Flylines

With major hatches of green drakes on the Metolius and salmonflies on the Deschutes, fishermen may be challenged to fish in tighter, more brushy situations than usual.

On the swift, deep Metolius, there is often no room to wade out and fish in the open river. On many good runs you can barely get clear of the bushes; you must sneak your casts in.

On the Deschutes we fish the brushy banks because at this time of year both the fish and bugs are concentrated along the edge of the river.

The easiest casting trick for these tight, seemingly impossible areas is to look for a right- or left-handed bank, depending on your casting preference. This limits where you can fish, but fishing the appropriate bank will allow you to cast to water you would not normally dare to approach.

A right hander's bank holds the river on the right, or rod hand, as you are facing upstream. You move up the bank fishing short, tight casts from a somewhat side-arm position. You'll will be amazed what this simple approach will allow you to accomplish. Most of my clients can't believe what they are able to do with only the minor adjustment to their technique of side arm casting. The biggest barrier is psychological - not believing it's possible.

The upstream, side arm casting position, coupled with a long fly rod, holds the fly line outside the brush and parallel to the bank. As long as there is a hole in the bushes large enough to poke the rod out and move it back and forth you can fish. Because you are throwing in a side position you are bringing the fly in at a low angle that allows you to penetrate far up under the edge of the bushes.

Just the other day we were working up through a run on the Deschutes stalking rising fish. Right in the midst of this very intense situation my client stopped and looked at me smiling and said, " This is impossible."

I was holding a limb down out of the way so we could see up river. There was canopy completely over our heads and the cast had to be delivered under a bush ahead of us that was no more that two feet off the water. My guest just laid the rod over to the side and dropped the cast in like he was standing in the middle of the open river.

A moment later a fish swirled and his fly was gone.

Stay side arm and don't look at the bushes, don't think about them, don't even worry where your fly is going. Just act like there are no obstacles in the way and toss the fly in. When you are able to clear your mind of the barriers and fish with this sort of aggressive style, you simply don't hang up us much as you think you would.

For those times when you do accidentally lob the fly over a limb don't jerk to get it out. Pull slowly. With a slow pull you can work most of the twists off a limb before they tighten. At the end the fly drops off and into the water in a perfect imitation of a fallen insect.

I also encourage folks fishing in tight spots to use a fairly short, stout leader that turns over quickly. Something 7-1/2 feet long tapered to 4X is just about ideal. Keep your cast short and tight. Reduce the hand work by fishing close. Use no more than 10 or 15 feet of line out through the guides. Control slack by raising the rod trip instead of stripping line. This reduces false casting.

With this short, quick, popping style of casting you can be right on the bank buried in the limbs and grass and still fish effectively. I promise, if you can learn to overcome the mental barriers, this simple side-arm, upstream technique will open up miles of new highly productive water to you.