Martyn White | Thursday, 21 July 2022
I haven't fished this week because I caught Covid and have to stay isolated at home until the 29th. I've been messing around with my smallmouth stuff, reading and going over my old diaries. There's one thing that surprised me; how many fish I've caught nymphing.
I don't fish nymphs all that often, but they account for almost the same number of fish as streamers or crayfish, despite getting less time in the water, and considerably more than top water. I used to fish nymphs far more often but have gradually moved away from them, somehow relegating them to a second or third choice method when things aren't working. This bothers me a bit. So I've been trying to work out why this shift has happened. I think there are a couple of reasons, one is fine but the other is not. The first one is preference, there's something about the visual element of watching a big streamer disappear as a bass engulfs it that I find more fun than watching an indicator slip under. I don't believe that there's really any other upside to the streamers they certainly don't account for a larger average size fish. Crayfish on the other hand do seem to account for amost of my better fish, especially earlier in the year and I like catching bigger bass. I think a lot of us, when there are options, probably choose certain methods that we enjoy for some reason even if it's not necessarily going to be the most effective on the day.
The second reason I have a bit of a problem with, and that's following trends. Almost everything I've seen or read online in recent years is about gamechangers and swingin' Ds, perhaps this is a push back against the "green trout" description that used to be the norm perhaps it's part of the celebrity guide effect in the fishing media. Either way the problem is I think there might be a bit of a baby with the bathwater situation going on and I have let myself get swept up in it. Yes these new flies and methods have opened up a lot of water and extended the season for plenty of people and that's good, but they're not magic bullets and a lot of them are pretty reliant on fishing from a driftboat with a guide on the oars.
So, once I can get back out to play, I'll be increasing the amount of time I spend with nymphs on the end of my leader. In the meantime I'll be reading through some of the older books on smallmouth to get myself in the right frame of mind. Maybe if it results in more fish this isolation won't be all that bad.