Kit asked the most important question: Are you fishing trout waters?
Here's my advise as a new fly fisherman:
As much as i want to find big amazing trout waters and locations on my own, that's still a few steps away. Go to a known trout spot. There's plenty listed if you google it. Yes there's pressure, but it's ok, you're still learning and knowing there are trout there is something that you've checked off your list and don't need to worry about right away.
That done and out of the way, start with trying to read the waters and figure out what the rivers are doing. Let's assume you're on trout waters, where and what do you target? How are you deciding which spots to cast to? I bypass alot of areas because i automatically go into these modes:
- Nah, too shallow, no way there's anything there.
- Water is too fast in this area, no way this holds fish.
Both of those scenarios on their own might be correct, but the thing is, you need to be able to pick apart any specific locations on a trout river. Don't just give it a quick glance and go into one of the modes i listed above. That fast moving water is causing the surface to break and it provides cover. So then, what is it breaking against? There's got to be some structure under it. Alright, so then we know from fishing behaviour in general that their preference isn't to just sit in open waters so. Target around those. But what do you target? Look at how that flow isn't necessarily moving at the same rates in the entire area. There will be slower moving waters in there.. try those spots. Look at where the bubbles on the surface are moving. There's a pretty good chance that anything floating, i.e. food, will also take that same path because that's just how things work. Float along with them bubbles and see what happens. Go a bit beyond and let the fly drift just outside of that zone and see what happens. Do the same thing on the inside, and see what happens.
I know you mentioned you're practicing your roll cast and your mending and man, does that ever get mentally draining when you're picking apart every little detail of what you're doing. Pick a technique for an outting and work on that. Roll cast for the first hour or so, and you'll notice you don't even think about it anymore. When it goes wrong, pause for a second and think about what you did differently than previous casts that worked and adjust as required when that happens.
Now, let's assume you have all of that down and you're reading the waters and can cast semi-well and in the general area that you wanted, what do you tie on? Like everything else in our fishing world, there are a ton of flies and slight variations of some and it's daunting. I have to disagree with Kit here on the caddis, as i found it was the easiest to cast, and didn't really require much to start. Now, i know because caddis are jittery and seem to hop around on the surface irratically might make it difficult to use them, but don't worry about that part as of yet. Can you cast them to where you want? Great. Concentrate on trying to get it where you want it to go. Wet flies i find are more difficult because i can't quite see what they're doing and I have a hard time adjusting to their behaviour because i'm not quite familiar with what the waters are doing to it and how fast it sinks.
I tried the flipping over rocks part, and found alot of life, but i'll be damned if i knew what the hell i was looking at at the time. Again, information overload for a beginner, but it's important. Instead of going on the waters and then flipping rocks, use some hatch charts initially to get a sense of what's in the area. Look those up to see what they actually look like in their various stages so that when you see something you can attempt at guessing what it is.
Here's another tip that i've found is worth it's letters in gold bars. I used to look up at passing by "things" and it didn't quite help me because, again, not entirely sure how to tell them apart by their flight patterns and how they skip on the water so, I found a great tip online that said, "stop looking up, and look down instead". If the fish are eating something on the surface, then that something will most likely be floating down river so look at the water for a minute and you're bound to find something floating. Start there with what to match.. pick it up, look at it, take your time trying to figure out what it is and what color and tie what you've decided will work on and go from there.
The most important rule of all though that isn't often said, if you've picked out your spot, you have the right fly on, the next thing you need is to believe there's fish there. Don't doubt there's fish before you cast there a few times. Believe in what you're presenting, how it's being presented, and why you've picked that spot and enjoy your time on the water. You will have many days where everything is perfect, but the fish and snubbing you. Short of force feeding them by hand, they won't take any fly you give them. Such is fishing.
Tight lines.
I guess i should've just said a dry fly in general. Then again that's just my method and what worked for me so adjustment is required - always.
