When people hear fly fishing, they very often connect it with fly fishing for trout. As a result, trout are often the main reason people get into fly fishing. And for good reason, they’re beautiful, fight hard, and are found all around the country, especially in stunning locations.

Catching trout on the fly rod can be challenging. They can be picky, stuffy, and overall frustrating. But that’s what makes them so fun!

The following 5 tips are meant to simplify and enhance your approach to fly fishing for trout and offer advice for not only beginners, but anglers of all levels.

Presentation Over Selection

Trout have a reputation for being “selective feeders,” meaning that they key on very specific bugs and will eat nothing else. With that, it would be our job as anglers to exactly match what they’re eating with our fly selection. Any other fly would be useless!

The reality is that the selectivity of trout is over exaggerated. Trout can be a little picky sometimes, but they will eat flies that look like food.

Which brings us to our first tip, “presentation over selection.” Focus your efforts on presenting your fly as food rather than choosing the perfect fly. You will catch more fish with flies that are fished naturally than the “right” fly fished unnaturally.

Fly selection is undoubtedly important. Matching your fly to the naturally occurring forage in your stream or river is a key element in catching fish. However, how exact our flies need to be gets overblown. Trout will eat your zebra midge that have 5 ribs instead of 4 and is a slightly different shade. They’ll eat that Pat’s Rubber Legs that has 3 legs instead of 4. Famous fly tier Harry Darbee once famously stated “if trout could count, we’d all be in big trouble.”

The ability to presenting your fly naturally will outperform the selection of your fly any day of the week. Casting, mending, streamer retrieves, and getting your flies to the right depth are all important fly fishing skills that are essential to catching fish consistently. Work on those before hyper-focusing on fly selection.

Fly Presentation Tips

So we have our fly that looks like trout food. Done, don’t overthink that part! Here are some tips to improve your fly presentation when fishing for trout:

Keep Fly Line Off the Water

Fly lines are brightly colored for a reason: so you can see it and know exactly how your flies line is behaving in the currents. This is helpful to us, but the downside is that fish may be able to see it as well.

Make as Few Mends as Possible

I’ve seen, and am guilty of, making 5 or 6 quick, harsh mends in a single cast desperate to get my fly to drift exactly correct. Depending on the current of the water, this is more often than not detrimental to your presentation.

While it’s often vital to make mends to avoid drag and unnatural presentations, overkill is very common. Once your make your mend, give your fly time to drift on its own. This could be only a few seconds, but in that short window if the fly is drifting properly, you can get a bite.

So whether it be a nymph or a dry fly, make 1, 2, or maybe 3 mends per drift and let it work!

“Foam is Home”

Reading the water is an essential skill in catching trout with a fly rod. One must be able to predict where trout will be holding and feeding in order to get them to bite. You simply can’t catch fish that aren’t there!

But how do we know where trout will be holding? Common areas like riffles, runs, pools, and underwater structure are all great places to find trout. To the trained eye, these spots are easy to see but can be tricky for those just beginning.

To even the newest fly angler, foam lines in current seams are instantly recognizable. These foam lines tell us where and how fast the current is moving, where food is is flowing, and provides a little bit of cover for the fish. The combination of these three elements make foam lines a prime target for trout and should be fished by every angler of every skill level.

Fishing Foam Line Tips

When you’ve found the foam line and are fly fishing for trout, do your best to keep your fly in line with the foam. Whether it be with a nymph, dry fly, or streamer, maximizing the amount of time your fly is in the foam will increase the chances of getting a bite.

This may require a few mends or strips of a streamer, but as long as you’re in the foam, you’re in the hunt.

Additionally, if fishing a dry fly or nymph, match the speed of the foam with your fly or bobber. The speed of the foam is the exact speed of the current and a dead giveaway for how fast our flies should be moving. If you’re fly is drifting faster or slower than the foam, you know you need to make an adjustment.

If your flies or indicator are drifting at the same speed as the foam, you know you’re in the right spot and should be ready for a bite at any second!

Hatch Magazine has a quick article about fishing foam lines that is worth checking out!

Pick Up Rocks to Find Bugs

Your local body stream or river is home to many different types of bugs that trout prey upon. You can ask the internet, your local fly shop, or you can find out for yourself with a little bit of muscle and wet hands.

Flies spend most of their lives as nymphs that live under rocks and swim along the stream bottom. Next time your our fishing or hiking your fishery, reach into the water and pick up rocks to find out which nymphs are inhabiting the water and in turn, what trout are munching on.

Pick up larger rocks to increase the chances of finding bugs and simply pick a fly that resembles the natural forage. It doesn’t have to be exact, but pick a fly that mimics the profile, size, and color of what you see under the rocks.

