Catch your share of salmon

Location, fly size, and timing will help you, says Malcolm Greenhalgh.

Over the past five issues of Fly-Fishing & Fly-Tying I have been analysing long and hard why it is that only a small proportion of people catch the lion’s share of the fish. This month I will consider the issue in salmon fishing for, if there is one area of all angling where the 5% of anglers catch 95% of fish applies more than any other, it is in salmon fly-fishing.

Through over 35 years I have had opportunity of watching some very good catchers of salmon and some who would need a suicidal salmon if they were to catch even one. And I have been lucky to discuss this issue with several leading salmon fishers through these years.

Timing the visit to the river
A Harley Street medic booked a two-day casting course with Hugh Falkus. On his arrival he explained to Falkus that he had spent a two-week fishing holiday on the Tweed for several years but had yet to catch a fish. Falkus asked him where exactly he fished, and when. Immediately, the problem was diagnosed and treatment advised. “My dear sir! There are never any salmon in that part of the Tweed when you are there. Go, instead, in October or November!”

Any good beat or company that organises salmon fly-fishing holidays will (or ought to; if they don’t, leave them alone) furnish you with a breakdown of the catches through the season by week for at least the previous year. That should be a good guide to when would be the best time to visit that river. Of course, the better the time, the higher the cost of fishing.

For those of us who can go salmon fishing on our local rivers whenever we want, we will already have that information (on my home rivers in north-west England, that is now September and October, though a flood in July or August will bring in a few fish). We also will know that the best time to catch salmon is when the river is falling after a spate. So go to our rivers when the water is up a foot or two and clearing and you will find people casting for salmon. Wait until the river has just reached summer level and many take their rods home until the next spate. In fact, from my experience, the first two or three days of the river reaching summer level after a spate are often as good as it gets.

The big river domination of salmon-angling literature
It is a fact that the majority of the most famous writers about salmon fly-fishing do/did most of their fishing on the big, famous rivers: eg Spey, Aberdeenshire Dee, Tweed, Tay and, in Norway, Alta, Namsen, and Gaula. So it is easy to be led by such literature into believing that the ideal fly rod is at least 15ft long and will take a size 10-12 line. For those rivers that is perfectly true (but also, see Casting a double-handed rod, below). However on smaller rivers – for example, of Ireland, south-west Scotland, north-west England, Wales and the West Country – such rods and lines might be too long and too heavy.

For instance, my son Pete is the proud owner of a 15’ 1” Sage with which he fishes Tweed and has generously let me take to Norway. When he obtained it he used it on our home rivers: Ribble/Hodder, Lune and Derwent. He called round, deposited the grandchildren with us and nipped upstairs (my rod-room and office is a converted spare bedroom). Later, over dinner, he announced, “I am looking for a lighter, shorter rod. Say, about 13ft taking an eight or nine line. The big Sage is too long for rivers like the Hodder.” I said I might have just the rod. He said I had. And he went home with it!

I have used a 12’ 3” rod (with a #10 line) on our smaller rivers for almost 20 years, and find it just right for the job. I also often use a 10’ #7 line single-handed rod. The reason for the lighter kit is that we can present the fly more accurately and fish it more carefully than we can with the larger weapon. On smaller rivers the salmon lies are, let me put it this way, more intimate. There is a boulder in midstream and salmon often lie this side of it. We need a short, accurate cast that will bring the fly over the lie perfectly. With the big weapon there is the temptation to make every cast out to the far bank and ignore the nearer lies.

Some years ago I had a rod for a week on a beat on the Nith. A husband and wife also had a rod that they shared. The wife caught the lion’s share of fish. Why? Well it was nothing to do with her hormones! I watched them both fish down a great pool. He fished a long rod and went casting. He chucked the fly out at 45? to the opposite bank, made a big mend and let the fly come round until it was his side of the flow. Then he took a stride downstream and repeated the cast.

His wife used a shorter rod and she went catching salmon. She made a short cast in the direction of that submerged boulder where she had seen fish caught (or caught them herself), then a series of longer cast to fish the streamier side of a long crease between two bands of very fast and slow water, then she made some casts where she led the fly round close to the bank along side which she was wading. And so on. Every cast was subtlely different. It wasn’t a mechanical way of fishing as was her husband’s.

On the huge rivers it is different unless you know the water intimately. So the long cast with the big weapon, that can cover lots of potential lies, is most effective.

But then there are some important points to do with rod length and casting …