If only I remembered to…

For beginners and improvers

1  Move downstream before you make your next cast. Don’t make a good cast and then start taking steps. This will introduce slack line and spoil yards of good drift — your fly won’t fish well. Instead, fish out the drift, move, cast, focus and repeat.

2  Most rods are designed and rated by exceptional casters. It’s common for high-spec rods to be rated ‘a little light’ for beginners and intermediate casters. It’s a good idea for them to move up an AFTM line rating (eg 9 to 10) or a few grams in weight. This will make a rod more user-friendly. It will flex more deeply and timing will be easier to master.

3  On small rivers, where space is tight, pick a short shooting-head with an integrated running line. It will allow you to fish out a cast fully without being interrupted or distracted by the running line connection. Re-adjusting a connected head back through the rod rings in order to recast is annoying. A light integrated skagit is also a good choice.

4  Unnecessary wading has been depressing catches for decades. Ross Macdonald often reminds me what his late father Kenny drilled into him as a youngster: “Let’s catch the fish close to our bank first.” Timeless advice. Whenever you can, fish at ankle depth before venturing out for a second pass of the pool. 

5  On the first morning of a trip, take a few minutes to strip the fly-line (or running line) from your reel and give it a good stretch. It’s time well spent as your line will perform better with fewer tangles.

6  When attaching a running line or backing with a knot, don’t trim the tag end closely. This creates a stiff spur that jams in the tip ring. Two inches of tag will guide the knot more smoothly through the rings.

7  Try hand-lining normal dressed flies and experiment with different retrieval speeds, just as you would for trout. Speed and movement may be the best way of all to trigger a take — more so than a change of pattern.

Quietly does it 

8  Dogs are great fun to fish with. However, if you let them run around on the bank downstream of you on smaller rivers, they are likely to spook fish lying in thin water close to the bank. 

9  Leave strong scents such as cologne at home. They carry on the wind and are easily transferred to flies and tackle.

10 Don’t walk along the skyline of a pool. Salmon are sensitive to shadows and strong silhouettes. Ask non-fishing companions to do the same. Try to approach the head of a pool from upstream. If this isn’t possible, avoid walking upstream by the water’s edge.

Tips for veterans

11 It’s surprisingly common for fly-lines not to weigh what they say on the box. Digital kitchen scales are a great way to check and fine-tune your set-ups. If you trim a line, always take it off from the reel end. Give a new line a quick weigh. If it’s not what it says on the box, it’s easy to return. Realising a line is over or under weight on the water is highly frustrating.

12 Try a free-swinging single hook on Sunray Shadow-style tubes to reduce tangles. They normally fish point-up, so a strong hook-hold in the roof of the mouth or scissors is common. Use a short length of plastic tubing that is just big enough to cover the eye of the hook and the knot. Let this form a free-swinging junction to the tube. Michael Frodin’s F.I.T.S. tubing is excellent for this — soft and durable, it comes in many colours and sizes.

13  When fishing from a boat and fish are taking poorly on the dangle or in slower flows (as often happens in the autumn), a North American String Leech-style steelhead pattern can hold a razor-sharp single hook right at the very tip of the dressing. This can convert nips and poorly hooked fish into fish netted.

14  Keep a diary, particularly on beats you fish frequently or over many years. Record the details of your catches, but also those of others. Mark precise positions and lies within pools. Patterns that may not be obvious immediately can reveal themselves over time.

Thrifty thinking

15 Repair fly-line damage with ceramic hair straighteners and some heat-shrink tubing. Slide on a length of tubing and centre it over the crack (ensuring it’s a little wider than the width of the hair straighteners to protect the line). Heat the tubing over the crack, until it shrinks tight to the line and becomes noticeably limp. Then, on a hard, flat surface, roll it back and forth under your fingers (taking care not to burn yourself) for 15 seconds. This will ensure an even repair. Carefully cut a nick in the unshrunk end of the tubing and peel away. The crack is gone, the line is repaired.(Rio sell good shrink tube).

16  You can also make fly-line loops and custom tips with shrink tube and straighteners. With sharp scissors carefully trim a point in the end of the line. Slide the line into a short length of shrink tube and then double back to form a neat loop of the size you want. Simply heat, roll and cut away the tubing — as in tip 15. Recycle old lines, buy mill ends or lengths of T (tungsten) sinking line to make personalised tips in a selection of lengths and sink rates. I find 17ft-18ft is about the maximum length for comfortable turnover.

17 Mono running lines are great for extra distance and big rivers, but most brands supply more than you actually need, which leaves a great deal of surplus buried on your reel. You can get some extra life by turning a running line around but it can become kinked over time. Instead, work out what you can cast, allowing another ten yards, then trim. You should have enough pristine unused line left to later replace worn line.

18 Buy top-quality tackle when the model changes, typically at the end of the season. A great top-end salmon rod doesn’t become second-rate just because the latest nanosupermodulus is 0.002 grams lighter. The savings are as big for clothing, lines and reels.

19 Instead of having a loop in the end of a polyleader, carefully tie on a tippet ring and glue the knot. This will last longer and prolong the life of the polyleader. 

A tippet ring also makes a quick and easy way to add or subtract a dropper. Simply add one to your cast where you want the dropper. A short length of stiff dropper nylon can then be added or removed in a flash.

