Short-lining

[Paul Arden]

I'm a huge believer in short-lining.

Anything which involves fishing the surface drop, static dry or scratching the surface is much better dealt with using the short line. Short lining makes it easy to pick up and throw at a fish rising further out. Long lining with a fish rising in close is very destructive. Fishing the short line with a boat partner fishing the long line is very incompatible because he's disturbing your water, sometimes to the extent that you'll catch nothing because of him!

Short-lining for me is no more that one - maximum two - rod lengths of flyline out the tip plus leader. It takes confidence!

The way I look upon it, is fish won't spook on the boat but they will on casting. And it's MUCH more effective to fish under the rod tip than at a distance where you can't really see what's going on and where drag presents a problem.

For me fishing the short line is what loch style is really about - it's less disturbing and allows the fish to come to you. I agree long lining is an important skill to have but short lining is our controlled bread and butter fishing.

Was just thinking about this because of the wind lanes topic

Cheers, Paul

[Eagle Crest]

Question, typically, what are the water depths you would use the loch style method? I would expect water that is too deep for plant growth that provides food and shelter to the fish, they would have to have some reason to be there. I know that I see fish with my fish-finder side-scan, out in deeper open water, but those rare times I do the loch style drift, it's always been in shallow weedy areas.

tschuss, Steve

[Viking Lars]

I think I agree :-). I don't often fish from a boat - sometimes when pikefishing, but that's a completely different game.

I have found the same to be the case when I'm fishing from the kayak. Trout don't seem to be spooked by the kayak. When they do, they're usually less that 2 meters from the kayak, and they simply take off in a slow boil - not bolting like crazy. Even when I'm standing up in the kayak trout don't seem to spook very easily.

But I still need to cover some Water, so I cast maybe up to 20 meters - usually shorter and instead rely on the fact that I will drift closer to the fish and get them on the shorter line.

Lars

[alex vulev]

Sounds like czech nymphing from a boat.

[Paul Arden]

Some forms are a bit like that, Alex, but without the weighed flies. The traditional method was the fish three or four wets on a long rod of 11 or 12 feet, move the flies by lifting the rod tip and maybe one strip of line, and roll them out again. Two or three people in a boat drifting preferably in a good wave.

Steve, UK stillwaters are typically 50-70 feet deep At the deepest point (although some are 200 I believe). But I find it very rare to catch trout below 20 feet and I'm not sure I ever have. Sometime in June the fish seek out the deeper cooler water and leave the banks - but on cloudy days they'll be feeding at the surface, as they will at dawn and dusk. So for short lining you're typically fishing the top few feet over water anything from 10 to 70 feet deep.

I've also had lots of this fishing in Tasmania and Montana. Surprisingly little in NZ - it does work but you need extensive water 10-20 feet deep and I still think you're better off long lining an Intermediate or bringing them up to a Muddler.

Cheers, Paul

[Nick]

I love short-lining. It's great that you get to see almost every fish that moves to your fly. Loch style was the primary way that I fished in Britain. However, I have had almost no success doing it over here on the West coast of the US (Washington and Oregon). The brown trout around here seem to never feed on the surface, and the rainbows don't seem responsive to the approach. I feel like they should be, but it has just never worked for me over here.

[Paul Arden]

Here’s an FP today on short-lining. It’s not just loch-style, but also trout flats and even how to approach most rover situations. Basically the best water to fish is the water just in front of your rod tip

https://www.sexyloops.com/index.php/ps/ ... 520-071825

Cheers, Paul

[Boisker]

Typically fishing West Country rivers in the U.K. I routinely fish pretty short... 30’ of fly line out the rod tip casting overhead would be a very, very rare exception....
just over a rod length of line plus 10’ leader, casting under the rod tip would be the norm.