Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Moving from trout to other species means jumping rod class, from a two to six weight up to a seven or eight for smallmouth and a ten to twelve for musky. That jump forces a double haul and teaches aerial mending, because a 500 grain sinking line cannot be mended on the water once it lands.
Corbin Rinehart learned to fly fish in the Penn State program under Joe Humphreys, later helped teach in it, and now builds species-hunting stops around his work travel across the Northeast.
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How do you break down a tail-out pool for trout?
A tail-out pool is fished from the bottom end upward, because trout hold facing into the current and an approach from above puts the angler in their field of view. When fishing upstream is impossible, the better move is to get out of the water and walk around the pool rather than come down through it. The sequence runs through the slow gravel at the very back of the tail out, then the belly of the pool, then the hard break where the water drops off before the riffle, and finally the back eddy to one side. That eddy is where the biggest fish tend to sit: food keeps arriving while the fish burns almost no calories holding there.
How do you build a multispecies list without dedicated fishing trips?
A species list is kept as a spreadsheet with the species, where it was caught, what it ate and the date. The count stood at 48 species, with 50 as the near-term goal and 100 on a fly as the lifetime target. Trips are booked around work travel that is known roughly six months out, rather than around fishing: San Diego became a leopard shark trip, and a run of customer visits near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel became a shot at cobia and big bull redfish cruising high in the water column.
What changes when you move up in rod class?
Trout fishing can happen on a two weight, where the rod telegraphs everything on the stream bottom, but chasing smallmouth or steelhead means a seven or eight weight, and pike and musky mean tens, elevens and twelves throwing six to eight inch flies on 500-plus grain full sinking lines. A light rod tolerates casting with too little line out; a heavy rod does not, because without line weight the rod never loads. The compensation is a baseball bat weight effect - after two days on a twelve weight, a five weight feels dramatically more nimble.
How many false casts do you need with a big rod?
Two or three false casts is the whole budget when tarpon or musky fishing, and anything beyond that is arm fatigue for no gain. The habit is persistent enough that the fix is asking a guide or fishing partner to call it out during the day. The other half of the correction is letting the line straighten and load the rod on the back cast rather than pulling forward early.
Why does heavy-line casting teach you to mend in the air?
A 500 grain sinking line gives an angler a fraction of a second on the water before the line sinks, so any correction has to happen while the line is still in the air. Learning aerial mends for sinking lines carries straight back to trout fishing, where a reach cast or wiggle cast sets the drift up before the line lands. Making the same correction with an on-water mend after a standard overhead cast surrenders roughly the first six feet of drift.
How long can a nymph drift be from a drift boat?
Mending aggressively at the top of a drift and then letting the rig run produced drifts far longer than expected on a Tennessee tailwater - long enough to feel closer to center pinning than to conventional indicator nymphing. Fish came at the very end of those drifts, on the lift, eating the fly as it swung up like an emerger. The lift has to be slow and deliberate rather than a yank, and the same long-drift approach transfers to wade fishing bigger water.
How do you decide which part of the water column to fish?
Trout in a riffle run are often feeding in the middle of the water column, so a fly ticking bottom gets refused while an emerger a foot down gets eaten. The response is switching to a dry dropper with the nymph six to twelve inches under the surface even when nothing is rising. On a tight line or indicator rig, a girdle bug pattern serves as the heavy anchor fly with one or two flies dropped off it to cover multiple depths. For nymphs, shape matters more than color - on a rich stream where a dozen bugs can hatch in one day, the fly choice is largely about matching a silhouette and a depth.
Key takeaways
- Fish a tail-out pool from the bottom up, and walk around it rather than wading down through it when upstream access is blocked.
- Look for the largest fish in the back eddy beside a tail out, where food arrives at almost no calorie cost.
- Expect to add a double haul when you move to seven weights and up; the rod will not load on short line the way a light trout rod does.
- Cap false casting at two or three with a heavy rod - a tarpon or musky cast needs no more.
- Learn aerial mends on heavy sinking lines, then use the same skill as reach and wiggle casts on a floating line.
- Fish a dry dropper with the nymph six to twelve inches down when trout are refusing flies on the bottom, even if nothing is rising.
