In this video I pick apart a beautiful hole trying to catch big wild brown trout. I catch quite a few fish and decided to put together a video talking about how I fly fish for trout. This should help you catch more trout and bigger trout next time you're on the water!
Essentially on this particular day of fishing the sun was out and the fishing had been decent, but nothing overly insane. I had been catching some nice fish, much like this one here…. But nothing of significance. When I came up to this next hole though, I immediately recognized the potential for large fish and stated to pick it apart.
In general this hole was larger than some of the other holes I had been fishing through, but even more important than that is it had cover. The back end of the hole where I caught that first fish was probably 4 feet deep with good moving water. And depth is an underrated piece of cover, but I think everyone keys in on this while fishing without even thinking much about it. But this hole had 2 other good things going for it, which was lots of overhanging tree cover and a large downed tree at the head of the hole. Overhanging trees not only provide shade and cover but are also great sources of food for trout because there are a lot of bugs that fall into the water off of the trees… and if you don’t believe me next time you’re walking up a creek or river shake a limb and watch what falls off… but by far the most important is the log at the head of the hole with a good current seem pushing against it. If you can ever find current hitting a downed tree or root ball you should spend extra time fishing that ESPECIALLY if you’re fishing for brown trout. That’s because brown trout are predators and once they hit a certain size they look almost exclusively for other bait fish and what the limb is to a brown trout is an ambush point. Think of the current as natures conveyor belt, constantly pushing food and bait fish down the river. Not only that but the log provides cover from any predators, such as birds of prey, and it’s a current break or the browns to sit without expending too much energy, so it’s a trifecta of perfection.
The head end of a hole is the most likely spot for you to catch a large brown trout. That’s because the king of the hole gets the best spot to feed because they bully any other smaller trout that may try to take the ideal feeding lane. And as I mentioned earlier, there’s a log at the head of this hole, which is about to come into play in a negative way, but it’s a perfect spot for an apex predator to hide. If you’re lucky, the brown will have pushed out of the log jam to feed when you’re fishing, but a lot of times you have to get really close to the log to entice the brown to come out. This hole also had a crazy undercut root ball on the far left side that is an ideal place for a big fish to be. Basically this hole was perfect for a multitude of reasons, which I knew meant my likelihood of hooking a big fish was high.
I hope you enjoy this more educational style video! If you enjoyed it let me know in the comments! #howto #fishing #flyfishing #outdoors #troutfishing
