Every angler has called a fish a “good fish” , and been told by some wise man with them that “they’re all good”. And in one sense that wise man was right. But the reality is some fish are better than others, and the first time you catch a big fish you realize it feels different than catching an average fish for several reasons.For one a big fish is just bigger. Its more impressive to the eyes. Secondly, a big fish is an older fish, so we credit that adversary with more intelligence and a bigger accomplishment to catch.
With each season, you catch more fish and usually more big fish as you learn more and how to target them. Through this process, and with each season however most anglers push the bar higher as to what they consider a big fish. Several seasons ago, I felt I was hitting a wall in this pursuit. I had been fishing quality tailwaters in both New York State and out west for most of my angling life consisting of 20 years, with most seasons my best fish falling somewhere between 22-23’’. There were many fish over that time frame that I landed and swore were bigger, but measured out to be in that same 22-23″ range. I’ve only netted a handful that touched or exceeded the 24” mark, the line of demarcation that I think marks the difference between a “big fish”, and a “really big fish”. It’s a tough mark to break and is often too loosely thrown around by people when estimating the size of their catch. And while I want to emphasize that a 20-23” fish is a “big fish”, its not a “really big fish” because you can catch fish of that size several times, if not many times a season on healthy waters. And you don’t catch “really big fish” that often. (a 23.5″ old fish that was taken on a dry in April of 2017).
In realizing there was a ceiling that I was pushing up against when it came to my best fish of the season, I started to think how I could do better. Being a dry fly guy first , I wasn’t helping my chances when pursuing “really big fish” but realistically wouldn’t and still won’t change in that respect. I also enjoy and regularly fish streamers, but just hadn’t connected with that freak upper 20’s fish. I had also night fished many times over the years, doing the mouse thing well before the Mr. splinter and “night time is the right time” insta sensation posts became an obnoxiously overused expression, and landed some “big fish”. But the night game never delivered the same thrill to me as catching a big fish during daylight hours, or at least at a time you could see the rise, make the cast, and see the strike. Because night fishing is 80% about just being there at that time, it wasn’t how I wanted to go about seeking out bigger fish because it wasn’t rewarding. So bottom line, I wanted to focus on getting better at taking “really big fish” on either streamers or throwing the dry when possible. (A 24″+ brown that was hooked in the waning minutes of daylight on a coffin fly spinner).
Beyond method, I also started to look harder at what other anglers were doing that I knew were prone to boating “really big fish”. One thing many of those anglers had in common were they commonly fished waters that had little to no pressure. In speaking with them, many of the streams they fished did not have better habitat than other well known streams in the same area. But they had good enough habitat, and were waters that people were not fishing hard so as to allow the fish to remain there, grow large, and not be harassed. Noticing this trend caused me to really start to consider the impact that fishing pressure has on an angler’s chances at not just seeing, but catching a “really big fish”.
Thinking about it was one thing, but acting upon these thoughts was harder. Its hard to leave steady, consistent fishing on great rivers in exchange for waters that are likely of lesser quality water wise, but may offer a shot at a bigger fish. Over time though, I have started to force myself to do it, and have seen results in the short time that its been since my change in perspective.
As an example, recently I was in Montana fishing the Missouri River, a classic tailwater and good example of what I just described above. A lot of “ big fish”, but not a lot of “ really big fish” caught. You can go there for a week and throw dries all day, catching 16-22’’ fish daily (yes LOG is the exception). This past trip out there, I had a couple good days on the Missouri and chose to leave and head for a more remote river that I had heard quietly from some locals held big fish, but not a lot of fish. I had fished the stream a couple times before, and seen those fish, but never caught them. When heading there recently, I called my shuttle guy who had told me no one had been floating the river this summer and it was dead. I smiled as I hung up the phone with the guy thinking ok good, no pressure.
