. Let me explain with an example. Say we're using a properly matched line and rod, for example class 5. We know that a rod of this class will "work" best under a load of about 9 g, with a casting distance of about 9 m (see fig. 2). On longer casts the weight of the line quickly goes up. For example, with an 18-metre cast the rod will be working under a load of over 18 g, i.e. the optimal load for a number 10 line. Clearly, a class 5 rod will be overloaded then.

Line tapers and their designations

To eliminate this drawback, a WF line is used. Its initial 9-metre section is the same as that of a DT line. But then the line transitions into a thinner, level section. Now the load on the rod will be the same as for a No. 10 line when casting at a distance of about 28 m. The cast becomes considerably longer. The ability of a rod to handle different loads when using WF and DT lines is reflected in the marking: instead of one AFTM class, sometimes two are indicated, for example 6-7. This means that such a rod is designed for a DT 6 or WF 7 line. As I've already said, a WF line performs much better on long casts. However, just as there is no rose without thorns, this line has its drawbacks too. It can't be turned around to the other end, and once one of its "working" ends is worn out, it's no longer fit for use. It's harder to make roll casts with it at distances over 9 m. This has to do with the specifics of this cast, which I'll talk about in later sections of the book. To eliminate this drawback, manufacturers produce Long Belly lines with weighted sections longer than 9 m. Conversely, for very long casts, Bass Buk Taper (BBT) lines are produced, in which the weighted section is shorter than 9 m, as well as exactly the same lines but with a thinner level section - Saltwater Taper (SST).

From this line it's just one step to the next one, marked with the letters ST - Shooting Taper. This is a simple tapered, very short line about 9 m long. A special nylon line (Ranning Line) is tied to its end. During the cast, the Shooting Taper acts like a projectile, pulling out with its mass the line previously stripped from the reel by hand. The advantage of such tackle is that it lets you fish at a long distance. Using a DT line, you can make a Shooting Taper line yourself that suits any fly rod perfectly. We run it through the guides and try casting. We repeat these attempts until we find the optimal line length at which our rod will work best. After that, we cut the line at the top guide and attach it to the running line. We get a Shooting Taper line that perfectly matches our rod. Two such lines can be made from one DT. There is one more type of line, the so-called Nymph Тур. This is a fully floating line with a brightly coloured tip, slightly thickened over the last 10 cm, which is clearly visible on the water and serves as a strike indicator. The next category in the classification of lines is their buoyancy or sink rate. Floating lines are marked with the letter F (Floating), lines that sink along their entire length with the letter S (Sinking), floating lines with a sinking tip with the letters F/S, and neutrally buoyant lines with the letter I (Intermediate).

The sink rate is also indicated by the colour of the line. Floating lines are usually white. This is due to the fact that the water surface, when viewed from the bottom, is light. So such lines are invisible to fish but clearly visible to the angler. Floating lines are also produced in various light shades of yellow, blue, black and orange. My experience tells me that when fishing for trout and grayling, bright line colours don't have much effect on the number of bites. An Intermediate line should float a few centimetres below the water surface. This line is clearly underrated by anglers. It's often thought that it can be replaced with a floating line, which isn't true. The difference is clearly visible on calm water. When retrieving the line in such conditions, you can notice that a floating line leaves a wake, "ploughing" the water, while an Intermediate will glide smoothly along its surface without spooking the fish.

It also matters that when fishing a wet fly, it's easier to set the hook using sinking lines. S-type fly lines sink along their entire length. Some companies produce only one kind of such lines, i.e. sinking. But more often lines with different sink rates are produced, and since this rate isn't standardised yet, various designations for such lines appear. Manufacturers usually indicate the degree of sinking in the line description and with a corresponding number (Arabic or Roman). The Welsh company Air Flo marks its lines somewhat differently. It introduced into fly fishing several types of Intermediate lines with a sink rate of one metre in 50 to 20 s, under the general designation DI-1. Sinking lines are designated with symbols from Б1-2(20с/м)до DI-6(6,5c/m). There are also three more kinds of lines from this company, from DI-7 to DI-9, with a sink rate of 6.5 to 3.5 s/m, which fall outside the AFTM classes. Another well-known company - Scientific Anglers, owned by the ЗМ concern - besides Intermediate lines, produces Wet Cel series sinking lines with sink grades from I to V, where the sink rate roughly corresponds to Cortland lines (Cortland's grade 6 corresponds to Scientific Anglers' grade V). In addition, the company produces lines outside the AFTM classification, the so-called Deep Water Express. As for the colour of the line, the darker it is, the faster it sinks. Intermediate lines usually have a light colouring: light blue, light green and brown. New Intermediate lines have recently appeared on the market; they are completely transparent, like monofilament line.

