Small Stream Craft can lead to Big Payoff

It pays to know a river. If you spend enough time on a particular river/stream, you will gain valuable knowledge about that fishery.  This knowledge usually takes time, possibly many years to learn how good a river may be.  Doing so will teach the angler every nook and cranny as to where the fish lies are.  You can do this by repeatly fishing specific areas during all or most of the season.  


Seeing the river when the water flows are from high to low lets you to understand the river bottom during all possible flows.  Take note when the river is low to see the river basin and evaluate all the rock structures and hiding spots that you cannot see when the water is higher.  In addition, look for undercut banks that are usually covered. This kind of river study came to me years back when I fished a small stream in NM called the Jemez River.  I spent ten years fishing this small river and knew it like the back of my hand.


William C Black wrote the book, "CreekCraft".  On the cover he is seen fishing a near by stream called the Guadalupe River. The Guadalupe is in the next canyon over from the Jemez.  The book  informed me many important principals. The summation was that fishing small streams is the basis for understanding larger rivers.


This knowledge aided me when I came to fish the West Branch of The AuSable River. The Jemez River is in a large way the same in character as the AuSable. Both have flows holding great pocket water. Indeed pocket water is my first choice when deciding where to begin to fish. The Jemez River is 10 to 20 feet wide on average as opposed to 40 to 60 feet on the AuSable.  Stealth, planning, and reading the water were essential.  Since, everything was micro. I saw in a short distance all the features of the stream right in front of me, of course from behind a bush, rock, or on my knees. My study of how this water structure looked was easier to understand on this lesser scale.


Now, some anglers step into larger rivers and are overwhelmed because the pockets, runs and flats are ten fold. A great deal of water in front of you it is hard to keep focused and break it down.  Plan a head and do as you would do on smaller rivers/streams. Fishing will invariably turn out to be less complicated and locating fish lies will be easier. You will resolve to a greater awareness for the larger scale rivers after honing you skills on smaller river/streams. 


The key reason is the micro size of the stream limiting where the lies are.  Each stretch still contains every component as the larger river/stream, but with less of it to analyze.  One by one, this allows you to a better study.  Being able to see every feature right in front of you, permits you to study in detail all that is evident with the nature of the stream, consequently I learned to pay attention to every thing around me because of this close proximity. This book is a good read and simple to understand.  It should help you also.


Another interesting book I have by William is Hooked on Flies