Fishing Articles
Renegade Recon
Where do the fish go when the river blows out?
Timothy Kusherets
If you’re looking to fish when no one else is around I strongly
suggest you consider water you would have never thought could produce
fish. Rivers that are blown out provide some of the most adventurous fishing
conditions imaginable and they reliably produce fish.
Most fishermen that check out rivers in advance are performing a reconnaissance
for future fishing trips. It allows them to take a look at the geography
of the area prior to an active fishing season. Most recons are done
when the water is low and that gives any fisherman an edge over fish
and other fishermen by understanding the terrain and where the best
holds are going to be when optimal conditions present themselves during
the fishing season. A "renegade recon" is a trip to rivers that are
blown out in which you know fish were in abundance prior to the river
rising. The supposed adverse conditions of the river are exactly what
you want to see when you go there. It is fishing troubled water by design.
The problem is finding the fish.
This river is blown out to flood stage; yet it still produced a number
of fish. A fallen tree provided a back-eddy in which fish were holding.
Many fish crowded into this eddy, so many in fact you can see me in the
top right photograph reaching down in the water just in time to feel the
tail of a fish as it swam away. It had been bumping into my leg.
Where do the fish go when the river blows out? They have to go somewhere.
They don’t just disappear when the water gets high and muddy,
so where do they go? The answer is they gravitate to the sides of the
river and hold there if it’s a place that is both slow and free
from debris; they won’t leave a spot like that until the level
of the river begins to drop. Finding the location of fish during high
water is not difficult if you’re an adventurous fisherman. Drifting
down a river during flooding, or near flood like conditions, is something
I would not recommend; however, traveling the length of the bank is
something else entirely. Knowing the kind of holds that house fish during
conditions like these are veritable buckets of fish when you find them.
During high water fish will crowd into the smallest areas to get away
from the fast water, but there is more to know than just that. You must
accept the fact that whatever fishing conditions present themselves
you’re going to have to be ready to modify the way you would ordinarily
fish and that means adjustments in the way you cast, drift, and hook-set,
but before you can do any of that you should reconsider a fish’s
sense of smell.
Many fishermen have said they would never fish in colored water. I
wondered about that for a long time. I didn’t understand why they
wouldn’t want to fish at a time when the pressure, ordinarily
felt by steelhead and salmon, would disappear. It’s reasonable
and scientifically sound that the migratory paths of an anadramous species
of fish is based on its ability to smell things then it would stand
to reason that though vision would be affected by muddy water its sense
of smell would not; it is a homing beacon that does not require sight.
Most fishermen I ever heard lamenting about colored up water were those
that were highly dependant on seeing fish, which is sort of funny since
most of the fishermen that think like that are the same guys that don’t
catch many fish.
All of these fish were caught and landed in water with nearly zero
visibility. The water was high and muddy, but the other keen senses
of the fish drew them to offerings that were laden with scents of various
kinds.
Here is some high water that only reveals itself when the river
is blown out and the fish know it. Look at the slot in the middle of
the picture. Many steelhead were holding in it when I took the photograph.
I was the only fisherman on the river the entire day.
During high water a steelhead and salmon sense of smell is more keenly
aware than if it were in clear water, that is to say, because it cannot
see it must rely more on its sense of smell more so because it has to
maneuver around debris and locate food and that is the thing you must
not take for granted as anglers wade in the river. Make sure to use
plenty of scent to mask your body odors or any other abhorrent odor
that fish may find offensive. Make sure to rid yourself of any line
and wash any drift gear that may have come within contact of transfer
scents. Sweat, oil, grease, and smoke are some of the things that transfer
very well to line, corkies (Lil' Corky), spinners, and spoons. Even
if they look clean, make sure the area in which you stored them was
free of odors. As you fish, make sure that your leader is shorter and
because the visibility of the water is almost nonexistent you can use
the darkest heaviest line you want and you won’t put the fish
off the bite. The profile of the offering should be larger than it would
be in green to clear water. Water that has zero visibility should not
be fished with corkies smaller than size 10, 1/8 oz spoons, and light
spinners of the same weight. The larger your offering is the easier
it will be to attract fish in colored water.
