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Learning to read the water

Our January 2001 contribution from Terry Lawton

You are standing on the bank of a river or stream and there no fish rising to be seen, or so it seems. Where do you start fishing? Instead of just casting in the hope of finding a fish, it pays to search out places that might hold a trout.

When you are fishing a river and there are no trout rising or to be seen, instead of just casting about blindly in the hope of finding a fish, it pays to search out and cast to likely places that might hold a trout. All trout in any river have a number of basic requirements to be filled. These requirements are always the same. Fish are to be found in areas where these basic requirements can be fulfilled most effectively.

The first requirement is that to live, a trout must eat. If a fish is to flourish and grow, then it must eat enough to put on weight. In other words, it must expend less energy finding food than it takes in. This means that a trout must find a lie where there is a good and regular supply of food. Following on from this, to keep its use of energy down to a minimum, the trout wants a lie where it is protected from the full strength of the current in the river. It does not want to have to keep swimming fast and furiously to keep on station.

Trout also need to feel secure from predators with a handy bolt-hole. Predators in water include pike and otters, to a lesser degree, and those that attack from above include herons and cormorants.

The third significant requirement is a continuous and plentiful supply of oxygen, without which any trout will suffocate. As water warms up in the summer, the fish will seek out extra oxygen usually in broken water which tends to be colder and thus better oxygenated. Springs flowing up through the river bed and feeder streams may also provide cooler and better oxygenated water. Trout will be found lying nearby. If the water temperature gets too high, fish will want to feed less and if it gets too high they may suffer stress and, in extreme temperatures, they will die.

Where do we find these ideal lies?

There are two ways of learning to read a river. The first one might call superficial, as in fishing a river for the first time and looking at and into it to locate potential lies. Second there is in depth, when you have perhaps waded a river, fished it regularly and built-up a practical knowledge of a river and fish-holding lies.

The more varied a river or stream bottom, the better it will be for holding places for fish. This is true of even tumultuous mountain streams and riffles etc. There will be an area of dead water in front of rocks or similar obstacles where the pressure from the running water is less, as well as behind. Look or expect to find a fish lying in depressions caused by fast water cutting into river bed, for example where a riffle meets a pool. Tails of pools are popular as they tend to be narrower than the pool itself, so funnelling food into a narrow neck and there will be slow water along the bottom as the water flowing from the pool meets the shallow tail waters. Look for rocks in rivers or indications of sub-surface rocks where there are changes in current flow, wrinkles or boils on the surface.

Fish like to lie near banks, particularly where there are over-hanging trees and bushes or even rushes and grass. Fenced banks will encourage such growth as stock will be prevented from grazing right up to the river's edge. Caterpillars and terrestrials may fall from trees overhanging rivers and streams, giving trout a perhaps unexpected meal. As well as falling, insects can also be blown into the water. However they arrive, the end results is the same: a meal for an observant trout. Over-hanging trees and bushes provide much needed shelter and protection from predators overhead. Banks can often be under-cut, particularly on the outside where the water flows faster. Such an under-cut will provide a first class lie for one or more fish.

Look for fish where fast water meets slower flows. Trout can rest in slower water and dash out to intercept food flowing by in faster water and then return to digest their meal in calmer conditions.

Trees growing near the water's edge or ones that have fallen into a river will provide a number of potential lies. never pass-by such an obstruction without spending some time studying the water and seeing if a fish does rise.

Another good place to to cast a fly is close to a line of foam. Foam lines can happen when currents of different speeds meet and foam or air bubbles, perhaps caused by decaying vegetation, are merged into a line of foam. Trout will feed in such an area on flies that get trapped between the two currents. The foam tells you that something is happening in the water, to the fish's advantage and yours, if you take it.

Anglers who fish the more rocky and turbulent streams flowing down mountains or off moorland, would be well advised to spend time surveying the river whenever there is low water. This will give you a chance to see where there are larger rocks, pools and other areas that may provide good lies for fish. If you can make a map - either mental or even on a piece of paper - when you fish the river when water levels are higher, you will know where some of the likely holding places are to be found.

The biggest fish will always claim the best lies, with smaller fish in progressively less pleasant lies. If the biggest fish is caught, dies or is killed, the fish behind will move up in to the prime position. So if, one day, you catch a fish in a good lie, it is highly likely that another fish will take its place. This means that it is worth checking the lie the next time that you are on the river - there should be another fish there.

In the end, there is no substitute for time spent on the river, looking for and fishing likely lies. Take every opportunity you can to look at and into any river, whether out fishing or simply taking a walk by a river. When looking into a river to see fish, try altering your angle of view ie squat down or try to get up a bit higher, this can make a difference as it alters the angle of the light on the water surface. If you fish a river that needs the weed cutting, do help if you can. If the water is shallow enough to cut the weed with a scythe working in the river, there is no better way to find out just how deep the water is and where are the holes and shallows.

Terry Lawton is a passionate nymph fisherman who caught his biggest wild brown trout (in the UK) - 4lb 2oz - on a home-tied variant of a goldhead, Sawyer-style pheasant tail nymph.