The Drift: Fly Fishing’s Only Rule

Some folks might disagree with me on this point, but one of fly fishing’s best attributes is that it has no real rules. Your job is to put a fly in front of a fish, and make that fly look real. How you accomplish that is up to you. Your casting form doesn’t mater, the length of your leader is meaningless, and your fly choice won’t amount to anything if you can’t put that fly in front of a fish, and make it look real. 

To quote a famous pirate, any of the “rules” you hear about in fly fishing are more like guidelines. 

I believe in this concept so much that it’s something I repeat almost weekly on my podcast, and it’s the number-one piece of advice I give to beginning fly anglers. Last week, though, I had a day on the water that forced me to add an addendum to my “no-rules” mantra. 

Learning The Hard Way

I was fishing with two buddies on a local tailwater. The forecast called for a high near 80 and overcast skies, so I had high hopes for a great blue-winged olive hatch. We launched early to beat the crowds, and spent the morning nymphing without much success. The fish were holding in slow, deep water, and didn’t want to eat unless you hit them in the head with your flies. It felt like we were fishing in January, not April. 

We tried to time our float so we’d arrive at the best dry fly water a bit after noon, when the BWO hatch usually starts. When we stopped for an early lunch, around 11, a few midges and mayflies fluttered by. I pointed them out to my buddies, and we kept rowing with a renewed optimism that the fishing would turn around once the hatch finally started. 

The first pod of rising trout we found was tucked against the bank in a long flat. Mayflies were everywhere, and I stuck a decent brown within a few minutes. My buddy Kyle was a great hand model. 

This flat wasn’t the best dry fly water, though, so we rowed off those fish after a few minutes. The week before, we’d fished and caught some great fish in a few spots downstream, and both Kyle and I were eager to make up for a few missed fish from that trip. 

As we made it closer to that spot, though, the mayflies started disappearing. The wind picked up, and for the last three miles of river, we didn’t see a single rising trout. We ended up at the boat ramp by 3:30, scratching our heads at how off the whole day had been. 

The Rule

I wasn’t ready to head home, though, and I kept thinking about that flat where I’d caught my only fish on a dry fly. Even with the wind blowing, I had a gut feeling the fish were still rising, taunting me. 

So, I drove back upstream, found an access point, and stumbled down the bank to see the fish rising to a delayed hatch of mayflies. I fished for the next few hours and put seven more trout in the net, all on dry flies. 

I can’t remember where I first heard it, but there’s a phrase my buddies and I often repeat: you never leave fish to find fish. Almost without fail, when I move on from fish, for whatever reason, I end up regretting it. This trip last week was just another example that this phrase might be the only rule in fly fishing. 

Don’t leave fish to find fish. You’ll usually regret it.