On the lower Dean a few years back Stam, AP and I were packing up on our last morning on the river getting ready to fly out from the Boundary Pool when a pair of older gentlemen rowed across the river to our side to fish as we were packing.

They were both waking dries and AP and I chatted one of them up as they had hooked a few fish and we were intrigued. AP and I had each put in a little time waking dries on the trip but didn't connect. AP rolled a few and I didn't have a look near as I could tell.

The fellow we talked to seemed to offer his humble yet seemingly sagacious wisdom with the confidence that only time and experience can accomplish. I wish I could remember his exact words as they were chosen carefully, but instead I am just left with the gist.

I asked him what his strategy was after having a fish boil on his fly but not take it. He responded that he makes roughly the same cast but shorter by a few feet. More often than not a steelhead will return to the same lie it was in before your fly piqued it's interest. If the fish is aggressive it won't hesitate to make a longer move for your fly on the next cast and by shortening up you are less likely to overcast and/or line the fish.

If the fish doesn't show itself on that cast he said to make a cast slightly longer than the original cast. In some cases the steelhead will move downstream of it's original lie and into more of a position of advantage with more room to move on the intruder if it appears again.

In each case, if the fish shows but doesn't take again, he puts on a smaller dry fly and then the LBSSF (little black sub surface fly) making the same cast again successively. If this overall strategy doesn't take the fish, something at or near the surface isn't likely to and he moves on.

A few other things I noticed from watching this pair fish. They were each fishing fairly long, light Scandi style lines as compared to the short heavy Skagit style lines we were chucking. Their rods were probably more in the Switch category than true two handed rods. Their flies were much smaller than the flies I had been waking (Ska-hopper style) and looked to be more traditional patterns like the Bomber and Waller Waker. The end result of all of this gear selection was a much more finesse presentation and smaller profile/impact on the target zone.

For what it's worth.