The Stillwater Fly Fisher: Trolling with Flies

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BLAINE CHOCKLETT’S GAME CHANGER FLY IS AN ARTICULATED STREAMER THAT MOVES WITH THE SLIGHTEST ACTION OF ROD TIP OR RETRIEVE. IT IS A PRODUCTIVE TROLLING FLY, PARTICULARLY WHEN TARGETING BASS. IMAGE COURTESY OF DENIS PEIRCE

The flow of a fly line in the hands of a master caster has always mesmerized me. A faded article on fly fishing found in a barbershop and a chance meeting of a good fly caster on the American River prompted me to ask my father for a birthday fly rod at age 12. Like many fly fishers of my generation, I homeschooled myself in fly casting using diagrams found in books and magazines in conjunction with self-analysis and correction.

But I’m not one who looks down his nose at other ways to fish a fly. Dragging a fly behind a watercraft of some type is a good way to find and catch fish, often bigger fish than casting can produce. Today, trolling with fly rod, whether in fresh water or salt, is an integral part of my armamentarium.

I started trolling flies for trout in the mid-1970s, at Lake Davis. My father, who was raised on crappies, bream, carp, catfish, and alligator gar in Texas, never took up cast-and-retrieve fly fishing. On our California trips, we would troll flies behind a boat powered by an idling outboard. If we got into fish, we would kill the engine and let the boat drift. I would then cast flies, and my dad fished a bubble on a spinning rod with short leader and fly. During graduate school, a roommate and fishing partner who remains a lifelong friend would borrow his father’s lightweight wooden Penn Yan skiff. When we could get away, which wasn’t often, we car-topped to Lake Berryessa from San Francisco, hung an aging Johnson one-horsepower outboard on the low stern, and ran uplake to a twisting cove that restricted motor use and water skiing, thereby eliminating most anglers and boats. We loaded the 12-foot car-top boat with light camping gear and food not requiring refrigeration.

We broke the rules against lakeside camping and would spend the night in the remote, hidden cove. Our camp kitchen included a skillet, filet knife, cooking oil, potatoes, Red Mountain jug wine, and a coffee pot. Since we rarely had time for more than one night away from school, this turned our respite into more of a grand adventure and escape.

Not wanting to draw attention to our presence and not have a trolling motor, much less room for one and a battery, we took turns rowing. One of us would guide and row, and the other would cast bass bugs or streamers toward shore. But bass can be both moody and spooky, particularly at midday in bright light. You may cast all day without a take, however accurate and stealthy you may be.

Consequently, we changed tactics and learned to troll flies for bass. We’d muffle squeaky oar locks with wet socks and troll as close as possible to structure, dragging streamer flies far behind our boat. Our equipment consisted of cane fly rods and early sinking shooting heads that were used in chasing steelhead and shad, again borrowed without permission from my friend’s father. We did well enough that we never went hungry, and we learned nuances of fly trolling that we carried with us into later years. There is still much to be said for not using a motor.


Just dragging a fly on a straight course behind a float tube, boat, canoe, pram, or pontoon boat can be effective, but there are refinements to the practice that elevate it to the level of a technique whose mastery can produce exciting results. At minimum, rod movement can add all-important action to an artificial, as can hand-imparted action and an irregular kicking motion imparted by flippers or oars. And unlike stream anglers, trollers seldom vary anything in their fly selection, leader length and tippet diameter, or fly depth.

There’s a lot more to trolling flies for trout, though. How I go about it begins before I even get in the water.

A hot report will congregate floattube and pontoon-boat fly anglers in areas such as Jenkins, Cow Creek, Fugawee Cove, Lightening Tree, or Mosquito at Lake Davis. Similar spots at Frenchman Lake are Snallygaster, Crystal Point, and Lunker Point. It could be McGee Bay, Greenbanks, or closer to the Owens inflow at the north end of Lake Crowley. These areas often hold fish, but trout shy away from dense concentrations of watercraft. As a result, before I launch a watercraft in these areas, whether or not feeding fish are visible, I cast from shore and stealthily work the undisturbed inshore water.

Only then do I carefully and quietly launch my float tube, perhaps casting again to close-in inshore water, then starting to troll, but still mixing in some casts and retrieves, all the while looking for fish. First I move in a path parallel to the shore at the 6-foot-depth contour, then at the 8-foot contour, and then at the 10-foot or 12-foot contour using a clear intermediate line that sinks at a rate of 1-1/2 to 3 inches per second, pausing to let the line and fly sink and then rise again as I start kicking or rowing. If I’m running on an electric trolling motor and have autopilot, I can set the contour depth and trolling speed.

In the late spring or early summer, it’s amazing how often I find fish over an 8-foot depth contour and then again at 12 feet. Fish move in early, then out to deeper water with increasing brightness and sun angle. Often my observations are confirmed at an evening campfire gathering by other anglers.