I launched my boat with a buddy and saw PMDS coming off. As I was about to start rowing down river, I looked upstream and saw a nice run that was about 200 yards upstream and decided to drop anchor and run up there to cover it with a few drifts before floating down. I’m glad I did, as on the 3rd cast with a crayfish pattern I came tight to a fish that overwhelmed my rod and came to the surface showing how broad his shoulders were,before ripping down river. At this point, I hadn’t even put on my waders and was wearing my flip flops, and started running down river after this fish with one flip flop half on my foot making it an extremely goofy situation. My buddy ran down to the boat and got the net, and we both kept sliding downstream as the fish kept ripping lower in the pool and was unstoppable despite being hooked on 4x. We had seen the fish’s large red adipose fin which let us know it was another class of fish, but didn’t quite appreciate how big it was til we got it in close and saw its girth. After a couple attempts , we finally netted the fish which was 25” and somewhere between 6-8 lbs. It was the type of fish you couldn’t believe you were holding while releasing it, let alone in bright daylight.
Over the next three days, I had shots and landed several next class “really big fish” on that same river that displayed behavior like I had never seen before from such large trout. On a couple of occasions, I had very large fish rising, and would make a cast to them shaking with the fly landing 6-12” short causing me to think the fly was out of the zone. These fish would slide over at that moment and take my fly, surprising the hell out of me. On a few occasions this caused me to miss them in heart breaking fashion. But I buried the steel on a few too.
Beyond just the behavior of the fish, the lack of pressure caused the lies the fish held in to be different. These fish were not afraid to be in water you would expect juvenile or smaller fish to be holding in. From a fishing perspective, this required covering every spot, not just prime lies, because you could be surprised what was in that little slot in the head of the pool.
In total, my trip to that river produced 5 fish that were 24” or bigger, with my biggest being 26”. And I never saw another angler over 3 days of fishing.
While this is just one example, I do now believe that avoiding pressured waters is one of the most important, if not the most important variable to prioritize in pursuing very large fish. There are also different types of pressure with the worst type being lots of boat traffic/fishing pressure. This means all sections of the river are covered and fished regularly. You usually have more quality anglers pressuring these waters since they are usually well known quality fisheries. Other rivers get hit by locals for a short amount of time early season, and then pressure tapers off with very few of those anglers being overly dedicated or adventurous in covering remote sections of the river that are more than 500 yards from the parking lot. This you can live with and may not impact the fishing and fish’s behavior all the much once you venture away from easily accessible locations.
Applying this to the streamer game, the same issues plague the meat chucker as the dry fly enthusiast that wishes to pursue very large fish. Pressure. You see it in the behavior of the fish when they follow, but don’t strike your fly repeatedly, when you get short strike after short strike, and through less commitment to the fly generally. It is no secret that streamer fishing has blown up over the past 5 years, with innovative, creative, and some downright monstrosities contributing to an almost meathead culture of chucking big over the top flies to the bank for trout. Thing is everyone does it now. And the fish see the flies. Unless you are fortunate enough to catch a river at the perfect time when its off color, on the rise, or otherwise presenting perfect streamer conditions and you hit that limited window before others do, you are unlikely to move the “really big fish” on streamers on pressured waters. You will get the big fish, the 18-22/23” fish, but probably not the really big fish. So next time the rivers are up, take that same streamer box and your boat( or maybe you’ll need a raft or something even smaller) to a stream that few anglers hit, and find a bank to chuck it off since you probably wont find a ramp. But you will find the fish, and hopefully the fish. When it comes to what rivers to hit, they are the rivers you heard might be good but when you google them you find nothing. They are the transitional stretches that hold some small mouth, and other warm water species, but the upper stretches hold good numbers of trout. They are the stretches that are fed by reservoirs but no one floats or goes off the beaten path on bc they are “not floatable” and wading is a bitch. But, let me remind you everything is floatable if it is high enough. Challenge what you know or have heard, and prove out waters on your own. You will be surprised what you find when you do.
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