20 Posh shoes come in cotton drawstring bags. These are a great way to organise shooting heads because they are light, strong and just the right size. I organise mine so that all the lines for a specific rod are in one bag. This avoids a lot of confusion between line and rod combinations, particularly if you have the same line in a number of weights or you have custom-cut a line to suit a rod.

21 Pipe cleaners are an easy way to hold and store shooting heads. Coil the line on your hand neatly (avoiding kinks) and then use two long pipe cleaners to hold the coils in place. They make great rod ties, too. Put your reel on your rod, then hold the sections together at
the top and bottom with the pipe cleaners. This makes it easy to carry and quick to assemble.

22 It’s a buyer’s market. Some beats and rivers carry a premium price, but it’s not always clear why. Catches may be tightly bunched and you could pay a lot for poor fishing, so take particular note of the spread of catches.

Summertime

23 If you have moved a fish but it didn’t take, you could change fly, or simply throw a half hitch over the head of the fly to make it skate. This instant variation often works and it’s quicker than changing fly. We don’t fish “the hitch” enough in the UK.

24 A long leader in low water helps minimise disturbance two ways. With less of the fly-line needed as an anchor, splash is minimised when forming the D-loop. The forward cast will also land more delicately. Allow a little extra time for the long leader to unfurl and gently land the fly. Try the length of the rod plus 25 per cent as a rough guide.

25 If you can’t decide between two sizes of fly, try the smaller one first and work up in size. The same goes for dull flies to bright, and fast presentation to slow. The reason? Lean on the side of not letting the fish get too clear, or obvious a look at your fly to start with, then gradually make things easier (bigger, brighter, slower) until contact is made. The reverse approach risks blowing the illusion too quickly. The exception would be when salmon are running hard.

26 You can still get strong winds in summer when you want to use a floating line. A skagit line can be used with a floating tip, and will give you the best chance to make a respectable cast in a high wind. The extra surface disturbance from the thick line will likely be disguised by the wind on the water’s surface, and the improved casting presentation makes the trade-off worth considering.

Running repairs

27 Wading boot laces fail and often we don’t notice until it’s too late and it can ruin a day’s fishing. Keep a spare in the car boot or fishing bag. If you are a frequent all-seasons fisher, a second pair of wading boots a size or half-size bigger allows for extra socks to be worn in extremely cold weather. Tight boots mean cold feet.

28 To quickly locate a leak on a Gore-Tex jacket or waders, carry some isopropyl alcohol and a tube of Aquasure, or a UV-activated wader repair product. Dry the item overnight. Spray the inside of the Gore-Tex with alcohol and leaks will appear as black marks. A smear of repair glue will then fix the leak. UV repair products can have you ready to fish in minutes.

29 A damaged or flapping sole on a wading boot is dangerous. Gorilla glue is water activated and can provide a strong overnight repair. The electrical tape used for rod joins can be used to hold the sole in position while the repair dries. Trim surplus glue that has expanded out from the sole for a neat repair.

30 Black reels can be bad for showing scuff marks. The car-cleaning product T-Cut can work wonders to spruce them up.

Fly, hook and tube storage

31 Low-cost ziplock plastic bags and pouches are a great way to store a small selection of tube flies without bulk. The bags are also friendly to long-winged patterns.

32 Apply unscented hair gel to long-tailed flies dressed on hooks to hold them in perfect shape while in your box. When you are ready to fish, tie on the fly and then give it a rinse to remove the hair gel. A good ploy for fox and Arctic runner tails, which are easily spoiled.

33 Paper drinking straws are a smart way to store long- winged tube flies. Measure the full length of the fly against the straw, trim to length and then slide the fly inside. This will hold a selection of Sunray Shadow-type flies neatly in a tube-fly box without tangling.

A mixed bag

34 Trying to net a fish on your own with a double-handed rod can be awkward. When the fish is ready to net, slide your hand as far up the rod as you can to reduce its length. This will make the fish much easier to reach.

35 If you are dealing with coloured fish, in almost all conditions it will usually pay to remove all flash, sparkle and ribbing from a fly. Try plain black in various sizes and weights.

36 When it comes to gillies, tip well when service is good. When it isn’t, give feedback. We get the government we deserve.

37  Store your tube-fly hooks carefully. If you keep them in a box, shake it and if the hooks can rattle, they are going to blunt over time. I save desiccant packets commonly found in packaging and use them to pad the hooks, helping to reduce movement and moisture.

38 If you are on your own, a pair of rubber kitchen gloves is a great way to grip, pull and twist apart a stuck rod blank.

Cold water

39 When fish are scarce in early spring, it is often better to fish a pool twice, quite quickly, than slowly once. I fish a lighter set-up first (running fish are rarely very deep) and then a deeper set-up, focusing on known hotspots that may hold a more reluctant resident. If the water is cold (30 deg C) make it easy for the salmon to see and intercept your fly. If this doesn’t work, try a pattern like a Sunray Shadow fished at a modest pace with long slow pulls.

40 Where spinning is permitted, I may use small re-usable split shot when fly-fishing. Attach a small length of tippet to your leader. Carefully nip on the split shot to the leader side of the knot. In cold water or fast flows this is a great way to find depth quickly and still present an attractive fly. Changes can be made more easily with cold hands than swapping tips or polyleaders. Not for fly-only beats.