Most of the time you find fish holding in high fast water they will
be less than two feet from the bank. Under the most ideal circumstances
that means most of your casts will be nothing more than "flips" into
the water and your drifts are going to be very short, with that in mind,
your rod should also be shorter than the rod you would use to cast further
out into wide rivers. Rods larger than 9’ 6” will only hinder
your fishing by getting in the way of the brush to your back and any
possible overhanging branches in front of you, not to mention most of
the fish will practically be at your feet.
The direction of your flips will be based on the direction of the current
whether you’re right or left-handed. If you’re right-handed
and the current is flowing from the right to the left most of your drifts
are going to be done by flip-casting backhand style. I call this "back-flipping".
Starting with the rod crossing your body to the left cast upstream by
flipping your line to the right with the palm of your hand and reel
facing down, as opposed to facing up if you were performing an ordinary
cast. As your terminal gear hits the water, reel in the line continually,
taking up the slack, without interfering with the drift itself; make
sure to reel smoothly or you may not feel the taps of some strikes.
As the drift passes in front of you stop reeling and let the line finish
the drift. This example is a good template for any system. If the river
is flowing from the right to the left then left-handed fishermen would
simply reverse the process. I was once asked what I would do if I were
pressed up against brush with a river that flowed from the left to the
right even though I am right-handed. The answer is to simply cast the
way you normally would and that’s that. It couldn’t be simpler
to fish either way.
This kind of fishing is extremely productive once you locate holding
areas. Finding fish in high muddy water is extremely easy. Since fish
don't feel pressure from people they come right to the surface and in
many cases you'll see their backs come right out of the water. If you're
fishing water where you don't see fish then look for boils in slow water
and breaking current waves that head upstream instead of down; in either
case, I highly recommend you take a pair of polarized glasses with you.
Many times that I have fished water that was colored I took my glasses
and was pleased to see that water, with limited visibility, still caused
heavy glare. You can see fish, many times, when the river is blown out
even when it's overcast. Just like clear water, look for silhouettes
of fish and not the picture perfect image we'd all like to see. Any
shadow that suddenly shifts in the water is probably a fish.
 Glasses
on a cloudy day will still take the glare off the surface of the river;
it’s an edge that will help you spot them and in doing so afford
the opportunity of hooking more fish. The hook-set during drifts
like these are remarkably easy. Because of the back-flip drift the first
half of the drift is a "no brainer". Fish that strike your line will
set the hook for you much the same way they would on a spinner or spoon.
Fish automatically pull in the opposite direction of which they feel
resistance, which means, as you take up the slack of the back-flip there
will be no slack for any fish that hit your line during the first half
of the drift, pretty cool huh? As the line passes in front of you the
drift is the same as it would be during normal fishing conditions with
one exception. Because the water is muddy and your leader is shorter
and there is minimal slack in your line, as it passes you by, your reaction
time to set the hook on any fish is going to be many times faster than
it would ordinarily be and that means more fish for you.
Because of the over-hanging branches, all my drifts were done by back-flipping.
Most of the hook-set effort was done by each fish because of the direction
of the drift and the lack of slack in the line. The seam created by the
outcropping of rocks made for a perfect holding area while the river was
blown out. There have been many times I’ve fished high
muddy water I was fortunate enough to find trees knocked over creating
perfect holding conditions for many fish, so much so, that as I got
into the water to fish they would continually bump into my legs; proof
that during times of high water fish don’t feel the same pressure
they ordinarily would during the presence of fishermen in clear water.
Consider this as you fish high muddy water; don’t make inappropriate
decisions that would get you swept downstream. The only condition for
getting into that kind of water should be due to safe available circumstances
where water slows down enough to make it worthy of consideration. Know
the terrain you intend to fish and take note of any trails and access
points on your regular recon trips. A renegade recon can be done just
as safely during high water as a regular trip during the summer when
waters are running low and clear.
The best thing about fishing during high water is that it doesn’t
matter what system you fish, you will own the river.
© Timothy Kusherets, 2004/09 |
