There are many things that you can do to improve your stillwater angling skills, but foremost is developing a stealth mentality. Incorporating that mindset from the beginning of an angling day to the end will move you up the learning and success curve.
In the early days after Davis Lake first filled in 1968, many anglers fished from shore or by wading. It was a very successful, but often overlooked method, and it remains so today — but stealth is a must. I stand back a good ways from water’s edge and look for cruising, feeding fish. They often are aggressive and can turn and move a long way to take a fly if you remain still. On many occasions, I have taken several fish, only to have someone drive up, noisily throw a float tube or pram in the water, and scare the daylights out of any trout within a hundred or more yards.
If I am fortunate and have an area to myself, I don waders and venture out from shore, always moving slowly, minimizing any waves, to wait for patrolling fish. At times, I have moved several hundred yards away from other anglers and still found fish inshore in skinny water. There have been trips when our only success came inshore at the beginning of the day, in low light.
I’ve fished Lake Crowley only five times, but the same stealthy inshore tactics have paid off there, as well. On one occasion, I was the tail-end Charlie in our group. Arthritis issues and a float tube problem got me in the water last at Greenbanks. My traveling partners had thrashed about putting in and were kicking up the channel. I waded into the lake 20 minutes later and took five fish on small perch patterns, never moving more than 50 yards from my entry point, where I suspected there was a spring.
Angling pressure is another stealth issue, one that many people don’t regard in that light. Your own tactics may be the epitome of stealth, but what others do will still put fish down, and with streams at all-time lows, more and more anglers are fishing lakes, reservoirs, and ponds. I’ve counted 20 float tubes on Nevada County’s Fuller Lake and that many or more at Jenkins or Cow Creek on Davis. An observant friend described it as a cereal bowl full of bouncing cheerios. All that activity is going to drive fish into deeper water.
On still waters, I like observe a three-fly-line rule: don’t get any closer to someone else than the length of three fly lines, and don’t blindly back-kick into a fellow angler’s casting arc. When there is a lot of angling pressure, just fishing somewhere else can amount to being stealthy. You will be working undisturbed water. I admire guys who have waded way out on long spits and are working inshore areas that are undisturbed. I watch them with binoculars and give them lots of room.
Stealthy approaches are necessary when in a boat or float tube, too. One of my greatest angling triumphs came at Baum Lake. I had launched my pram and anchored next to a weed line that was parallel to the current. A pod of fish started working 50 yards downcurrent. I slipped my anchor quietly and gently eased toward the first fish in a slide-pause, slide-pause fashion. Just as I tightened up on my anchor within casting range, a huge bald eagle came out of the sun like a dive bomber, over my shoulder, and impaled the first trout in line on its flared talons. I felt privileged to witness such an event, but also confident about my ability to effect a stealthy approach.
There are many other things you can do to become a stealthier stillwater fly fisher. One is to develop and improve your casting skills. Whether on foot or in a float tube, pram, pontoon boat, or regular boat, long, well-laid-out casts produce the most fish. When guides lament about a day on the water, it is often about the casting ability of their clients. Why? Not only does a long cast allow you to cover more water, it distances you from your quarry. A beautiful long cast with a tight loop turns a leader and its flyover and gives a gentle entry. Fish are less likely to be aware of your presence.
And fewer casts, if they are good casts, are a lot stealthier and more productive than many bad ones. English and Canadian anglers say “Hoard your casts.” That means you should not beat the water to a fine froth. Make a few casts and pause. Rest and study the water, then start up again. Often, water an angler already has covered will produce if you allow that angler to move on, then wait a while and let things settle down. Rest your casting arm.
When you are close to trout, they can see you or your watercraft, and you are much more likely to disturb them. Look at diagrams of refractive angles, which are relatively common in books for beginner fly fishers. If you are close to a fish and show a high profile, the fish knows you are there. Streams with rushing, gurgling, roaring water mask our presence, but on still waters, there are few masking agents other than distance, lack of water clarity, surface chop, low light, and cloud cover. Bright days can bring tough fishing. Be on the water at first light. Use a cloud’s shadow to your advantage. Wind is your friend, because it disturbs the surface.
Even if a fish can’t see you, you can bet that your vibrations are still being picked up by its lateral lines. Especially if you are in a boat or pram, vibrations and hull noise can be the kiss of death. A metal boat makes the most noise. It conducts sound waves directly into the water, and the hull slap of waves alarms fish. Hard plastic boats are a bit stealthier, and wood is stealthier still, since it’s a natural material with vibration dampening qualities. Polyethylene hulls, formed by rotational molding, however, are a stealth breakthrough. The high-temperature molding process produces a skin-core-skin hull, and the core of dense polyethylene foam acts like insulation. It dampens incoming and outgoing sound waves, in addition to making the boat unsinkable.
However you do it, a stealthy approach is always the best approach on still waters. About ten years ago, I visited Sugar Creek Ranch outside Yreka when I was working on an article on private still waters. (The ranch is no longer in operation.) It was early June, and a high-pressure system had settled in, bringing clear skies.
The water surface was like a mirror, and the fishing was tough. We got rejection after rejection. There was one other angler there, a 90-year-old gentleman named Joe. Mike, the proprietor, suggested that we move back from the bank and watch Joe’s approach to the problem.
On the edge of one of the bigger lakes, where a channel connected to a second lake, he kneeled down and found a dollop of clay mud. Joe checked his fly, a Callibaetis emerger, then carefully applied fly floatant to the parachute hackle, not to the shuck. He blew to dry it, then wiped the last foot of his leader and rubbed on a coating of the mud. He then slowly and quietly moved to a position behind a hummock of pampas grass, kneeling to lower his profile, stripped out line, and waited patiently for a trout to move toward him.
After a few minutes, a trout showed up, not knowing that it was being set up for an ambush. On our elevated perch, we could see it a hundred feet away. It meandered slowly, picking up a beetle here and a struggling mayfly there. There was no selectivity, only extreme caution. When he felt the time was right, Joe shot his first false cast out 30 feet and then to 50 feet on the next forward stroke. Our guess was that his fly settled gently into the water 15 feet or more ahead of the fish. His fly line and 15-foot 5X-tippet leader lined up parallel to the fish’s line of progress, so that the fish saw the tail of the fly first, not a leader lying perpendicular across its path to the fly. The afternoon sun streamed over Joe’s shoulder, and his shadow fell into the shadow of the pampas grass clump. The clay caused the last 12 inches of his tippet to sink below the surface.
There was a happy ending. Without breaking rhythm, the trout swam up to the fly and engulfed it. Five minutes later, Joe gently released a seven-and-a-half-pound rainbow that never was lifted from the water. We watched him land a second fish half and hour later, then moved out of his territory to another section of the preserve. Later that afternoon, we borrowed his technique and landed two trophy rainbows.
I’ve used the same stealthy approach many times since. A good place to try it is where there is brushy or tree-lined shoreline. Ten minutes of observation will let you know if trout are patrolling, waiting for a meal to drop out of the foliage. Like Joe, try to set down your ant or small beetle imitation so that the fish sees the fly before the leader. Bottle some clay mud or buy a vial of leader sink. If you’re in a float tube, rather than afoot, it pays to get in close to the shore so that you can cast parallel to or diagonally along it. A cruising trout working down a shoreline edge will see your imitation before it sees your leader and a fly line. Develop a stealth mentality and start sneaking up on your fish, rather than just flailing away at them from shore, float tube, or boat. It will pay off.
