Decades ago, back in the 1970s, my brother Lincoln and I would follow our father up and down small streams, fishing. He would have the f ly rod, and we would watch where he placed the fly on the water. Lincoln and I then would each take our turn and cast the fly to the spot on the water where Dad would tell us. We didn’t know why. We just knew that Dad told us to do it, and if we did what he said, a fish would rise to our fly. Lincoln and I thought Dad was a genius. I didn’t know it then, but Dad wasn’t just handing down to us the skills a fly fisher needs — the hows of being a successful fly fisher — but preparing us for beginning to understand why they work.
One evening in 1979, Dad let us fish the South Fork of the Rogue River in southern Oregon by ourselves. Our plan was to fish a stretch that, looking back on it, I realize was just five hundred yards or so long. In that stretch, Lincoln and I landed more than a hundred and fifty native rainbows ranging from three to eight inches long. We believed we were the greatest fly fishers of all time. We knew the hows pretty well, but we still didn’t know the whys.
Just a few years later, Lincoln and I were fishing the creeks just outside Chico. We had our own Powell fly rods, Pflueger reels (It wasn’t until I worked at Powell’s that I could afford a Hardy reel), and our own creels and fly boxes. We thought we were real fly fishers, for sure. That’s when Lincoln and I started to study the whys.
Why were the fish always found in different areas during different times of the day? Why did we catch more fish during the morning and evening? Why, during certain insect hatches, would the fish be everywhere, not just in their usual places? Why, at midday, would the fish like the dry flies that sank into the film, rather than the flies that floated high? As we answered all these whys, we started to understand the roles played by the food chain, the movement of water, and the behavior of the fish during certain times — the principles involved in the answers.
One of the things we eventually came to understand is that if you learn about reading the water by fishing small mountain streams, the principles also apply to fishing the flows of much larger waters.
Big Water
There’s a lot if what I think of as “big water” in California. From my perspective as a guide, any river with flows over 600 cubic feet per second is big water, but really, whether a river is “big” or not depends upon how you view it. If its size is such that you have trouble figuring out how to fish it, then it is “big water.” In California, the size of a river will fluctuate based on precipitation, snowmelt, or, if dammed, water releases. Valley tailwaters like the lower Sacramento, Yuba, Feather and American Rivers are “big water.”
Where do you fish in rivers that big? Dad told us to break the water down into its component parts. When you do that, you begin to realize that big water is just a magnified version of small water. If you can read the water in a small stream, you can read a big river, as well.
The principles are the same, because water flows in big water the same way it does in small streams, and the fish behave the same way in both. For starters, the food that the fish need (insects, eggs, worms, whatever) flows downstream in the same way. A caddis pupa that starts its emergence from the rocks on the bottom of the river transforms into an adult some distance downstream in both. Water flows faster in the top portion of the water column in both, because the current on the bottom is slowed by friction with the riverbed and by obstacles such as rocks and logs. If you know where the flows direct food to the fish in both small and big water and how the flows affect where you present a fly in the water column, you will know where and how to try to get your fly in front of a fish, because you’ve figured out where the fish will be holding. Trout will always be holding and looking upstream into the current line for food. And this position is not only for food. It also helps the oxygenated water flow over their gills.
The anatomy of big water also is the same as that of small water: pocket water, holes, pools, drop-offs, channels, logs, rocks, current lines, feeding lanes, and tailouts. The only difference is that in addition to the standard features of a small stream, big rivers can include big-water features like salmon redds, as well as major man-made structure like bridge footings, concrete walls and pits from mining. So to find fish in big water, look for the features that attract fish. And look also for the amenities that maximize the comfort of fish and their ability to survive. Jay Fair called this looking for “stars.” The more stars you see, the better the area will be for fishing. The fish, for example, need cover for protection from predators. This could be a rock, a log, or just simply the depth of the water. A food source and oxygenated water are musts. Water temperature follows the Goldilocks rule — it needs to be just right. Fifty-three to 56 degrees, in my opinion, is perfect. These are the basic “stars.” Light and weather conditions also play a role. Low light or cloudy days are an advantage for the fish. It is harder for birds of prey to see into the water, and fish don’t mind rain. All of these factors apply to big water, as they do in small streams.
So don’t be overwhelmed by the size of the river in front of you. Just go ahead and treat it as you would a small stream. That’s easy to do. I once was guiding with the late Jon Baiocchi on the lower Yuba, and Jon told our guests, “Use an imaginary square 30 feet by 30 feet or even 50 feet by 50 feet. Break down what is in that square area and then fish it.” I had been doing that for years, I just never realized it. I asked Jon later, “Where did you get that?” His reply was simple, “My dad.” I laughed.
Once you know that the same principles apply to big water that operate in small streams, you can start breaking down areas within the river and look for places that would appeal to the fish. The next step is to plan your attack for the specific features you find there.
Pocket Water
Pocket water is an area in a stream where boulders and large rocks break up the current and create spots — pockets — of calm water. These calm spots are easy to see, especially in small streams — they’re the shining, glassy piece of water behind a rock. Adjacent to these calm spots are the current seams formed at the boundary of the faster water flowing around the rocks and the calm or slower water behind them. Fish will hold on the calmer side of a seam because doing so takes less energy, and the current nearby will carry food that the fish can grab as it passes. The front of rocks also have a cushion of slower water where fish might hold. In all, pocket water can be a very productive place to fish.