Difficulties when pulling a sinking line out of the water

The wide range of fly lines on offer reflects how many different uses they have. Among other things, you have to take the current into account when choosing a line. The stronger the flow of water, the more the line rises to the surface. The same thing happens in still water: the faster we retrieve the line, the less it will sink. Both the free sinking time of the line – right after it lands on the water – and the casting distance matter a great deal. Obviously, a line, say a slow-sinking one, will in some conditions float a few centimetres below the surface, while in others it may go down to a depth of 3 m. Before you start fishing, you need to weigh up all the factors I have mentioned and work out at what depth you should be fishing. Only then is the appropriate line chosen. As a rule, in still and slow-flowing waters lighter lines are used than those you would need to get the fly down to the same depth in a fast-flowing river.

Type S (sinking) lines cast farther than floating lines (F) or floating lines with a sinking tip (F/S). They are thin, so they meet less resistance in the rod guides and in the air. The fact that they sink along their entire length is both their advantage and their drawback. An advantage, because you can get the fly down very deep, and a drawback, because a line dragging along the bottom snags on various obstacles on the way. Such a line is hard to lift out of the water. This applies both to the section of line you are fishing with and to the loose coils under your left hand when the angler is standing deep in the water. Sinking-tip lines (F/S) do not have these drawbacks. Sinking-tip lines are marked with the letters F/S (floating/sinking). The main line, light in colour, floats on the surface of the water, and only its tip, usually darker in colour, sinks.

Sinking-tip lines are produced with tips 3, 6 and 9 m long (i.e. 10, 20 and 30 feet respectively). The sinking tips have different sink rates. The same sink-rate designations are kept as for type S lines. With such a line you can fish a deep hole even if there are underwater obstacles between it and the spot where the angler is standing. Casting while wading is easier, because the loose coils of line the angler strips off the reel do not sink in the water. However, the junction between the heavy tip and the light line spoils the smoothness of the cast, and it is harder to perform than with an ordinary line. F/S lines get the fly down less deep than S lines. The depth at which the fly is retrieved depends on the length of the sinking part of the line and on the fact that it rises under the pressure of the water. You also need to remember that a fly retrieved on an F/S line will behave differently from the same fly retrieved on a type S line. It follows that S and F/S lines complement each other. Having read this section, a beginner will be surprised at the need to buy so many not particularly cheap lines. But don't despair too much – in practice it's not all that scary. Although I describe so many lines here, I myself have 4 to 6 lines for each rod, and most often I fish with one, keeping a second in reserve. When I was just starting out in fishing, I had only one floating line, and later I made do with two. So first buy a floating line, and once you've learned to fish a bit, you can get a second one – a sinking line. For those who have already taken their first steps in fishing, I will list the lines worth having in your arsenal:

1 line – floating

2 lines – floating and fast sinking

3 lines – floating, slow sinking and very fast sinking

4 lines – floating, Intermediate, slow sinking or F/S, and very fast sinking

5 lines – floating, Intermediate, slow sinking, F/S, fast sinking or very fast sinking

6 lines – floating, Intermediate, slow sinking, F/S, fast sinking and extra fast sinking.

When buying several lines, remember that the examples I have given need to be adjusted depending on the water you are going to fish, the fishing method you use most often and your other personal preferences. If, for example, someone fishes only with nymphs at short range and with dry flies, there is no point in buying any sinking line. I think everyone will decide for themselves which lines to buy after reading the section on fishing methods.

Using several lines raises the problem of buying several reels or spare spools. Since they are far from cheap, I'll explain how to do without them. At the front end of the fly line we make a loop for attaching it to the backing. If we want to change the line, we wind it in a figure eight around our hand (see photo) or onto a line winder. The loop on the backing should be big enough for the reel to pass through it. This lets you change the line quickly, and the way it is wound prevents tangling when you slip it off your palm. When buying fly lines, you need to pay attention to their length. As a rule, it ranges from 18 to 35 m. As you can see, the difference is quite large. So the phrase "the cast was made to the full length of the line" can mean completely different distances. You should choose lines that match your individual abilities. Why pay for a long line if we are never going to use it?

Mayflies are the insects that anglers identify with the dry fly. The mayfly has four main stages of development: egg, larva, subimago and imago. The eggs laid on the bottom hatch into larvae, or nymphs. They live in the water for anywhere from a few months to three years, and during that time they are not easy prey for fish, since they stay in hiding under stones, in the silt or among the underwater vegetation. As they grow, they go through successive moults. Then the nymphs leave the water to turn into an insect capable of flight. They do this in three ways:

1) the most common — the nymph rises to the surface of the water, the larva's chitinous covering splits, and the insect emerges;

2) the larva crawls out of the water and turns into an adult insect on land; 3) the larva turns into a flying insect underwater, which then comes up to the surface.

