Tips, Tricks, and Tales

The Battenkill

I moved to Vermont in the spring of 1968, and that was my first contact with fly fishing the Battenkill. I was fortunate early on to meet up with some very fine fishermen who knew that river well, and found out about favorite flys and favorite parts of the river. The Postmaster of the Town of Peru, Ray Hulett, was a fisherman of some repute, as was a local artist, Tom Dibble. I learned about the Pheasant Tail from both of these gentlemen, and have used it ever since. About four years after I moved to Vermont, I went to work for Orvis, and stayed there for 10 years. I fished the Battenkill regularly and learned to love the challenges it presents. I was also fortunate to have fished with the finest caster I have ever seen, Landy Bartlett, and to have been able to learn much from him. My fly tying ability was enhanced by learning a great deal from the late Tony Skilton, a master tyer, and a superb human being who unfortunately left us far too young, and from Tom Rosenbauer who is still with Orvis, and who I hold in high esteem both for his skills and talents, and as a fine person and friend.

Much has been written about Brown Trout being selective feeders, feeding only at night, etc. The facts are, as proven by a Pennsylvania study of a few years ago, they feed all day long and are opportunists just like all other members of the family. They are however wary, and easily put down by humans who do not move carefully along and in the stream. Hendrickson's Pool in the no-kill stretch of the Beaverkill near Roscoe, NY is a good place to observe Browns feeding right through mid-day. They will pass up a dry fly for a natural every time, if the fly isn't moved on the water by the fisherman to make it look alive. The clear water of a number of years ago made it easy to watch this behavior. The trout would slip up under the fly, about 4 inches away, and allow the current to move them along with the fly. If the fly moved in a natural manner, or was in fact alive, they would take it. If it didn't move they would glide back down and away. From this experience came a technique involving greasing the leader and the tippet so that line, leader and fly stay on top of the water, and by moving your rod tip actively back and forth, you can create the illusion of life in your fly.

This brings me to what I really feel is more important than the fly on the Battenkill and all other streams. The Brown Trout in the Battenkill, are all wild, and as everywhere for that matter, are pretty wary creatures. Far more important than the fly is stealth. Those who stride confidently to streamside, walk in, and begin casting, are doomed to small or no fish and failure. It is far better to hide in the ferns, watch the water carefully for a while, and then go after a feeding fish, very carefully. Excessive false casting is deadly. No trout is going to hang around to determine whether a fly line whistling back and forth overhead is a fly line or a kingfisher. They are going to hide and stay there. Those who barge up to the stream are not going to see many, If any, fish. The Battenkill is not the place to practice casting but practice you should, before you get there.

A number of years ago there was a push on to stock the Battenkill. It was, and still is a natural fishery. The Fish and Game Department, under then commissioner Ed Kehoe, was willing to consider stocking, but not a flyfishing only stretch, at that time. The department biologists said there was no reason to stock as there were plenty of fish. The fishermen said there were no fish! The biologists, with press coverage and photographers in attendance, electro-shocked a pool in theWest Arlington area, and turned up better than 60 fish in the pool, including several over two pounds and even one over 6 pounds. So much for no fish. They hadn't been seen because they are not stupid. Brown Trout do not grow large by being stupid, they do it by being veeeerrry careful! Fish as fine a tippet as will deliver the fly precisely, that means with size 16s preferably 5x maximum, 6x preferred. Concentrate on accurate and minimal casting, and wade very carefully so that you don't grind the gravel too much. The lateral line on a trout is a sensitive sound impulse gathering organ, so keep your volume down. Don't necessarily change fly patterns if something is not working, try a smaller size, and keep observing what's available to the fish, in, on, and over the water. Watch the Cedar Waxwings, there are a lot of them there, and they actively feed on hatching flies. That's about it. The rest is as always luck. Using a half-rollcast to pick up your fly is a good strategy to reduce the necessity for false casting, and get your fly back on the water in a hurry.

