From prior posts, small stream fishing has been a tiny part of my over all fishing, as would lake fishing, save for 30'ish minutes a day when the Phoochies are doing their morning walk about casting a 6wt and surface Bass Poppers to brush lines. With little success of late as the water is still to cold for the fish to be active. (As it's 39 degrees and falling, warmer water is still pretty far into the feature.)

But back to the point of my question. The 'move' mid-next week will cut my travel time by half to areas that do have a fair number of small streams. Have a shorter 3wt, I assume that would be appropriate? Or do you have other recommendations I should be considering?

One of my underlying thoughts is looking at the great photo's you folks have been kind enough to post, much of that water, tight tree lines, etc. .... I can't even imagine how you fish same. Any chance of a bit of video tape showing how you pull that off?

fae

Time to brush up on your roll casting technique Fred!

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Nigel

"Rods are like women... we love them all...but the ones that do what we want are the ones we love most" (Adam Vigil)

Fred,
on the tiny streams i use a 6.6 ft rated 3 , with a 5wt line , helps work the rod.
A 3 ft furled leader and some 3-4 ft of fine tippet,some bushy dries and wee nymphs and good to go.
Casting is a combo of rolls, speys and overheads,keep low, creep up on the fish,cover lots of water.
Some of the wee mountain stream fish,, say 6 inches long are as challenging and beautiful ,as a lunker from the main branch !

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Andy Wren
Winter grayling taking a year off !
Claret not just a great dubbing colour!

Fred, much the same as ACW for me. 7ft 3wt rod with a 4wt WF line to load it close in. I went for a faster rod to get casts in under overhanging trees etc and be able to get tight loops when I need it. The soft full flex rods are fine IMHO when there are no trees and bushes...

As for casting be prepared for roll, most kinds of spey (snap T useful for me), bow and arrow, and a sort of floating cast where you stand upstream and let the flow of water pull the fly and slack line downstream towards your quarry.

Fine tippet and a good selection of dries and nymphs. That said I find small deer hair caddis work well as dries for 90% of the time on my local stream, even when PWOs/BWOs are the predominant hatchers.

You'll also need a sense of humour and an ability to laugh at how useless a fisherman you seem to be in such environments for much of the time (you will if you're anything like me anyway) Enjoy!

Ben

Yep pretty much with ACW and Bumps except for the heavy line bit, I stick to #3 on a 3 weight rod; abandon any notion that distance casting is the aim, as tree snarls will be the result. Take a step forwards rather than let more line out and finding the overhanging branch behind is eager to halt your progress. I don't know if the technical terms above cover my preferred casting method, which is with rod horizontal to the water surface ... something I do a lot, probably a bad habit but works for me - this calls for tight loops but really light and rhythmic casting, so as to allow the line to do its thing and the leader to present ok; the leader has a habit of corkscrewing the delivery slightly when doing this, hence doing this subtlety is my mantra. A good braided leader, which is nice and limp so forgiving of the application of torsional forces really helps make up for my dodgy delivery.

I would probably get an ear ache from a casting instructor but I’m not too worried if it’s pretty or not as I rarely see another sole, which is the way I like it most of the time.

Totally with Bumps on the laugh at yourself bit although don't do it too loud or any passer by will know you are a mad bloke standing in a trickle ... perseverance is another thing ... first outing is not likely to be as enjoyable as you might like.

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Our forum man 'Paul G' won't mind me showing you this:


If not on your lunch hour you can of course take the time to put your waders on and get in as well.

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Excellent answers all! Loved the film clip as it gives a real 'taste' as to what goes on in the field. Will have to rummage through my fly lines and see if I've got a 4wf for that 3wt rod of mine.

Fred

a longer rod is very usual on smaller streams also.

Yep, longer rods as well ... I'm not Paul's agent (perhaps I should be?) but he's there already with elements of that covered on the clip front.

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6 and 7ft 3wts for me to.. Roll casts improvised speys and catapult casts in fact some casts with no description...Great fun you will have a ball....