Greg French promotes an 'aggressive' fishing style.
What's the most absurd cliché you know? My favourite has to be As patient as a fisherman—all my fly fishing mates are notoriously impatient: impatient to see what’s around the corner, impatient to locate the quarry, impatient to cast, impatient to land this fish and find another. Impatient to learn, impatient to do better. In fact, impatience is one of the essential traits that distinguishes good anglers from mediocre ones.

So why is it that so many fly fishers prefer to act namby-pamby? Is it simply a lack of confidence? Or could it be because so much literature places a ridiculous emphasis on the necessity for stealth?

IRRELEVANT CONCEPTS
I’m sure you’ve seen a diagram of a trout’s ‘viewing cone’. You know the sort of thing: an author attempts to define how far a trout can see out of the water, usually by some complex explanation of light refraction, lens curvature and whatnot. The upshot usually is that trout can see further than you think and that you should be much more wary than you probably are.

It’s a natty little concept. Unfortunately, it’s irrelevant.

First, the diagrams almost always assume something I hardly ever see: a perfectly flat surface film. Viewed from underneath, I suspect that river currents and ripples on lakes more commonly resemble wet windscreens, or even a Hall of Mirrors. And there are many other problems. Imagine trying to do a reverse diagram—one of an angler’s view into the water. Think of the things you’d have to account for: waves and ripples, direction and intensity of light, water clarity, even the age of the angler. The type of cloud cover would be important too: it is easier to see in to the water under a uniformly grey sky than it is on a relatively bright day with mottled high-level cloud.

On top of all this, viewing-cone theory fails to take account of the trout’s field of concentration, which varies enormously not only with weather and habitat but also according to type of food available at any given time.

Forget the physics of light, ignore the biology of the eye: all this stuff is about as useful to the average fly fisher as explanations of mass, velocity and gravity to an average soccer player. What you actually need is practical experience, and the harder you play the game, the quicker that experience is gained.

In addition to vision, many authors are overly concerned about the trout’s sense of hearing. Let me yell it at the top of my lungs: noise matters not one iota!

Racing along through the scrub to reach a fish is often paramount, and it can’t be done quietly. Talking to one another is important too. If you are far apart, there’s a lot to be said for yelling: “Quick, over here! There’s hundreds of fish tailing everywhere!” (That’s me saying that, not my more down-to-earth mates.)

MATCHING THE HATCH
Many writers also advocate that you observe the trout intently in order to see what it’s feeding on before presenting an appropriate imitation. Most of the trout I find, especially those in lakes and sluggish river-pools, would disappear long before I had a chance to do any of those things. I find that if I don’t cast immediately, the sun usually goes behind a cloud, a riffle hits the water, or the fish simply vanishes.

The truth is that quick, accurate presentation with any old ‘functional fly’ is almost always more effective than dawdling.

BRIGHT DAYS
RIPPLY LAKES
Here is a worthwhile generalisation: Trout are least spooky during very bright conditions in the middle of the day when there is a breeze or wind. And this is just as true in crystal-clear shallows as it is in deep or coloured water. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to fish on blue-sky days.

When fishing deeper lakes from the bank, I aim to cover as much shoreline as quickly as I can. I don’t give a second thought to the trout’s ability to see me; it’s my ability to see them that is paramount. The last thing I want to do is keep a low profile. Quite the reverse: unless I’ve already found the fish to be unusually spooky, I look for elevated vantages from which to spot. Boulders and tree stumps can be ideal: the higher the better.

Of course it’s not always best to fish from the bank. In shallow lakes with extensive flats, it’s often best to move offshore. Providing light conditions allow, I tend to wade downwind. The trout tend to cruise upwind (into the surface currents). This means that I meet the fish head-on (not the sort of thing advocated by viewing-cone theorists), but it also means that I am able to make short manageable casts without having to lay the leader over the fish or having the fly itself blown back into my face.

BRIGHT DAYS
MIRROR-CALM LAKES
When conditions are bright and very calm, trout can indeed be spooky. This is especially true of fish feeding in shallow water or very close to the surface. But I still move quickly and only become cautious once I’m sure I’m scaring fish.

You see, even on perfectly flat water, bright light gives me the advantage, especially if fish are cruising.

I can sometimes spot them from 50 metres away, so even if they are wary of the cast, I have plenty of time to ‘set a trap’.

Real problems occur only when the fish are not cruising or feeding, and then you’ll see me down on hands and knees moving at snail’s pace, using every bit of cover I can find.

But these are exceptional conditions. If I were forced to approach every sunny day so timidly I’m sure I’d get bored and opt for a more exciting sport like lawn bowls, or tiddlywinks.

DULL DAYS
Another good generalisation: Trout are most easily scared in calm, clear shallows during periods of low light, especially at dawn or during times of heavy cloud and dense fog.

