What's Your Game Plan?
by Zack Williams
Photos by Marty Sheppard
Successful sports teams always have a pre-game strategy or game plan for their coming matchup. As anglers, there is no reason why we shouldn’t do the same. To develop a strategy for our time on the water, goals must first be identified. For plenty of us, the goal is simply to relax and enjoy our time on the water. But often our goals also include trying to catch a steelhead or salmon on a swung fly, the loftiest of challenges! With limited time on the water , the better prepared we are in advance, the higher our odds are of success. Luckily, for many of us, we think of fishing most of the time when we are not actively participating in the sport. Why not put that time to use and formulate our own pre-game strategy for our next day on the water?
Off-Season
Big game hunters scout their quarry in the off-season. We can do the same. If you favorite rivers are open year-round this can be easily accomplished by fishing for other species in the off-season, whether it be trout, bass, or anything else that is present. Low-water periods are a great time to find secret holding water that would be missed at other times of the year. It could be an isolated boulder, depression, or a soft spot in an otherwise heavy current. Never is time on the water a waste, there is always something to learn!
The off-season is also a great time to fine-tune your tackle. Matching lines to rods ensures that your casts are clean and true with minimal wasted effort. Now is the time to practice your casts and experiment with leader configurations and sink tips. Do you have a sink tip for every situation you might face? Or is your floating line leader matched and balanced with your rod and line so that it turns over cleanly every cast? Poorly matched tackle means wasted opportunity and could cost you the fish of a lifetime.