You’ll not only get the confidence of fishing close to the natural forage and “matching the hatch” as best you can, but also learn more about the life cycles of flies. You’ll become a better angler and an entomologist in the making.  

Use as Little Split Shot as You Can

Nymphing can be one of the most effective methods of fly fishing for trout. Trout spend the vast majority of the time feeding underwater and when on the prowl, will munch down on nymph after nymph. When doing so, trout are often at or near the bottom of the water column and it’s our jobs as anglers to get the fly down to where their feeding.

How do we get our nymph to the right depth? We have a couple of options. First we can adjust the length of or indicator/bobber. Our bobber should be 1.5-2 times the depth of the water as our initial starting point. This will allow our flies to reach the bottom and drift naturally when fished.

Secondly, we can add weight to our presentation. Many flies have a bead head weight as part of the pattern, but sometimes we need more. Too add more weight, we add split shot 8-12 inches above the fly.

But how much split shot do we use when we fly fish for trout? This can be tricky to hone in, but the best answer is using as little as you possibly can.

What I mean by this is that is very easy to pinch on 1 or 3 of the biggest split shot you have and chuck your flies into the water. You’ll guaranteed get to the bottom, but very often at the expense of your presentation.

Too much split shot will cause your fly to drift very unnaturally. As we talked about in our first tip, presentation is the most vital element of catching fist. Trout simply will not eat (at least consistently) flies that are drifting unnaturally, even if it looks exactly like their natural prey.

For that reason, we must always be cognizant of the split shot we use in order to preserve the natural presentation of our flies. Using as little split shot as possible will help us drift flies to the right depth while maintaining a natural presentation.

Adding Split Shot

How will we know we have the right amount of split shot on? Through experimentation, we will need to see a few things.

First, if you are catching fish with a certain amount of split shot on, you’re good to go! As simple as that, no adjustments needed.

Figuring out the exact right amount of split shot to use takes a little trial and error and is worth every effort. Start with no split shot and begin adding as needed. I’ve been surprised many times by how no split shot is actually the best method to catching trout.

Hone Your Skills, Not Your Stuff

First off, fly fishing gear rocks. The rods, reels, and accessories are fascinating and you can (and will) begin to obsess over every new piece of gear that hits the market. It can consume your time and wallet, when in reality it won’t be helping you catch more fish as a beginner.

Honing your skills and not your gear is an important trait that every angler, beginner or advance, needs to be reminded of. You will catch more fish with better craft- your cast, approach, and reading of water- than you ever will with the fanciest gear on the market. Don’t get me wrong, quality gear is very important, but it is very easy to get lost in marketing meant to catch fisherman and not fish.

Especially as a beginner, focus your effort on improving your casts and techniques with the quality gear you have available.

As an example, let’s say you got your first all-around 5 weight and are interested in streamer fishing. To truly maximize your streamer game, a 6 or 7 weight may be the ideal choice, though a 5 weight will also get the job done. Instead of instantly spending resources to buy the hottest streamer rod on the market, hone your streamer game with the 5 weight you already have.

Over time, you’ll hone your skills so much faster if you fish with your current gear instead of adjusting your gear to your skills. There will come a time where specialized gear is worth it, but I would recommend to the beginner to keep things very simple and fish as much as you can with as little gear as you need.

Personal Example

In a personal example, I was swept up in the world of Euro-nymphing some years ago, fascinated by the effectiveness of a technique that supposedly caught more fish than anything else.

So of course, I convinced myself that it was absolutely essential that I have the exact right gear. In this case a 10 foot 3 weight rod and Euro-specific fly line- in order to fish this method correctly. I went to the shop, picked up the gear and began fishing only to very quickly realized that I just did not like Euro-nymphing. I easily could have used the 9 foot 4 weight I use for trout as a Euro rod to test the method before jumping into the new gear. Now my Euro rod sits rarely used in my closet all because I got caught up in the gear before honing in my Euro-nymphing skills and realizing that I prefer to fish other ways.

All that to say is that enhancing your skills is more important than the upgrading the gear you have. There will be a time and place for upgrading your gear, but as a beginner, focus your efforts on improving your skills. Your skills will take you further in fishing than any piece of gear out there.

Conclusion

With these 5 tips for fly fishing for trout, you will simply catch more fish. The skills above improve with time, but knowing these will give you a head start as a beginner and enhance your current skills as an experienced angler.

Always prioritize your presentation over your fly selection. Pick up rocks to get a general understanding of what’s in the water and choose your fly to match what you find. Target foam lines on the water and keep your flies drifting at the pace of the bubbles. When nymphing, use as little split shot as you can to preserve the natural movement of your drifts. And finally, hone your skills before filling up your pack with often unnecessary gear.

With these tips, you’ll catch more fish and enjoy more of your time on the water. Now get out there and fish!