The Three Questions to Ask Before You Make Your First Cast
There is a moment at the beginning of every still water trout-fishing session when you have a choice. You can arrive at the lake, put your rod together, tie on your favourite fly and start casting immediately. Or you can do something that might just save you a lot of wasted casts. Stop, look, and ask yourself three simple questions: Where are the trout likely to be? What are they likely to be eating? And at what depth are they feeding?
It sounds simple, but those three questions can completely change the way you approach a still water. Because the first cast of the day shouldn't really be a cast at all. It should be an observation.
1. Where are the trout likely to be?
Before you reach for the fly box, have a look at the water. What's the wind doing? Which way is it pushing? Are there areas where the wind is concentrating food? What are the margins like? Is there weed, or a change in depth that might provide cover or attract feeding fish? And, of course, are there any trout showing?
A rising fish is an obvious clue, but don't worry if you can't see one. As we've discussed before, still water trout don't have a responsibility to announce their whereabouts. They may be cruising beneath the surface, moving along a particular depth or following a food source that isn't immediately visible to us.
This is where experience begins to make a difference. An experienced angler isn't necessarily seeing more fish than everyone else. They are often simply reading more of the information the lake is providing. The wind is telling you something. The surface is telling you something. The margins are telling you something. Even the absence of visible fish is telling you something.
Yesterday's hotspot isn't necessarily today's hotspot. Trout move, conditions change and the lake can fish completely differently from one visit to the next. So before you decide where to cast, ask yourself: If I were a trout, where would I want to be right now?
2. What are they likely to be eating?
Now comes the next question: what are the trout actually interested in?
This is where the fly box can become a dangerous place. Open it and you'll find enough artificial insects to convince you that you could feed every trout in the country. There are buzzers, nymphs, damsels, fry patterns, water boatmen, emergers, dries and enough variations of each to keep a fly tyer busy for several lifetimes.
But the fact that a fly looks good doesn't mean the trout want it. Instead of asking, "Which fly should I use?", start by asking, "What food is available?"
Look at the surface. Check the margins. Watch for insects. Notice whether birds are working over particular areas. Think about the time of year and the conditions. Autumn, for example, can bring significant changes to what trout encounter and how they feed. Cooler temperatures can alter their behaviour, while different insects and other food sources can become important.
The fly should be your answer to the question, not the question itself. You're not trying to find a fly that catches trout in theory. You're trying to find something that resembles what the trout are actually interested in eating today.
3. At what depth are they feeding?
And now we come to what I think is one of the most important questions in stillwater trout fishing: How deep are the trout?
You can have the right fly, the right retrieve and the right location, but if your fly is passing several feet above or below feeding fish, you might as well be fishing in the car park. A brilliant fly fished at the wrong depth is still a brilliant fly being fished in the wrong place.
This is why changing depth can sometimes be more productive than changing flies. If you're confident the trout are there but you're not getting takes, think vertically before you think laterally. Try a different depth. Alter the sink rate. Change the retrieve. Give the fly time to reach the level where you believe the fish are feeding.
Then observe what happens. If you start getting follows, touches or fish, you've learned something. And that information is worth far more than simply changing flies every five minutes.
Don't be afraid to do nothing
One of the hardest things for an angler to learn is that sometimes the best thing you can do is wait. We are conditioned to believe that fishing means doing something: casting, retrieving, changing flies, moving position. But still water trout fishing can reward patience.
Take a few minutes to watch. Watch the wind, watch the surface, watch other anglers, watch for insects and watch for subtle movements that might reveal what is happening beneath the surface.
You don't have to solve the lake before you make your first cast. You simply want to make a better-informed first cast than the one you would have made five minutes earlier.
Observation is part of the fishing
The beauty of still water trout fishing is that there is rarely a single answer. One day the trout might be tight to the margins. The next they may be cruising open water. One day they might be taking buzzers just beneath the surface; another day they may be chasing fry or feeding much deeper.
That's what keeps it interesting. The successful angler isn't necessarily the one carrying the biggest fly box or making the longest cast. Quite often, it's the person who spends a little longer looking.
So next time you arrive at the lake, resist the temptation to immediately launch your first cast. Put the rod together, stand beside the water and ask yourself three questions: Where are the trout likely to be? What are they likely to be eating? And at what depth are they feeding?
You might still get it wrong.
That's fishing.
But you'll have given yourself a much better chance of getting it right.
And perhaps that's the most important lesson of all.
Don't make your first cast until you've made your first observation.
After all, the trout have been in the lake all day. The least we can do is take a couple of minutes to find out what they've been up to.
