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The Fish & Fly Guide to Retrieves

The retrieve is a very important part of fly fishing, whether on stillwaters or rivers. The most important aspect of the retrieve is to make your fly or flies behave in a life-like manner so that a trout will be convinced that they are good to eat. In the Fish & Fly guide to retrieves we look at some of the most popular retrieves for stillwaters and rivers.

"...when we retrieve our fly, we will know well the movement to give it: a movement that suggests the movements of the creature the fly is tied to represent." Brian Clarke, The Pursuit of Stillwater Trout.

Although the retrieve has a number of purposes, the main one is to make your fly behave in a life-like manner. Other important purposes include keeping in contact with your fly, or flies, all the time and arranging your line so that you are in a position to cast again when you have fished-out a cast. There is a whole spectrum of retrieve styles available to anglers, from the static non-retrieve right through to high speed stripping techniques.

By varying the speed and style of retrieve you can change the action or movement of your fly/flies as well as change and adjust the depth at which they fish. If you are fishing in an area where you can see that fish are feeding and your fly is being ignored, a change of retrieve speed or style could well make a difference. Stillwater and reservoir anglers in particular - it can happen on rivers as well - must always be alert for the fish that has followed a fly or team of flies right to the end of the cast and retrieve sequence. Trout will often grab a static or semi-static fly just as you are about to lift off to cast again.

To maintain optimum contact with your fly, keep rod tip low and within 300mm (1 foot) of the water and pointed down the fly line.

This is not always possible when fishing rivers, for example bankside vegetation may make it impossible and, if your are fishing loch style then you will have your rod tip in the air. You can affect a retrieve by raising and lowering your rod tip and even waggling it to impart extra life into a fly or team of flies. Always try to retrieve your line into neat coils as this will make casting that much easier. When casting long distances, and recovering a lot of line, it may help to use a stripping basket, which saves you ending up with a tangle of line round your feet.

The importance of good line management

Always use the first or second finger of your rod hand to hold the line against the handle of your rod. This will help you to keep everything under control and by simply trapping the line against your rod handle with your finger, you can raise your rod to tighten into a fish if you get a take.

The majority of retrieves will start with your rod hand holding the line against the rod butt and your line hand holding the line next to your rod hand. If you are fishing a river, as your fly floats downstream towards you, simply draw-in the line with your line hand as your move your hand down and away past your hip. Now trap the line with your rod hand and, holding the length of line that you have just retrieved loosely over the fingers of your line hand, take hold of the line by your rod hand. When you have extended your line hand behind you, drop the coil that you have just made and move your hand back to the rod and start another retrieve. As you fish out the cast, by dropping every second loop, you will end up with half the number of larger loops, ready to make your next cast.

Stillwater retrieves

A very important retrieves for stillwaters is the very slow retrieve. Most nymphs and the like do not move very quickly and to imitate them you need to retrieve almost painfully slowly. Gentle retrieves of an inch or so of line at a time, at the most, are what is required, perhaps with the odd twitch or lift of your rod to imitate a burst of speed by the natural insect. You use the fore finger and thumb of your line to hand to make a continuous retrieve of line into the palm of your hand, where it is held by the other fingers of the same hand. You should pull - and in fact can only pull - a very short length of line each time you move your thumb and finger backwards and forwards. There is no need to move your line hand away from the rod butt as you do not need any arm movement to retrieve longer lengths of line. At the end of the retrieve, you can drop the small coils in your hand before casting again. By all means experiment until you find a successful retrieve and then stick to what works.

The slowest retrieve of all is, obviously, the static retrieve when you simply cast out, take in any slack and then leave your line and flies well alone. This retrieve can be used with both nymphs, or sunken flies, and dry flies. Surface movement and a breeze will impart some movement into the flies. A high level of concentration is critical when fishing the static retrieve as takes can be very gentle. If you think that you have felt a touch, it is always worth tightening your line quickly as it may be a fish that you felt. If your line has been blown into a wide curve, the best way to connect with a fish is to tighten by moving your rod sideways in the opposite direction to the way your line is blowing.

The figure of eight

One of the best-known retrieves is the figure of eight. This retrieve is ideal when you want a slow, steady and continuous retrieve. Line is retrieved through a combination of pulling with your thumb and forefinger and rotating your line hand. Start by holding the line with the thumb and forefinger of your line hand, close to your rod handle. Rotate your wrist backwards, towards you body, and then put your little finger over the line and rotate your wrist in the opposite direction. Now, holding the line in the palm of your hand, having released your thumb and forefinger, take hold of the line again and repeat both rotations. The line that has been retrieved will start to form a figure of eight in your hand.

Fast retrieves

In contrast to the strictly imitative static or slow retrieve is the fast continuous retrieve, sometimes known as the roly poly. Fast retrieves are appropriate if fishing fish or fry imitations or perhaps a caddis. Also a fast retrieve can inject life into fish on a dour day. To achieve a fast and continuous retrieve you need to tuck the butt of your rod under your arm, so that both hands are free to retrieve the line in fast steady and continuous pulls, one after the other.

River retrieves

The most important aspect of the retrieve for river fishing is to keep in contact with your fly and to eliminate slack in the line. Dry flies, particularly sedges, can be twitched and skidded across the surface to imitate the way sedges often run across a river. Nymphs can be fished on a dead drift, at the same speed as the current, or stripped in a little faster to represent those nymphs that are stronger swimmers. Raising or lowering the rod tip can be used to adjust the height of the nymphs in the water, or the depth at which they are fishing if you like.

On fast rivers you can fish streamers, for example, across and down and by mending the line downstream and retrieving quickly, get your fly to swim fast and aggressively in a wide loop.

When dry fly fishing it is very important not to tighten too quickly when a fish rises to your fly. If you do not allow the fish to take the fly into its mouth and start to turn down, you risk pulling the fly straight out of the fish's mouth. This results in a disappointed fisherman and an unhappy and frightened fish. When a fish makes a frantic grap or leap for your fly it is only to ease to respond in kind with an over-quick "strike". If a fish rises in a slow and stately fashion, it is much easier to give it that little bit of extra time before tighening your line.

Induced take for upstream nymphing

The induced take can be deadly when nymphing in running water. The object of the exercise is to make the trout think that the nymph that he is about to eat is going to escape. This is done by raising the tip of your rod, when your nymph is within range of a trout, just enough to make the nymph lift a few inches. How soon you have to raise your rod tip, and by how much, will depend on the speed of the current: sooner and higher for fast waters and later and less for slow water.

Something that happens on all waters is the fish that follows your fly right to the bitter end. Just as you are about to lift off and cast again you spot a fish at your feet as it makes a grab for your fly. This can be a form of induced take. Particularly on stillwaters, it is always worth pausing at the end of a retrieve to see if a fish has followed the fly. A pause or slight lift can often do the trick.

Whether you are fishing on a river or a stillwater, and whatever your choice of retrieve, you will not connect with and catch fish unless you concentrate all the time. Subtle takes may be indicated by just the slightest tweak of your line or the sensation that you have caught a bit of weed. Every time you see a slight movement or get a funny feeling holding the line, do tighten as it may be a fish. Every now and then it will be weed and a lump will fly past your head. But the next time, when you think you have caught some weed, it will be a fish.

Whether fishing stillwaters or rivers, it is all too easily to fish in a mechanical, repetitive way without thinking about what the fish are doing or what your flies are supposed to do in or on the water. If you are not catching fish, stop and have a think and try something different. Very often a different style or speed of retrieve can help put a fish on the end of the line.