Make Big Water Small

Make Big Water Small

Most of us started fly fishing on small streams. They’re easy to wade and easy to read. You have that one log sticking out in the current, scouring the river bottom, and you can guess there’s a good chance that Mr. Brown Trout might be hanging around it.

But what do you do when you get on a big, wide river, like the Madison, the Bighorn, the South Fork of the Snake, the Green, the Colorado, or the Delaware?

Among the guides I’ve fished with on these rivers, from Patty Reilly in Wyoming to Bob Lamm in Idaho to Joe Demalderis in New York, they all say that the key to reading them is to make big water small.

By that, they mean taking a river that’s 50 yards wide and mentally dividing it into five 10-yard-wide sections. If you’re wading upstream, start with the 10-yard section that’s closest to the bank. Look for fish first. Now look for changes in structure–a rock, a log, a dropoff. Also look for changes in currents. Is there a spot where fast water meets slow water? Look for a depression in the bottom. If you’ve found the changes, make your casts: 10 casts, covering all the hotspots on your radar.

Nothing happened? Move out from the bank to the next 10-yard-wide section of water. Look for the same things–current breaks, structure, dropoffs–and cover them with solid casts.

Nothing happened? Move toward the middle and repeat the process. Do this until you can’t wade any deeper (if you’re wading big rivers, it usually is too deep to work all the way across), and until you feel you’ve made enough casts.

Next, wade upstream and start the process over. Make big water small in your mind. Divide and conquer, always working from the bank outward.