When rivers are blown out from runoff or rain, lakes and ponds offer some of your best chances to catch trout. Many anglers think that stillwater fishing involves little more than chucking a fly out as far as you can and then stripping it back, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The way you retrieve a fly can be the key to catching fish.
Here’s an educational video that teaches you three different retrieves to use with streamers, wets, and nymphs. There are also several more tips at the end to help you decide which stripping technique to use in a given situation.
Good info, thanks
It would have been nice to see the subsurface action for each of these retrieve methods, perhaps with a wooly bugger.
Different techniques for different parts of the country. For instance ,in Maine streamers regularly imitate baitfish or smelts which have a faster darting motion.
Good tutorial! Would have been helpful if popper technique was presented also.
Great info!!!
You left out a very useful and important technique in Lake fishing. When retrieving any subsurface fly/lure is to change the angle of your rod to the line. This is more difficult with floating fly lines which means that you may have to mend its position. Hard to do with long casts but more practical as you near your position.
Visibility in lakes is often very poor so you are essentially using search techniques.