I’ve had calm, low-light conditions when bow-wave after bow-wave has accelerated out of shallows towards the centre of the lake long before I’ve come within casting distance. Some-times I have not been able to get any closer than 50 metres.

Nonetheless, while it is possible for trout to spook from great distances in these conditions, they are often quite preoccupied with feeding. When they are tailing after scud and snails it can be hard to get them to notice anything at all. And when they are spearing about after frogs or baitfish, they can be so busy searching for splashes and wakes that sight seems to become secondary to their other senses.

So I don’t head off in dull, calm conditions being obsessively meek. I cover the water quickly, albeit a little more carefully than in bright windy conditions, and I become stealthy (in the usual sense) only when I begin scaring fish.

FAST-WATER TACTICS
Basically the same rules apply to fast waters. Bright conditions in summer mean that the fish are often quite approachable, especially if wind or current disturbs the water surface.

On dull days they can spook from a great distance. I agree that low flows often make the fish touchier, but this is really a function of calmer, clearer, shallower conditions, so it all ties in neatly with the generalisations mentioned previously.

In basic terms, trout in rivers are easier to catch than those in lakes: they tend to stay in station, and they are forced to make decisions quickly before their food rushes off downstream. My approach is as aggressive as ever: I walk briskly until I spot a fish, then I get a cast to it as soon as I can.

If at all possible, I tend to fish from the bank. Elevated vantages are best for spotting, while wading can be painfully slow, especially if the currents are stiff and the substrates slippery. It is only when trout start swimming off or stop feeding that I begin to fish more stealthily.

MORE ABOUT MOVEMENT
Trout hardly ever notice a perfectly stationary angler, no matter how much he contrasts against the landscape or skyscape. Movement is what they are alert to, and this is most noticeable in the form of shadow and silhouette.

It is always a reasonably easy matter to stop a distinct shadow falling across the area I’m fishing. But when trying to gauge how close I can get to fish in low-light, I find I have to imagine where my shadow would be if the clouds weren’t there.

RECOVERY TIME
I caught one Prosser River fish, with a distinctive scar, five times in five days. I took another from a small tarn in the February Plains three times over four days. I’ve even watched a trout in the Western Lakes grab a fly within a minute of being hooked, played and lost. These sorts of stories are common amongst those of us who fish small waters where we get to know individual trout.

I’m not suggesting that if you spook a 5.30 a.m. tailer he will necessarily make a hasty return to the shallows, but there is every chance that you’ll catch him cruising a bit further offshore some time before midday.

In lakes, then, the reason I don’t like spooking fish is because once I lose sight of them they can be difficult to relocate. This is much less of a problem in small streams, especially in New Zealand’s back country. In these situations I just don’t care if I spook a fish here and there. On the return trip down the valley, I know exactly where those missed chances are going to be. If they haven’t resumed station I just fish the adjacent currents or undercuts, perhaps with a nymph rather than a dry, and I nearly always get a take or two. Yet I know many anglers, Kiwis especially, who worry about fishing a backcountry river if someone else has been there recently. I know others who swear that fish can smell an angler if he has waded across a ford 100 metres upstream, and still others who reckon fish are becoming so educated that stealth has become more important than ever before.

Many proponents of these absurd ideas have become so paranoid about sharing water with other anglers that they tend to fish less often and cover less water when they do. Is it any wonder that they see less fish?

FLASHY GEAR
I tend to avoid wearing very bright shirts and rain jackets (white, yellow etc) but I’m certainly not into wearing army camos. As I have already pointed out, shadow and silhouette are your real enemies. And when trout are spooky, no amount of clever clothing is going to disguise clumsy movements.

As for fly lines, the advantage of dull colours is questionable. The trout are looking up out of the water and the line is usually silhouetted against the sky: I suspect that in most conditions any fly line is as visible to a trout as any other. In any case I (as opposed to the fish) love brightly coloured lines. I want to see my line at all times: it helps me keep track of my fly and makes mending easier. Here is some harsh advice: if trout are noticing your fly-line, you can’t buy your way out of it—you’re going to have to learn to cast more smoothly and with fewer false casts.

How about tippet size? I hardly ever bother going lower than 2 kg (0.17 mm diameter).

I’LL SAY IT AGAIN
There is no simple formula to predict spookiness. The only certainty is that timid anglers don’t seem to catch as many fish: you certainly don’t find more trout by moving along at sloth speed or hiding behind rocks and shrubbery.

My objective is always to cover water as quickly and efficiently as possible, to find as many fish as possible, to sample and discover as much new territory as possible. Stealth can be important at times, but only when you are sure that you are spooking fish unnecessarily.

Generally, I find intelligent recklessness to be a much better tactic.