Salmon fly fishing tips for low slow water.

   
          
The water is so low that the flow is all over the place with loads of back eddies and mixed currents, it's very hard to fish the fly through the pools without getting caught up on some of these new rocks as they are everywhere. Having studied the flow or lack of it I used some of my techniques to control, feel and in most cases speed up the line and fly through the pool.
There are a few subtle techniques in the video that will help keep you in contact with the fly when fishing slow water and some will help put a bit of speed and life into the fly especially with grilse about as they love a lot of movement in the fly. Another tip is to use a small fly with a long sparkly tail that moves and pulses in the eddies and if you are getting plucks from grilse and no takes put up a short tailed version of the same fly and you will definitely get hook ups. The fly size is very important as salmon have definitely started taking much smaller flies lately probably due to their new feeding habits at sea, so a size 13 or 15 double is ideal for summer water. I use a size 15 double all season and still hook up to both early springers and later season Autumn fish with some grilse thrown in for good measure. The days of just going out and throwing any old fly at salmon are gone, now one has to work at it by using new techniques, flies and lines to hopefully hook up to a fish. All it takes is one good pull to make a good day on the river and a release to make a great one.

Salmon Spinning set up.

           

Here is a simple video outlining the way I set up my salmon, bass and pike spinning outfit, basically the tackle is the same in all set ups except for the addition of wire traces for pike fishing. The rod is a 10 ft 15 to 60 gr casting rod, the reel is a 6000 class spinning reel and loaded with 13 kg high visibility yellow braid. Firstly I load 50 meters of nylon onto the spool which allows the braid to bed down well on the spool and stops slippage when the braid is under tension. I attach the braid to the nylon using a double uni knot which can be seen in this video https://youtu.be/NLYX1qwoO-0 . The braid is then reeled under tension onto the spool and filled to capacity to ensure very long casts when spinning. Before I start fishing with new braid I will always cast very far down stream and spin under tension allowing the line to bed down while wet and this also stops tangles from happening when fishing. Every 10 casts I will cast long and just reel up under tension allowing the line to rid itself of kinks thus making sure I have better fishing and no knots or tangles. I use size 4 chrome swivels and these work well for me also helping to stop the kinking and tangling of the braid. The spinners I use are Flying C's in sizes 3,4 and 5 Black / Silver or Black /Gold. In coloured water Yellow can be very productive and also Red but mainly the vast majority of salmon are caught on Black/Silver fished upstream. The size 3 spinners are normally used in medium to low water, the size 4 in medium to high water and the size 5 in high fast or very high water. It's easy to know when to fish the different sizes because if you are not rubbing bottom or taking weed then you need to put on a heavier size and if you are getting stuck constantly then you need to put on a lighter spinner. If you are not fishing at the right depth and covering the salmon lies properly then you are not going to meet fish so achieving the optimum depth is crucial to catching spring salmon in the early season because with cold high water salmon rarely move far to take a spinner or fly. The benefit of using braid is two fold namely direct contact with the salmon at all times and extra sensitivity while spinning allowing me to feel rocks and weeds before I get stuck, if using mono with the stretch capacity it has you are stuck in the bottom before you know it and less feeling during the fight. If you have any further questions on spinning tips just message me below.

Loop Knot for Fly or Spoon / Spinner.

     
         
This is a simple knot that can give a fly or spoon more articulation / movement when fishing. When larger flies are fished tied directly to flurocarbon or mono sometimes they will lack movement due to the thickness of the line but a loop knot will give plenty of movement to the fly as it is not restricted by a direct knot, this is especially useful when using flies with short tails.

The Double Uni Knot with a twist.

   

        
Here is the Double Uni Knot with a slight twist, for all those anglers that want to try salmon fly fishing with a trout fly rod here is a great fishing cast / tippet that incorporates a running dropper on a tapered leader. Firstly i tie a tapered leader using 15lb breaking strain line tied to a 10lb breaking strain line with a double uni knot and then i tie a double over hand loop knot dropper and place it above the double uni knot that joined the two lines and loop it in place. The knot on the tapered lines will be the stopper for the dropper but it can slide back up the line towards the sink tip or fly line, this is a very handy system if using a net because the dropper will move up if it gets stuck or the main fly gets stuck which gives you time to react unlike a fixed dropper which will break off or even worse break the main line. In summer i use a small size 12 Wickhams Fancy or Thunder and Lightening trout fly as my dropper because i have found that salmon will take the smaller fly first before taking the shrimp pattern especially in the late evenings. I have used this system for many years incorporating it with 6ft ( salmon ) sink tips,  6ft intermediate  tips and tapered leaders. If using this system with a 6ft ( salmon ) sink tip i would use a 6 ft tippet tied in two 3 ft sections with the double uni knot again tapering the tippet down to 10lbs from 15lbs using either mono or flurocarbon, then putting the dropper on the top 3ft section above the double uni knot. When using a ( salmon ) 6ft sink tip i would never use a tippet more than 6ft long because then the fly's are fishing higher in the water column than the sink tip but when using  6ft ( salmon ) intermediate tips or tapered leaders you can extent out to one and a half times the rods length in total ( length of tip and tippet combined ) for better turn over and depth presentation. If using a 6ft ( salmon ) intermediate tip i would use a tippet of 6ft of 15lb line tied to  3ft of 10lb line thus giving you a better roll out and cast, they will fish better as the fly's have more life especially in slow pools.. If using a 10ft rod the ( salmon ) intermediate tip can be 6ft and using a 9ft tippet  (6ft of 15lb tied to 3ft of 10lb line) the total lenght is 15ft which is one and a half times the length of the 10ft rod but you can fish a little shorter if you wish it all depends what you length of tip and tippet you are comfortable with but i have found great success in these precise lengths. Having used this dropper system with both single hand and switch rods i haven't had any issues with casting or presentation but as with all fishing you must always check your  fly cast every few minutes just to make sure that they are all fishing well and not knotted up.

Loop to Loop connection set up.

         

           
This is how i set up the loop to loop connection which allows tippets and sink tips to be easily changed with fly lines during a fishing session.

How to tie a Loop Knot.

   

       
In this short video i show how to tie a loop knot, i use this knot on all my tippet materials such as mono, copolymer and flurocarbon. Using the loop knot i can change the tippets very quickly when using either sink tips or tapered leaders.In the next video i show how to change a loop to loop connection which can speed up the time it takes to change tippets and sink tips to fly lines.

Knots " The Perfection Loop ".

     

             
I use the Perfection Loop on all of my Rio Versi tips, sink tips and tapered leaders because it is a very tidy loop knot that never lets me down and is excellent for interchanging sink tips and tippets on my loop to loop  line system .

FISHING KNOTS.

     
     
          
I decided to put together a selection of my fishing knots because a lot of anglers kept asking me for the best knots to use for tying hooks, flies and swivels etc. with different materials such as braid, copolymer, flurocarbon and mono. These are the knots that i use constantly and find the most durable and reliable starting with the four turn Uni Knot in the above video. The next few videos will show loop knots, leader knots and tippet knots which i hope will help most anglers on their way to more successful fishing.