UPDATE - In the middle of September of 1998, fellow FF@ members Richard Frank, Peter Just, Bob Shearer and I made a pilgrimage to the Battenkill. As most afficianado's know, the catching has been rather poor in that river over the past few years for reasons not fully understood. There is speculation that severe winters, with anchor ice, followed by summer drought is responsible, but, we fished the Battenkill just over the Vermont/New York border, and saw a number of fish. I had a particularly productive day releasing several Browns in the 12 to 15 inch category, caught on Black Ant size 16 dry flies. The riseforms were of the rolling "head and tail" variety indicating a slow take on the surface. The fish were all within a foot of the bank, and obviously in no hurry. They were very wary, however, requiring stealth, careful wading, and 7X was about the heaviest tippet you could really get away with. A size 16 Partridge and Orange soft hackle accounted for two fish for me in faster water.

All in all, possibly the most rewarding day on the water this year. The combination of absolutely beautiful scenery, good fall weather, ideal water levels, and fine companions, made for a perfect experience. The Brown trout were in splendid condition, fat and healthy, and their colors were magnificent. This day was what fly fishing is all about for me. For as Charles F. Orvis put it many years ago:

"Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done." - Charles F. Orvis, 1886

Short Leaders

While I am definitely a dry fly fisherman by preference, I am still aware that trout do about 80% of their feeding sub-surface. This means I use wet flies and nymphs occasionally, and even have been known to use a streamer now and then. My favorite method of nymph fishing is upstream, with a long leader, because it is very like dry fly fishing, but I also fish "across and down" in the conventional manner. I also fish a dry fly downstream when "skittering" a fly on the surface. A number of years ago in a conversation with Lefty Kreh, he mentioned that he used a fairly short leader of about 3 feet in length with nymphs, wet flies, and streamers. This was to keep the fly down at the depth of the tip of the sinking or sink-tip line. His observation was that it didn't seem to bother the fish at all. When thinking about this, and remembering the actions of fish while I was scuba diving, and thinking about all of the stuff that floats down streams submerged, I could see that it was unlikely to bother them. On the other hand, since much of their threat comes from above, out of the water, a fish is very sensitive to shadows, and even a fly line will produce one when you are false casting.

Short leaders can be easily made up starting with a butt diameter of about .019, and using 3 - 12" sections, get down to 4X by splitting the difference between .019 and .007 (4X), and using .011 for the mid section. Of course a surgeons knot has to be used to join the sections because of the great differences in diameter between sections. I have used this method for many years now, and it works well. With such a short leader, there is less chance that you won't feel a tug when the fish takes.

"Skittering" Flies

and some other pithy observations

Leonard Wright in his book "Fishing the Dry Fly as a Living Insect" covers this method that I have alluded to already. One technique I use is to coat the fly line and the entire leader with a silicone paste floatant, and make sure that the fly is also completely buoyant, then cast downstream and across, up against the opposite bank, and let the current straighten out your line and leader. Raising your rod tip high. wiggle it side to side causing the fly to "skitter" back and forth on the surface, as it moves toward the center of the stream. Obviously a fly tied in a bushy manner, with plenty of hackle, is ideal for this method. This is a great way to "pound up" fish when nothing else will work.

UPDATE Just back on June 14th 1998, from the Flyfish@ "Damned Yankee 'Clave" at First Connecticut Lake, Pittsburg, NH. Way up there near "Moose Alley" and the Canadian border. Skittering was the delivery method of choice if you wanted to catch a fish in the Connecticut River. The fly of choice in this instance was an Elk Hair Caddis, with a lime green body. Fishing the runs behind rocks and "fishy" sites near the banks, casting across the current, and then making the fly move by motion of the rod tip, produced the rises. This worked even when no hatch was in progress, which is good, as I definitely prefer to fish a dry fly over anything else. Skittering or "skating" a fly is relatively easy if you use one of the silicone paste flotants. The procedure is to grease the fly well, and then the entire leader and as much of the flyline as you can conveniently cover. While fishing you will have to keep applying the paste to get maximum floating ability. Holding the rod tip high and waving it with a relatively short amount of line out, causes the fly to skip, skitter or skate on the surface. Very effective. Even in the rain...!!!!

Update 2000 - Back from a week on the Willowemoc and Beaverkill near Roscoe, New York in early June, and learned yet more lessons about the importance of observing trout behavior.

There were abundant hatches of Sulphurs, and other light colored mayflies, caddis, and the usual assortment of tiny stuff which I really can't see anymore, and a few March Browns coming off, a very few. One fly hatched across the stream from me, and a trout rose to it but missed. The fly made a feeble attempt to get airborne and flopped back on the water about five feet more toward me across the stream. The same trout raced along under it and slapped at it again, and missed. The same thing happened two more times and by this time the fly was directly in front of me when the trout finally got it. I could see the trout following the fly all the way across in the clear water, and the thought that occurred was that it was willing to expend that much energy to get that fly.