Sometimes, especially in big water, the rocks themselves will not be visible, just the seams on the surface of the river or little whitewater ripples going downstream. Other times, you will see an elongated V of glassy flows. Structure affects bigwater flows the same way it affects flows in small creeks. The fish will be holding in the same areas. Structure makes up the majority of the locations where fish hold in big water.
Drop-Offs
Drop-offs also are a feature found in big water as well as small. They’re just larger. On a creek, where water current flowing over a bottom of lava rock or cobble suddenly goes into deeper water, the change in depth might be just a couple of feet. On a big river, drop-offs often involve a dramatic change in depth. Some of these drop-offs are created by human activities, and others by natural forces, such as on the lower Sacramento, where clay deposits have been eroded over time. The deeper water can continue for just a couple of yards or for much farther, depending on the quantity of water and the velocity of the current. However, every drop-off is basically the same, on big water as well as on small streams. The fast water flowing over the drop-off creates a change in current that causes heavier food items to fall toward the streambed. This in turn means you can find fish at or near the downstream edge of the drop-off. As the river flows past the drop-off, it still carries food, so fish will hold along the slower edges of the current, just as they do in the slower currents of pocket water, waiting for food delivery. Fish will also hold in the slow water beneath the current. This means the fly fisher should focus on both the head of the drop-off and on the seams and current lines below it. In these circumstances, though, big water can create additional constraints, because the angler might only be able to fish one side of the drop-off or just a small portion of the current line. Still, it is important not to dismiss these areas until they’re thoroughly fished.
Drop-offs can also occur parallel to the river’s flow. These sometimes are very subtle, and sometimes obvious, clearly defined by dark water where the drop-off occurs. They can be a few yards long or extend for a few hundred yards. These areas hold fish, just as the drop-offs perpendicular to the current do. The only difference is that as the water flows downstream along the drop-off at a constant speed, the heavier food items fall out more slowly than with perpendicular drop-offs. The food conveyor belt will often run the length of the drop-off.
Spawning Salmon
The big waters of the Sacramento Valley (the Yuba, Feather, American, and lower Sacramento Rivers) have salmon and steelhead runs, and the redds and bowls created in spawning areas on these rivers are important features for fly fishers, because they attract feeding fish. Please note, though, that while redds are great places to fish, never wade through a redd or damage it. Wild fish are being produced there, and they are the future of the fishery.
Salmon redds are easy to see, usually represented as a circle of exposed gravel about two yards in diameter and six to eight inches deep. They can run across the width of a river from bank to bank, or they can be situated on only part of the riverbed, like potholes in a road. Salmon redds are usually in water that is only two to three feet deep, but I have found them in water that was only a foot deep.
The surface of a river can give you clues as to the location of salmon redds. The current flowing over the depression of a redd will have a choppiness, like nervous water, that contrasts with a river’s calmer, shining water surface just upstream from the redd and below it. Many times, an area of redds will look like a washboard of shining water and ripple water hundreds of feet long. Other times, an area of redds can look like pocket water without the rocks. Trout and steelhead usually hold downstream of salmon redds, staying out the way while the salmon build their redds and then spawn. The salmon dislodge aquatic insects from the rocks while digging the redds and also release eggs when spawning, and the trout and steelhead are there, waiting for food to be delivered.
Bowls are redds that have been dug into the bed of the river and used so frequently that they are no longer suitable for spawning, because the remaining pebbles and cobble rocks are too large. I like to target bowls, rather than active spawning beds, because bowls tend to hold trout and steelhead waiting for food to come to them. Bowls are usually two to three yards wide and two to three feet deep. (Add to this the depth of the water column to figure out how long your leader needs to be to dredge your nymph along the bottom of a bowl.) The shapes of bowls range from an elongated oval to a roughly rectangular block.
As with redds, water flows over the front lip (the drop-off ) and into the deeper water of the bowl, then hits the downstream lip of the bowl. In bowls, this creates a whitewater fingerprint that I call a “folding,” an upstream whitewater ripple. The larger the ripple, the larger and deeper the bowl. The fish will hold just as they do in a typical drop-off, at the front lip waiting for the heavier food items to fall into the bowl or at the lower lip at the bottom of the bowl. You offer the fly to the front fish by allowing your fly to drop into the bowl and then dead drift your fly until it exits the downstream side. You must lift your rod up and down, high-sticking the fly to avoid it getting snagged on the lips. I consider bowls to be a five-star restaurant for trout and steelhead in big rivers.
Tailouts
Like small streams, big rivers have tailouts at the end of runs, holes, and pools. Though overlooked by many f ly fishers, tailouts can hold larger fish and are easy to fish. As water flows into the shallows of the tailout, food becomes concentrated in the current. The fish will be waiting at the convergence of the deep water and the shallow water where this happens.
To fish tailouts, all you need to do is let your fly swing from the deeper water into the shallow water. On small water, most fly fishers have had fish grab when letting the flies swing or just by letting them sit in the current straight downstream. The same happens on big water.
The Why
Once you begin to understand why some things just seem to work, not just how, it can simplify your approach to fishing. Big water may look puzzling, even intimidating, to anyone used to fishing small streams, but in fact, small streams and big water obey the same principles, as do the fish that live in them. The elements of which they’re composed are pretty much the same. Breaking down big water into those elements isn’t difficult, once you take your understanding of small streams and transfer it to larger rivers. All those years ago, those principles actually were what Dad was teaching my brother and me. Maybe he was a genius, after all.