I don’t always move in a straight line, either. I throw in “S” curves. A productive trick is to make a long cast shoreward, perpendicular to your route as it parallels the shore. Throw a mend, pause, and let the line sink, then, as you resume moving, it will swing in an arc from shallow to deeper water, raising and presenting an insect imitation in an upward movement or mimicking a fleeing baitfish heading for cover in deeper water.


You also can entice strikes by stopping and letting your fly line sink nearly to an acute angle before continuing. Count down the seconds, and on the next pass, let it go down even farther, pause, and then continue. At extreme hang angles, this is a version of Brian Chan and Phil Rowley’s “fishing the vertical hang.” Renewed movement will start the line planing upward and through a horizontally extended corridor. If I’m rowing a watercraft, sometimes I pull on both oars at the same time and sometimes I pull one at a time to get a back-and-forth movement along that corridor.

Keep you drag setting fairly low, lest you break off every fish on the take. Fish can take a fly from the side, from behind, or diagonally head-on, which compounds the mass that will test your leader. Trolling momentum starts the hook set. Avoid tightening your drag too soon or trying to move the fish toward you too early.

disc
THE PLASTIC DISC IN FRONT OF THIS ARCTIC FOX TUI CHUB STREAMER GIVES THE FLY ENTICING ACTION WHEN TROLLED

Realize that fish usually move in schools while they are feeding. A quiet period can be followed by a fast one as fish leave an area, then return. They migrate along submerged river channels, sometimes reversing and moving again along the channel edges at a preferred depth as they graze for food. Another migration is an early morning inshore move to the shallows, where photosynthesis provides food, then back out as the sun’s angle rises. At times, they move back in as the sun sets, but all of us have waited for an evening rise that never comes. Cloud shadows that provide cover to the fish change quickly, but foam lines, wind lanes, and mud lines don’t. They always warrant focus and more passes. In a powered craft, it is much easier and faster to repeat passes.


Like tournament bass anglers, you are trying to identify a pattern, then repeating it. Remembering where a fish hits your fly, vertically and horizontally in the water column, is very important. Obviously, you will want to repeat the same route. Circle wide to come back in the same direction after you’ve taken a fish. Keep track not only of the depth of the water where the fish hit, but the amount of line out behind your watercraft. Was your rod tip pointed directly behind you, or out as far as you could comfortably hold it to the side? You may have gotten a hit when you came over or parallel to a drop-off, the vertical or horizontal edge of a weed bed, an inlet, cooling springs, a small side channel, or the inshore edge of tree shadows. Perhaps the hit came because you went into a cloud shadow, varied forward speed, or the sun dipped behind a mountain peak. Are you dragging your fly away from the sun, directly into it, or perpendicular to the most direct rays? Try to note any such details and differences.

Stay at least two fly-line lengths from fellow anglers — more, if in a motorized boat — because fish shy away from the presence of watercraft. It’s good angling etiquette as well, of course, but crowding is counterproductive. I’ve always wondered why anglers concentrate like Cheerios in a cereal bowl, even on a large lake, especially when few are catching fish. If you encounter dense angler concentrations and see no one catching fish, it is best to move.

Prams are made for trolling, whether powered by an electric motor on the stern or by two oars. In my pram, I stash a foatation cushion in a space under a custom-built swivel seat. The cushion has two straps, and when rowing, I wrap one of those straps around my reel as a safety catch and slide the cushion under the seat platform. It’s easy to pick up the rod to remove line slack if a fish hits.

Stillwater fly fishing for trout originated on England’s lakes. Immigrants brought their techniques to Canada, then to the northern United States. I had the pleasure of fishing with a friend’s son in the Glastonbury area of southwest England. We worked wind lanes and foam lines using long, 12-foot cane rods and two and three attractor flies that bounced on the wave tops in our silent drift.

An American trolling technique evolved in the Rangeley Lakes region of Maine using specially designed and crafted wooden rowing skiffs, an art form in their own right. Skilled guides would row a sternward-facing angler who would use a cane rod to troll colorful wet flies for large brook trout. Browse older fly-tying books and admire the artful creations. Color was thought to be the most important factor, but rowing-imparted action and local knowledge, carried in an often legendary guide’s brain, were equally important.

Today, we think of fly action being the most important factor. Jay Fair combined fly color and design with rod-imparted motions to improve his clients’ catch rates. Dyeing, a lost art that he resurrected, studied, and tested, allowed him to get exactly the color that he wanted. Denis Peirce, of Arctic Fox Trolling Flies, informed me that Sierra Streams and Mountains out of Chico purchased Jay Fair’s inventory and dye recipes a few years ago. They custom dye material and distribute widely, including to Arctic Fox.

Discs for the front of streamers that are trolled are another way to impart action, and that’s why disks in front of streamer-type flies are becoming popular. Conventional-gear trollers arm the business end of their downriggers with these trolling flies.

Trolling is a fish-catching tactic in its own right and also an excellent way to find fish, especially in large bodies of water. You may have done it in the past, but there are plenty of refinements beyond just towing a fly through the water. Put them to use, and you’ll appreciate trolling as a technique that can require as much thought and execution as casting and retrieving a fly.