It soon became evident that the fish were still keyed in on that fly, in spite of the other hatches, and so I tied up a few Catskill March Browns and proceeded to have some of the best fishing I have had in years. The lesson is keep your eyes open and watch for these behavior indicators...

Also - since this is mostly catch and release water, many of the fish have seen almost every pattern in all of the books. A little twitch or actual skittering a fly across the surface would often do it, when dead drifts would be ignored. I learned this as mentioned above, on the Beaverkill, many years ago.

Update 2003 - Spent the first week of June in Roscoe again, and fished the Upper Beaverkill and the Willowemoc. Much rain, including heavy rain just as we arrived, raised water levels and kept them cool. As a result the hatches were behind schedule, and the fish were sluggish. Water temperatures were about 50 to 53 degrees in the Willowemoc, and around 55 degrees in the Upper Beaverkill. "Skittering" flies was once again the way to take fish. This time the fly of choice was a dark elk hair caddis, with a body of muskrat with grizzly hackle palmered through, and some dark grey deer hair for the wing. Size 14 seemed to be good though they also went for 16's. Riffles were most productive, though slower water using 6X and 7X tippet also was productive. The fish were in beautiful shape, bright colors and fat. It was cold and rainy all the time we were there this year, with only two sunny afternoons. Observing feeding fish, it became evident that they were checking for movement in the fly, whether a natural or artificial. I saw many non-moving freshly hatched duns float all the way down the pool unmolested, but the fluttering ones were taken.....

In July, we went back out west to northern New Mexico, where I had been taught to flyfish now these 65 years ago, and I had the distinct pleasure of hooking, landing, and releasing a Rainbow Trout in the same pool where I caught my first one on a fly at the age of 8. I was able to spend some time introducing a young relative to fly fishing in the same manner as I had been started out, and so pass on to another generation some skills and an appreciation of the pleasures.

Update 2004 - We were back in Roscoe again in early June, but fishing was a bit harder than usual as the season was about two weeks advanced due to warm and wet weather. There were lots of insects, and the fish were picky. The water was above normal in flows, and once again, skittering or skating flies was the productive technique. I have come to tie an Elk Hair Caddis for this purpose, with grizzly hackle palmered over the body for extra buoyancy. It is called the Dark Skittering Caddis on the fly patterns page. Of course you can vary the body color to suit whatever caddis is around when you are fishing, but early spring, I've had good luck with the dark one..

Dropper Flies

Not too many fly fishermen still use dropper flies, but the technique can be very effective. In the "old" days, gut leaders (yes, you had to soak them before use, and carry them in a metal leader box between damp pieces of felt) were sold with a dropper loop already in them, and because wet flies were also sold snelled, it was a simple matter to attach or change flies using the loop to loop connection. In the years around 1948 to 1955 I had the good fortune to fish many times with the late Lewis Heath, of Ute Park, New Mexico. His favorite spot was the box canyon of the Rio Grande, above Taos, New Mexico. We would leave around mid-morning, to arrive just before the sun became low enough to put the bottom of the canyon and the river in the shade. Walking carefully down the very narrow path using the metal rod tube as a walking staff and rattlesnake repellent, we would finally make it to the cool world below. We didn't use waders, as the water was for the most part too deep and too strong, and sneakers were better for moving over and around the black basalt boulders, worn smooth and round by the river over many hundreds of years.

Lew would invariably put on a large size 4 to 8 Rio Grande stonefly at the end of his leader, and rig a dry fly, often a Grey hackle/Yellow body on the dropper loop. The large nymph created enough drag to cause the dry fly to skip around on the surface, and this would usually get results. One day, he got a small Rainbow of about 6" this way on the dropper fly, and as he was bringing it to shore, I saw a huge Brown of about 25" come up from the deep and literally inhale the small Rainbow. This started Lew on a mad downstream scramble over the rocks, until the huge fish went down a fast run into a pool, and Lew's way was blocked by a huge boulder. The fish broke off. There were very large Browns in that river in those days, and while I was living there I remember an article in the paper saying that a field irrigator down river from Taos had actually speared a Brown of 28 pounds in an irrigation ditch with a pitchfork. It had obviously gotten out of the river in an irrigation aqueduct. The combination of a streamer and a wet fly or nymph or dry fly also will work, as it supposedly makes the fish think a smaller fish is pursuing some food.

