We asked Edward Thomson to share his advice on salmon fishing. Ed has spent a lifetime developing a passion for fly fishing and is an AAPGAI instructor, with an equal love of both trout and salmon fishing. Thank you Ed and tight loops!
Come prepared!
You don’t need to spend a lot of money to start your salmon-fishing journey, but there are some essentials you must take with you to the river. A hat, some polarised sunglasses, a jumper, a rain coat and some waders are the bare minimum. This gets you into the water, dry and warm and can be purchased for not too much money. A balanced double handed rod, reel and line will likely be provided to you, if you are attending an initial guided day on the river.
If you want to go a step further, you can also buy some nippers and a pair of forceps which you will find handy.
You will be given some casting instruction to help you deliver a fly across the river.
The best advice I can give a novice is to focus on landing the line perfectly straight.
Do not try to cast a line longer than you can land straight! Never have more line off the reel, than you can cast straight. If it doesn’t land tight on the reel, wind in a yard or two until it does - you’ll know when the rod asks for more line! If the fly line lands straight, with the fly fully extended, it will begin fishing at the moment it hits the water. A classic error is to try to cast too far - if the line does not land straight, you will actually fish LESS river than a shorter, straighter cast and salmon often lie much closer than you think.
Don’t wade above your knees.
It gets harder to cast the deeper you wade and most novice fishermen end up walking on top of the fish - so don’t do that if you want to catch one! Salmon fishing is a game of odds, and the fly needs to move across the current like a real fish, which will not happen until the line is straight, so this is very important. The speed the fly moves across the river is most important. You want to see a nice smooth ‘curve’ across the water from your rod-tip to the fly. The size of this curve varies depending on the speed of the current. The slower the current - the larger the curve and vise versa.
With a double handed rod, your bottom hand is the accelerator, and your upper hand is the steering wheel. Use the bottom hand for power and stop the rod-tip high - Aim for the top of the trees at the end of your forward cast. Stop it there and hold it until the line straightens, then follow the rod-tip back to the water. Keep your ‘upper-hand’ elbow close to your body and make sure that your downstream foot is pointing at your target - this will ‘lock-in’ your hips and help you cast the line straight to wherever your down-stream toe is pointing.
Remember, every movement in fly-casting is “a gradual acceleration to a crisp-stop” and tension between you and the fly-line is EVERYTHING!
Tension is critical to a good fly-cast. You should always be able to ‘feel the line’ through the rod-tip at every stage of a cast. That’s quite a lot to take on board but, even if you remember a little bit of the above you’ll be well on your way to becoming a salmon fisherman!
The best thing about fly fishing is that it is a life’s work - you never stop learning. I have learned more listening to master salmon fishers over a glass of vino than I have ever learned from practical experience, so listen-up and enjoy!