Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
In his iconic angling book, “The Compleat Angler,” Izaak Walton observed that even if you spend a lifetime casting flies upon the water, fishing and fish behavior can never be “fully learnt.”
Persistence and patience won’t deliver complete mastery of angling or a full understanding of trout psychology, but they can shorten the path.
Full disclosure: I’ve never been a patient angler. But a number of years ago on a famous Montana creek, a four-pound cutthroat trout fanning just below the bank in the gin-clear current got my adrenaline flowing and gave me a staying power I didn’t know I had.
For at least 30 minutes, I drifted dozens of different flies inches above the snout of this slobber-knocker fish to no avail. A few times the fish inspected my hackled flies, but each time brushed them off and continued fanning in the current.
It was high noon and the relentless Montana sun beat down from a blue, cloudless Western sky. Still, quitting that fish was not an option. As my fly choices got progressively smaller and my retied tippets became nearly invisible to my tired eyes, the reluctant cutthroat showed signs of wearing down. I could tell. That big fish, despite its better instincts, wanted to believe that artificial fly was the real thing.
“Presentation!” I scolded myself. “Focus on presentation if you want to seduce this fish.”
Presentation. Another name for drift. You gotta get the drift perfect in this fast-moving water. The slightest drag or V-shaped ripple behind the fly and the fish says, “No way, Bub. That bug ain’t real.”
On that special day, which still occupies my angling scrapbook of memories, the big old fish slowly but inexorably rose from its bottom brooding and sucked in my No. 18 Parachute Adams. Finally, a hookup. And a deep feeling of satisfaction that every angler knows who has ever coaxed an especially stubborn fish.
Fast forward to June 2026 and the evening rise on the salmon pool at Big Eddy on the West Branch of the Penobscot River. For years, I’ve been going there with my sons only to let the river salmon make a fool of me and prove how inept even a seasoned fly fisherman can be. My sternman, eldest son Scotty — the airline pilot with 20/15 vision — has the knack, though. He tricks these recalcitrant, uppity salmon when nobody else can, including me.
What’s the secret? Well, sir, a big buggy indicator fly on top with a small dropper. A Nancy’s Prayer dropped beneath a small yellow-bellied Hornberg works well, thank you very much. But, and this is the takeaway, amigo, that lash-up is only as good as the presentation.
Watch Scotty. The white foam along the edge of the seam is the target. Lots of slack line. He can see that fly while I rarely can. He never takes his eye off the indicator and carefully monitors the drift, keeping it with the current and in the foam seam.
Smack! Fish on.
Over and over.
It only works when the drift is right. Fly size or color be damned.
Many of the most respected fly anglers and writers over the past century have argued that presentation outweighs pattern.
Charles Ritz famously wrote that presentation is everything.
Lefty Kreh often told students that getting the fly to the fish correctly was far more important than having the “perfect” fly.
Gary LaFontaine, after years of underwater observation, concluded that a natural drift was one of the strongest triggers for trout.
Why does drift matter so much?
A fish has only a fraction of a second to decide whether to eat. Before it analyzes color or fine details, it notices something much more obvious. Is the insect moving naturally with the current? Is it floating naturally? Is it swinging unnaturally or skating? Does it suddenly accelerate because of line drag?
Lesson learned. Getting the perfect drift in fast-moving water ain’t easy, but it’s far more important than agonizing over every fly in your fly box.