Loch Style: First impressions and some tips from a beginner's perspective.

[Loren Williams]

exactly what I  was thinking Anita!  Vince too!

[Mark Hanes]

Loren if you got acess with boats up there i say we run with it.  It also takes the issue of guide lisc for you out of the equation. 

So when? and what Lake?  I am thinking sometime in April, May or June would be best before it is all just pulling trout out of deep water. 

[Anita Coulton]

Great minds Loren....   Yeah, I'm sure Vince could help too!


How bout doing it before or after the two fly up there?.....Wouldn't have to twist my arm too far to get me to hang out a while.....few nice beverage establishments in Lake Placid....just sayin'.....

[Loren Williams]

Kalvin suggested maybe ending it with a NALS comp.  I think that would be awesome.  Thoughts?

[Anita Coulton]

Oh, that would be sweet!  Some good instruction on how to do the technique, and then putting skills to the test....love it! 

Any ideas on dates for this?   

[Mark Hanes]

I agree that would really be cool. 

[Jeremiah Hamilton]

NALS comp would be great I know Arron and Ivo would be interested.

[Anita Coulton]

Can we throw out some dates to see when this is going to happen?

[Janos Boda]

Loch Style fishing – First Impression?

I did loch-style fishing first time in this year at Canadian Nationals in Roblin, Manitoba, Canada. I felt adjusting to this style was not a problem for me, one practice session was enough to make the adjustments. Yes, that is true most of my experience is on stillwaters, I fly fished trout stocked lakes from belly boat, float tube, pontoon boat, and boats for years before. Most of stillwater fly fisher prefer casting with the wind anyway, so adjusting to do “true” loch-style fishing is not that hard for most of them .

I think one of the biggest factors in loch-style fishing is the speed of the wind. Wind speed dictates the speed of your boat, based on that you have to choose the right sinking fly line and retrieve speed. I was surprised on the Nationals some people did not consider about the wind factor at all and for one cast to a “good spot” they were ready to spend 10-15 minutes driving back with the boat. I think, that is just wasting your valuable fishing time .

On lakes, I think the key to succeed is to understand the structure of the lake and know where the fish holding waters are. Structures on a lake most of the time is not visible, to identify fish holding areas, a contour map of the lake, driving around on the lake with depth/fish finder, or previous experience on a lake is critical. Do your homework and analyze a map of the lake and the structures of the lake before the competition starts. When you get to the lake, the first thing to do is to check the direction of the wind. After that you can pick your starting point on the lake, make sure the wind is at “your side” and it will keep you at the “best” fishing waters for a long time. Following this strategy on Nationals gave us some good results.

[Dejon Hamann]

Very nice observations Janos.  I was wondering about what you said below. Are you saying that you found it more effective to keep on a long drift and just keep working some sort of depth rather than taking ample time to circle back around and work single spots?

I was surprised on the Nationals some people did not consider about the wind factor at all and for one cast to a “good spot” they were ready to spend 10-15 minutes driving back with the boat. I think, that is just wasting your valuable fishing time .

[Janos Boda]

It would be nice to upload a map of a lake to explain .

With the loch style fishing probably the best drift you can get is a drift parallel to the shoreline.  Let’s say there is a NE wind and the lake has a shoreline running NE. In this case you should fish on the NE shoreline of the lake. You will get a long drift, while staying close to the shore – weed lines - fish holding areas. I saw the majority of the boats trying to fish at a point in the middle of the east shoreline (fishing with offshore wind), after the second cast they were already in open water – 20 feet deep - heading to the middle of the lake. If the wind is strong 20-30 km/h, it takes lots of time (5- 10 minutes) to troll back to the shorelines to get another drift that lasts only a minute .

Also, you can use islands on a lake to your advantage to get slower drifts – brake up strong wind - and if you know the depth contours of the lake you can hit two drop offs with one short drift.

Yes, if you know all the structures in a lake – droop offs, sunken islands, shoals, weed beds, etc – adjust your drift to the wind situation, make sure you stay in the fish holding areas longer instead of working a single spot over and over again.  In the spring time when water temperatures are on the cooler side I would prefer to fish the 4-5 feet depth contour line.