The Secret Math Equation

  A few days ago I was having a text message conversation with a good friend, and local fly fisherman here in Texas, who also happens to be an active member on the Sexyloops bulletin board. He was lamenting about the recent uncooperative behavior that the local population of Redfish seems to have adopted...that of being spooked by the entry of the fly on the surface of the water. As we tossed ideas between one another about fly design, leader length, and casting technique, I just casually threw out the idea of leading the fish and casting past him to mitigate any possible negative due to unnatural noise during the presentation. Obviously this is not a new idea by any stretch, but I knew why that happened to be fresh on my brain. I had recently listened to an interview with Captain Rob Fordyce, who i though put this idea into a very profund and very succint description

"The secret to catching a Tarpon on a fly is to get the the fly into the fishes area of awareness without him knowing how it got there. And, when he sees it, it has to be leaving."

Of course this just doesnt apply to Tarpon. I suspect just about any predatory fish has a very similiar, if not identical level of genetic predisposition ingrained in it's DNA. As an adjunct to that, Tim Borski also had some very astute observations about this same subject.

"If you see a fish coming down a bank, you need to know where you want the fly to be, and when you want it to be there. I can catch a lot of fish on my flies, but someone else, they may not do so well. They may throw it towards the fish, as opposed to where it should actually be. You have to do your job correctly most times, and if you do, then the odds are in your favor. There are certain circumstances where you can just lob the fly out there and the fish just comes unglued and shoves it in his mouth. But day in and day out with fish that may be seeing more pressure, or maybe it's really shallow water, and there's no wind, those fish need to be...addressed. When you see a fish, there's a little bit of math you need to do. And that math will tell you what you need to do to get that equation right. Just a little bit of foresight before you put the fly in the water will outfish most patterns."

So there it is folks, Tim Borski telling you that there is an equation, and Rob Fordyce telling you the variables involved equation. The fun part is going out and plugging in the values to solve the problem. The great thing about this game is that because we are dealing with another living creature and it's ever changing environmental conditions, so the values change daily, and sometimes hourly!

It's too bad I stink at math....

Hope you're all having a great week and staying safe and healthy,

Andy