Rods, Rod Materials and the Like

We live in a time, blessed by advances in synthetics, which has brought us graphite, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, etc., etc. While there is no doubt that this has been a blessing to fly fishing, and as we all take advantage of the bounty, we need to remember that a lot of trout and salmon were taken in years gone by because of the skill of the fisherman, using materials we now think of as inferior to what is presently available. Lack of skill can sometimes be made up by use of modern materials, but never forget that strategy remains a good thing to bet on. While a good graphite rod can help you fire a wooly bugger halfway across the Madison, you might be amazed, as I was one day to find out just how many large trout were holding in front of, and on both sides of rocks, within a very few feet of the shore. Ever notice how the float fishermen keep trying to reach the shore, and the waders try to reach the middle of the river? I wonder if fly fishermen spend as much time in casting practice as Tiger Woods spends in perfecting his swing and his putting. I suspect the answer is no, but wouldn't it pay off on the stream when we are "in a game?" I suspect, in fact I know, the answer is emphatically yes.

Playing fish - If you read the ads for antique and classic rods, you will be struck by the number that say "one tip 2" short", or something similar. Ever wonder why this is? What happened to cause a tip to break 2 to 6 inches back? Or, has it happened to you? In many cases it happened in landing a fish, and allowing them to get too close to your boots by raising the rod tip straight up in the air. A pass with the net, and a miss, and the fish takes off pulling the tip down and snapping off a piece before you can lower the rod. A better way is to extend your arm way out from your body and holding the rod nearly parallel with the water, and at a right angle to the fish, so that if the fish makes a sudden run, a mere twist of the wrist can accomodate. Carrying a rod tip forward when walking along the stream can do the same thing when the leader snags on a branch. It's safer to reverse the rod and carry it reel-first near your side so the tip trails behind you. Jerking a fly loose with the rod also causes a great number of needless breaks. Rods weren't designed to take those sudden sharp stresses, they were designed to cast a fly line of a certain weight. A little care, and your favorite rod becomes a companion for all your fishing days. I admit to a preference for bamboo rods, and they need to be taken care of just like any fine piece of equipment. I somehow doubt that Itzhak Perleman is going to push open doors with his Stradivarius, or leave it on top of a car as he drives away from Lincoln Center.

Fly Lines - I admit to a preference for double taper floating fly lines. Yes I do know that because the weight of a modern fly line is determined by the weight of the first thirty feet, and a weight forward and a double taper of the same designation will weigh the same. The weight forward taper design may give you better distance. However, since 90% of the trout I catch (even on rivers like the Madison) are hooked within 25 feet of me, I don't need distance. What I really need is accuracy and a stealthy presentation, and a line that floats down onto the water like a dandelion seed, and lands without a splash. Hence my preference for light double tapers. I also have a preference for lines that are brightly colored so that I can see them. Even the brownish tan of the old silk lines was better than the dark grey or green lines for fisherman's visibility. Give me a Sunrise yellow, or something like that. The fish don't seem to care. I think a 6 weight (old HDH) is a good all-round weight for most trout fishing. My personal preference is a 4 or 5.

Here's a table giving the relationship between the modern fly line size by weight, and the old line size by diameter method (silk lines).

If you try to use too large a hook with too small a tippet, as when you suddenly want to put on a size 12 Ausable Wulff after just using size 16 and 18 Adams and Grey Foxes on 5x, it is highly likely your knot will slip and you will lose fly and fish. at the very least, you will find that your light tippet will not turn over and lay out the heavier fly very well. Far better to take the time to cut back your leader to 3x and a 3x tippet, because then the knot will hold. The problem is caused by the diameter of the wire on the size 12 being so much greater than the size 16's and 18's. A similar problem exists when you try to tie two sections of leader material together that are more than .002 difference in diameter using a Blood Knot. In this case you should use a Double Surgeons knot to prevent slippage.

All of these foregoing comments are very subjective and are my preferences. I readily admit that unlike the so-called "greats" of fly fishing, I don't always catch fish every time out. What I do every opportunity I have to go fishing is have a wonderful time.

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