Extending Invisibility While Fly Fishing: Techniques for Stalking Big Wary Trout

Wallace Stegner was remembered for saying, “You don’t go to the wilderness to find something, you go there to disappear.”

In some ways this is what the fly fisher tries to do. To disappear. To not be visible to the fish. Big wary fish learn to pick up on cues that danger might be coming. The fly fisher’s task is to take the cues away. Make the system as invisible as possible. I have made these “invisible adjustments” to hook big fish on the Platte, Taylor, Frying Pan, Blue, San Juan and the Green Rivers.

When I am stalking big wary trout I try to disappear. Not just me, but also my gadgets; rod, line, leader.  I stand back. I try not to wave my rod over the fish. I do not mend the line when the line is near the fish. I stack mend the line far upstream of the fish so the fish will not see the disturbance made by mending. My mends are made partially at the end of the cast in mid-air, (reach mend cast) and then again as soon as the system lands on the water. After that point in time, the system drifts, usually drag free, and “fly first” without any additional disturbances.  

There are other ways to extend invisibility. Long leaders not only allow better drifts but they also extend invisibility by moving the flies farther away from the thicker more visible fly line. When I am fishing for big trout I take my strike indicator off and try to just watch the fish. I also increase the distance between the two flies I am using and extend the distance away from the weight, as the weight could be warning cue to a fish. All of these adjustments I have learned to make came from years of observing fish often move away from my more visible systems. “Failure” provides important data.  And then when the adjustments were made and I extended my invisibility I had the satisfaction of watching big fish take the fly.   

What else can we make invisible? Use the finest tippet you think you can get away with using to land that big fish you are stalking.  Clear fly line?  There are a few clear floating fly lines on the market.  Reviews are mixed but I will be trying one out next week.

Bottom line: Make your self invisible. And as you are stalking that huge trout you might realize that this might be one other way that fly fishing can become spiritually therapeutic for us. In the midst of such intense focus of the task at hand, and overwhelming beauty, we vanish.  We disappear, at least for little while.  

Below is a picture of a large Rainbow caught on the Blue this past weekend. The fish took a size 22 black beauty. Notice I am not in the picture. Invisible.