The beauty of small stream fishing is in its simplicity. Because the water you need to cover with your casts is so much smaller, you can afford to leave no stone unturned in regards to casting your fly into every single piece of water that may hold fish. You can literally fish almost every inch of a small stream in order to locate trout. This certainly isn't the case when faced with a large river; it may even seem daunting to fish when all you are used to are tiny little brook trout streams. Fear not! It's a bit simpler than you would think to decode the riddle of a larger river.
Simplify!
The easiest way to figure out how and where to fish a large river is to treat it just like you would treat a small stream. Put your blinders on and forget about trying to fish the entire river, just look at what's right in front of you. Most of the time, fish in a larger river are going to hold in the exact same places they would hold in a smaller river.
- Break down the larger rivers into bite sized, fishable chunks.
- Only worry about the areas of the river you can reach and focus your time and casts there (It's hard to ignore those fish that always seem to be out of range, but just try!).
- Fish it just like you would fish a small stream. Fish the woody debris along the bank, the cut banks, the seams and boulders.
- Spend more time in the fishy looking locations on a larger river. On a small brook trout stream, you typically don't need to spend much time casting and casting into pools. They usually eat it right away or they don't. In larger rivers you have to give the fish a chance to see it or give yourself enough time to thoroughly work the spot over.
Fly Selection
The selection of flies you may take for a day on a tiny brook trout stream is usually pretty light. High floating, brushy attractor flies are the norm and will usually get the job done. Those same flies may not prove as effective on larger rivers where fish have a wider range of food sources.
- Make sure to have a wider range of flies in your bigger river fly box - more patterns and in more colors. You never know what you might come across and preparation is crucial.
- A variety of sizes of the same pattern is a nice touch in any fly box. This is especially true when it comes to dry flies. Size can be key in fooling more educated big-river fish.
- Emerger fly patterns become more important on bigger rivers, as fish will likely key in on that stage of the insect. Keep some low-riding dry flies or unweighted nymphs to fish near the surface to match.
Once you have become familiar with fishing small streams, those first steps into a big river may seem daunting and overwhelming. But once you put your blinders on and view small areas of the larger river just as you would view a small stream, you'll be into fish in no time and your confidence in bigger rivers will skyrocket.
