As you approach a water, what factors do you take into account and which ones do you consider the most important ones to address and how do you therefore tailor your selection of rod/line/fly etc.? Specify both the type of water and the species you are targeting.

Things like:

Weather
Time of year
Ghillie/owner/regular angler's advice
+ anything else you feel is important

My first thread here, so thanks for any replies!

First a warm welcome from 8 time zones to the west.

Personal perspective here only as 99.999% of my fishing is on a PNW rivers. The one thing that helps me is almost any moving water here in the US has 'river flow gages' (usually several if the river/stream has any length to it. All the gages will give you the volume of water (cfs) and most will also have a 'turbidity' sensor (dirt if you will).

I'll pull up the gage(s) info (via the Internet) and compare a few starting up stream from where I'm going to fish. Comparing that number to one, or more, down stream will tell me what all the feeder streams between are adding.

With those bits of info I know what type of equipment (rod/line weight) I' likely need and size of fly probably needed.

fae

Edit: here's what a 'gage page' looks like: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=14339000

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living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living." -- Anonymous

Welcome to the forum. There was a similar discussion on this thread a few weeks ago. Some good tips in there.What would you do ?

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Eddie
"We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation."
Voltaire

Hi Jamie

Welcome to the Forum you have certainly come to the biggest bank of fishing knowledge as you are asking thousands of experienced anglers for the benefit of their hard earned knowledge.
I will give you a short resume of my approach to my local club stillwater.

As I am familiar with the water having fished it for eleven years I have a bit of an advantage however the principles always remain the same wherever I fish. I start with the weather forecast and temperature so I have an idea before I arrive at the fishery. Next I assess the fishery, the direction of the wind,wind speed, ripple, and wind chill factor. Whether it is dull, overcast or sunny.If it is raining I take that into account.Heavy rain spoils a rise light rain dosen't. If there is no wind fish can usually be seen rising.From these observations, and some I may have forgotten, I decide on a fishing method and a fall back plan if this doesn't work.From there on it's trial and error with my chosen method. If the first choice isn't productive I go to plan B and try until I connect with fish. My assessments are also designed to predict where the trout are position wise and were they are in the water column.
As you fish you are constantly updating your information by regular observation. As the day unfolds conditions can change rapidly and you need to adapt to the changing conditions to benefit. The sun may come out and there might be a rapid rise off trout to a hatch. Trying to identify the insects and changing tatics is very important.
This is why fly fishing is so unique not two days are ever the same and sometimes a day can be split into a number of different approaches.

You will propably get numerous different approaches from other Forum members none of which will be wrong. At the end of the day your approach is what works for you.

Tight lines

BK

Hi, jamie91, and welcome.

You've asked a very big question for a first post!

The points you've mentioned already are all important. Speaking as (primarily, these days) a loch/spate river fisherman I'd add the following for starters:

As you say, wind is a major consideration. Some lochs perform best with a certain wind direction, so this can determine where I choose to fish.

When loch fishing for salmon from the bank I want to be on the lee shore as the fish like to lie in the shallows with their noses 'into the waves'. In a bit of a blow I'll use an 8 wgt, 10ft, single handed rod to punch the line out but usually a 7 wgt will suffice.

Local knowledge can be invaluable, as can a bit of research before you visit. For me, this used to mean scouring old Trout & Salmon mags for relevant articles, studying O.S. maps and wading through my fishing books. It was fun in a way .... but these days - gawd bless the Net!

If possible, tackle up facing the water. You never know what you might see rising while you do.

If you can bear to, spend 10 minutes just studying the pool or bay you're about to fish looking for movement, likely lies and, if wading, your route in, down and out.

If on unfamiliar water turn a few stones over in the shallows and look for insect life to mimic with your flies. Also, check the bank-side vegetation, kick up the heather and see what naturals are about.

Thanks for the replies! All of these replies hopefully teach me something and Eddie O'Neill's post opened up a new bank of knowledge for me to sift through! Sometimes, I feel that that I fall at the first hurdle and get my initial setup wrong - which is why I always like to fish with a partner or really pick the brains of the management or locals at the venue I'm at. Im good at adapting setups and tweaking to increase catching or to respond to a change in conditions however, so learning to make a better initial selection could really help me improve.

The best advise I could give would be not to make any decisions on How to fish before having a good long look at the water, Back when I first started fishing on the welsh Dee with my Granddad he would keep all the flies in his waistcoat and I couldn’t have one for at least 15minutes.
He would then say which fish are you going to go after were are you going to approach from and what fly do you want, for years I would get it completely wrong and he would smile and point out my mistake after he had landed the Big trout or grayling from the pool that I had missed, I could never work out how he only made a handful of casts but always ended up with more fish and all the big ones.
Anyway 30 years later and now I just get it wrong 60% of the time

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Allan
Only dead fish go with the flow.

Most useful thing by far is to find someone who knows the water well and ransack them for information.

And treat your first few visits as reconnaisance.

welcome to the forum jamie. i almost exclusively fish rivers and as of late have exclusively fished the dry fly. when i get to the water i light up a fag and i just stop and watch for a while. if there's fish rising rising it's just a case of what dry to use. if there's nothing moving or the sun is really bright then i'll fish the klink and dink method.

burhan

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I could fish deep into the night
Well past the light
But at the end of the day
It's the end of the day

Burhan

mc_death187@yahoo.com

When I get to the loch. I sit down and have a coffee as I tackle up, noting the wind direction as I'm not one of those silly beggars who cast into the wind. I've already noticed the temperature and I watch for any flies that may be emerging. Then I put a size 10 amber hopper on the tail, a size 16 snipe and purple on the bob and start fishing. If I have no takes I put my rucksack back on and head over the hump to the next loch where I repeat the procedure.