Five Tips for Fly Fishing

The pinnacle of excitement for trout fishermen is to fish approachable rivers and streams. When you visit Valley of the Rainbow Fly Fishing Estate and Wilderness Retreat, ask management to explain the accessible rocky pools in the river running through the valley. Our river is the Witpoort river, a subsidiary to the Steelpoort river.

There are many tricks that can make fishing small rivers for trout fairly easy. Small rivers and streams, however, do have their own frustrations, but that doesn’t have to be a reason to leave all of that good fishing to someone else.

Tip One: Choose the proper rod weight and length

If you only own a 9′ 6 weight, you might want to do some rod shopping, because you will have a difficult time casting with dense trees.

Another factor to consider is rod weight. Using a stiff 6 weight, you will not be able to load line on the short accurate casts needed for effective small stream fishing for trout. This is one occasion where your best weapon for easy casting will be a 6-7 foot long 2-4 weight rod. Most anglers don’t already own a rod this size, but everyone should.

Try casting a 6 weight all day and suddenly picking up a 2 weight - it feels really good!

Tip Two: Fish your way upstream, not down
If you try to walk downstream and fish for trout, you will stir up the water and greatly affect your catch rate.
One step into a batch of mud or mucky sediment, and you could all but ruin your chances of catching a fish for a while.

Walking upstream to the trout, you will not need to be concerned with stepping in the mud, because any trout that see it will have already been casted to. Also remember that trout swim upstream to catch food flowing downstream.

Tip Three: Use a short leader
You can save your 12 foot leaders on small river trips, as they will only cause you pain and anguish.
We suggest you tie a small 6′ leader to a 4-5x tippet and call it good.

The longer your leader is, the more problems it can cause on backcasts, not to mention it will give you less control and accuracy when casting around objects.

Tip Four: Learn to roll-cast
Roll casting is pretty basic and you can get good at it with very little practice.
Once you master this cast, you will find that 90% of the time it will be your best option while fishing for trout in small rivers or streams.

Tip Five: Choose the right fly
It’s impossible to predict what will be hatching or what the best flies will be for your small river or stream. We can, however, recommend a bigger fly than the fly you use for dam fishing.

It could be that since most small rivers or streams don’t get a lot of fishing pressure, the trout are only mildly educated, so bigger flies are likely to get their attention.

Final small river and stream tips:
Fly fishing in small rivers and streams can take a while to get used to, but this is a great way to get away from the crowds. The chances are that there won’t be anyone in earshot to hear your frustrations every time you hook a tree branch on your back cast!

Don’t forget to practice catch and release on these little rivers, because they can be over fished very easily.
You should also keep the little streams that you do find close to your chest, because you just never know when someone will tell their brother-in-law, who will tell their sister-in-law, who will tell--

Jamie van Zijl

Owner Valley of the Rainbow Fly Fishing Estate and Wilderness Retreat