In these ways mayflies turn into a flying insect (Lat. subimago), and then, once more on land, pass into the adult stage (Lat. imago). The period when the nymph rises to the surface and turns into the subimago is very important for the angler. At this time the insects are clearly visible to the fish and are eaten by them in huge numbers. A nymph rising to the surface is rather hard to imitate. It is much easier to imitate one that is already in the process of transforming at the surface. For this you can use light flies that float right in the surface film, only partly sticking out of the water, imitating an insect emerging from its "shuck." Artificial flies imitating this stage are sometimes called flymphs. Having reached the surface and shed its now useless shuck (Eng. Keis), the mayfly drifts on the water. English anglers call this stage the "dun" (subimago). How long it drifts on the water depends largely on the weather. The warmer and drier the air, the faster the insect lifts off the water and flies away (its wings dry faster). This is an important point, because mayflies are available to fish mainly while they are drifting on the surface. But that does not mean the fish will take a nymph exactly the same way as a dun imitation. On the contrary, most often it picks just one. So it is not enough to have a dun in your fly box, because it may turn out that the grayling prefers a nymph floating right in the surface film. What matters is how long the insect drifts after transforming. The longer it lasts, the better the chance that a fish will try to grab it. If the dun takes to the air right after shedding its shuck, you can be almost sure the fish are feeding on insects just below the surface.

The transformation into the adult insect (subimago into imago) usually takes place on land and therefore doesn't concern us here. The time it takes to turn into the imago (English anglers call this stage the spinner) ranges from a few hours to dozens of hours. The mayfly becomes available to fish again during its mating flight. The mating flight is a wonderful sight. The delicate imago (spinners) literally dance over the water or near it. Mating takes place in flight. After that the pairs leave the swarm. The males die right after the act and, when the mating flight happens over water, may fall onto its surface. In some species the males return to the swarm several times after mating. The females, meanwhile, head straight for the water to lay their eggs. Usually (but not always) this happens in the evening, right after dark.

As easy as it is to see the insects emerging from the water (freshly hatched mayflies drifting on the water look like "sails"), it is just as hard to spot the egg-laying, because of the falling darkness, the insect's extremely delicate build (transparent wings) and, finally, because this process can't go on for long, and in one and the same place at that. Far fewer insects lay eggs than hatched; the rest become prey for fish and birds. Once, while fishing on the San, I got to watch an interesting phenomenon: the grayling were responding pretty well to an imitation of a small caddis, but over an area of several dozen square metres they ignored my fly, even though there were quite a lot of small "windows" there. For a minute I racked my brain over what insect the fish were hunting, because my fly, which I was changing every minute, was being completely ignored. There were no insects visible on the water. Only when I leaned right down to the surface did I notice, in the light of the setting sun, mayflies drifting away after falling on the water once they'd laid their eggs. The dead mayflies floated with their wings spread out (this stage is called the spent). I tied on an artificial mayfly and managed to catch only a few big and "close" grayling before the bite suddenly stopped. I won't list the individual mayfly species, since the growing pollution of rivers on the one hand, and the building of treatment plants on the other, mean that their populations keep changing. Many species are dying out. On some rivers certain species appear and then disappear in the following years. The number of insects also changes a lot, and with it the abundance of the swarms; sadly, big swarms are rare now. Beginner anglers think stories about swarms so thick you could barely see the water are fairy tales. But I remember those times well.

Now it is worth mentioning two species of mayfly well known to all anglers, among the largest: the March Brown and the mayfly (Ephemera Danica). On the fast rivers of the Carpathian foothills the March Brown always swarmed from the end of March to the beginning of May. The swarm formed at midday and lasted two to three hours. Nowadays, owing to heavy water pollution, these mayflies have apparently vanished from our rivers for good. The other species, the mayfly, can still sometimes be found in various parts of Poland. Its swarming lasts from the end of May to mid-June (on the San even until August).

Figure 31

Anyone who has even once caught trout on an imitation of this mayfly will never forget the thrill of it. Sadly, it too is becoming ever rarer, disappearing from our rivers. There are a great many families and species of mayfly. They differ from one another in size, colouring and the features of their reproductive cycle. Individual species have completely different swarming times and egg-laying periods. The ways they emerge from the water and lay their eggs in it also differ. I have given the most typical examples of mayflies; for fuller information you can turn to the specialist literature, of which, unfortunately, there is not very much.