news&views Spring 2019 | Page 30

Play trout with the line when first hooked
before bringing them to reel.
Foam fly attractor patterns.
generally used for fishing with dry flies; sink tip
lines for nymphs and wet flies; full sink lines
with nymphs, wet flies, and streamer flies.
• Tapered leaders improve casting accuracy with
pinpoint precision if you know what you’re
doing. A two- to three-foot long monofilament
‘tippet’ can be added to the end of a tapered
leader to tie on a fly with a ‘surgeon’s knot’ and
extend the life of the more expensive tapered
leader. Special leaders are necessary for pike,
which have sharp teeth.
Adrienne Radford with an Arctic grayling caught with an
attractor pattern.
Pause on your back cast so you don’t get a trailing loop.
All images © Duane Radford
30 | arta.net
Flies
It’s customary to try to ‘match the hatch’ when
fishing with dry flies. To do so requires the
selection of a fly pattern that imitates an adult
insect that has emerged from a lake or stream
from the larval form of its life cycle. In Alberta,
there are three main biological orders of aquatic
insects in this category — caddis flies, mayflies,
and stoneflies — some of which emerge in streams
from ice breakup until late autumn.
In the late summer and early autumn, many
terrestrial insects (for example, ants, beetles,
grasshoppers, and wasps) fall into lakes and
streams making ‘attractor patterns’ ideal. Attractor
pattern flies imitate a variety of terrestrial insects.
Attractor patterns are also called ‘search’ patterns.
They come in different shapes and sizes.
Dry flies and attractor patterns are fished on top
of the water using a floating line.
‘Nymphs’ imitate larval aquatic insects, as
do ‘wet’ flies, and are fished under water as are