Sight Fishing

[haresear]

Scoobyscott had asked in another posts how I spot fish in the water.

I first went fishing to New Zealand in 1999 and I was aware that sight fishing is a big part of the fishing there. I was confident that I could spot fish as it is something I have done since I was a kid fishing the Royalty Fishery and Throop for chub, barbel, roach, mullet etc. I then transferred those skills to fishing for grayling in the river Avon (Lanarkshire) where it was occasionally possible to sight fish for grayling in the gorgy area at Chatelherault, where we used to dodge the keeper.

Anyway, this is how I approach it. Polarised glasses are essential. I have a pair with yellow/amber lenses for dull days and a pair with tobacco coloured lenses for bright sunny days. I doubt if there is much difference in practice.

I only try to spot fish when the light allows me to. Obviously when I am spotting I am looking for relatively big fish of around 1lb 8oz upwards. Wind and cloud make it difficult and low open banks don't help matters either. Nevertheless you can still usually do a limited amount of spotting even under those conditions in selected places.

I take the precaution of dressing in earth colours. I move very slowly and will crawl up to high banks to peer over. The nettle stings are still hurting from yesterday. When walking downstream I give the river a really wide berth and then work my way upstream in a series of zig-zags, going well into the field and then sneaking up behind bushes etc. and scanning the river from cover.

It is best to look at the close water first. As long as you have been careful in the approach, fish, even big ones can be right under your feet. Sometimes you can see the whole fish and sometimes a part of it. Yellow pectorals show up well in sunlight as long as the sun is behind you. Big trout invariably have green heads, so I look for light green notches on light coloured rocks. It is amazing how often you will find a big trout with its head on a flat light rock.

Generally, I keep the sun behind me and stay low and move slow. When you get a bit of height, you become more visible to the fish, but the flip side is that you can see more. The answer is to do as I said earlier and adopt the zig-zagging and crawling approach, taking advantage of any cover you can and staying off the skyline. 

I leave some sections of river alone until the sun suits spotting there. I can think of one place where the late afternoon sun seems to render the angler invisible, but illuminates the fish.

Looking into a dark reflection cuts out the glare. You'll notice light reflections like light grass introduces glare, so the trick is to keep looking into the dark water as you move upstream.

Fish look like rocks and vice versa. I try not to peer to hard, but scan slowly, looking for clues. A flat line running at an angle to the current will hardly ever be a fish, but a flat pointing directly into the current will often be what I'm looking for.

In rough water with big rocks subsurface, there are usually smooth patches of water moving downstream. You can use these as windows and scan the bottom beneath. This works best when you are directly above, but as always, you have to keep still and just peer over the bank.


Fish aren't often fish shaped. They can show up as shadows (sometimes the shadow on the bottom is what you are seeing. They can also, if I'm looking directly upstream, look like a comma shaped blob, with the tail moving or the pecs waving being the giveaway.

I suppose to summarise, I'm looking for clues and parts of fish. It is satisfying when it pays off, but quite demoralising when you are seeing nothing. Experience breeds confidence.

And after all that, once you've spotted your fish, you may have to get into another position to cast to it . That's when it helps to have a mate relay the fish's whereabouts to you along with its reactions.

Alex 

[burnie]

If you can sneak up on a Chub, you can sneak up on anything, Izaak Walton described them as the fearfullest of fishes and a shocking taker of lures for trout, miss Chub fishing in the depths of winter.

[Harpo]

Thanks Alex, I have tried this before.
My local river has 'clarity issues' :sick; so don't get enough practice!

[sinbad]

Not doing much river fishing I'd always thought you did nt want the sun behind you. I suppose its the staying off the skyline bit that's important if the sun is behind you. Sb

[scoobyscott]

Thanks Alex for taking the time. Next time we get blue skies I'll give it a go. Enjoyed that link in the other thread too but fishing the bung, blasphemy :P:))

[Midgie Hater]

Read this earlier but only just commenting.

Great advice there Alex. Thanks for imparting your obvious experience. In the same way as for Harpo, there are occasional "clarity issues" on my local, but also areas where it tends to run gin-clear a-la chalk stream. That said, my "polaroids" are cheap things and although they take some of the glare away they are not that great in general and on only one occasion can I say that I actually sighted a fish and, in this case induced it to take. It wasn't my intention though. I was actually using a nymph like a wet in order to drift it into a fish-holding section you couldn't get at any other way and, on watching the water from above I noticed a (1/2 lb) trout following the fly. It was interested but seemed non-committal so, using a jerky retrieve on this occasion, i waited for it to get close to the nymph, stopped for a second and then re-jerked. This was when it took. It was great to actually watch this happen (from above so not the usual downstream position) Also, for some reason, those gin-clear sections I described seem to occur in places where casting is difficult (albeit this can be the same for some of the less-clear sections).

Thanks again for the master-class

[Wildfisher]

Thanks again for the master-class

Don't go out with him. You'll never get to the pub.   :lol:

[haresear]

Sight fishing isn't always possible (understatement of the year) it's just another weapon in your armoury and the good thing about it is that the best time to do it is under cloudless skies and low water conditions, which are dire for most other methods.

At the very least you will spook trout from areas you had never considered. Just remember that next time you are fishing there :

Alex

[SoldierPmr]

A good read and a good lesson looks like my crawling days aren't behind me after all :lol:

[Ythanjoe]

Will give your tips a try out on my local river next visit Alex , levels ae now so low I have not bothered fishing for a while....must be better than waiting for the  rise that never happens. Must take a long whkle to get the confidence the spotted fish will take a sunk fly but  worth a try... so much to learn!