TROUT LIES: 4 SMALL STREAM MYTHS, BUSTED

TROUT LIES: 4 SMALL STREAM MYTHS, BUSTED

Some of the micro trout streams Iโ€™ve had the good fortune to fish have surprised me by turning conventional wisdom (even proven facts on โ€˜biggerโ€™ streams) on its head. This is an incomplete list:

MYTH: They always face upstream
Sure, they do. Fish require water to move over their gills (when they arenโ€™t moving), so facing into the current when holding is obvious. Also it makes total dumb sense on waiting for food to flow down toward their ambush lie. It is why we learn to fish upstream and the basis of much of conventional trout-stream craft.

Except, on our micro streams (on more than one occasion and at different locations) we have seen them holding downstream. Shit you not. However, again it makes total dumb sense. These times – as weird as they initially were – were always in an eddy. So they were still facing into the current, but very cleverly using the eddy for flow. One assumption here is that many of our streams go from steep mountainous creeks to pastoral in short kilometres and are not that constant in flow (some are used for irrigation, while others are highly susceptible to floods, snow melt and drought) which makes the deeper glides, pools and eddies very important holding lies and food sources.

MYTH: Dry flies are โ€˜betterโ€™โ€จ
It is a small, shallow stream so a dry fly should be a the first option. Not necessarily so. โ€œGiven half-a-chance I will always fish a freakin dry fly, of course,โ€ muses micro trout stream guru LeRoy Botha. โ€œBut, Iโ€™ve come to believe that on the small streams (the rainbow streams rather than brownie creeks) this is NOT the best go-to.โ€

LeRoy’s go-to nymphs

According to LeRoy, who has been fishing these micro creeks for years, on the brown trout streams heโ€™ll always start with a dry, โ€œfor tradition and posterityโ€™s sake,โ€ but on the rainbow streams he starts with his homegrown โ€˜miner nymphโ€™ in #14 or #16 and also uses the Libellulidae dragon nymph (#12). โ€œThe meandering nature of the rivers make for very deeply โ€“ sometimes up to a metre โ€“undercut banks,โ€ he says. โ€œSometimes you are standing on top of the fish when you are standing on the bank. Those fish are not looking for dry flies, they are simply not going to see them. They donโ€™t look at the surface so you have to get down to them with a juicy nymph in size #16.โ€

MYTH: Wild river trout are found only at 1000m above sea level (and higher)ย 
Okay, so in much of South Africa this isnโ€™t true anyway. Our creeks prove it over and over with generations of trout living at around 650m above mean sea level.

MYTH: Long, ultra thin leaders are bestโ€จ
โ€œThese fish will eat 4X all day long,โ€ Leonard Flemming will tell you. And the man knows what heโ€™s talking about. 7X and ultra long leaders will just retard your fishing on these tiny creeks, we tie down to 5X and 6X for brown trout, and mostly 5x for rainbows.

Small creek trout fishing
Looks, as they say, can be deceiving

Leaders are around 7’6 and sometimes less. This is because of the tight, bushy vegetation and snags (in and out of the river) stealthy bank-craft (and nimble-footed wading when absolutely necessary) are far more important than going super thin. We donโ€™t see a lot of refusals and a 12 inch-er might break you off on the ultra light stuff anyway because it is often as bushy below the water as above.

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