Fishing the Hold: Water Currents
Finding fish is not enough to ensure fish on the
hook.
You must know how to fish each hold in order to entice strikes.
Timothy Kusherets
It’s not enough to find fish. You have to know how to
fish each hold based on the current. In front of this angler are
hundreds of fish. Since he’s not wearing polarized glasses
he cannot see the massive amount of fish in the deep water directly
in front of him. He can however spot fish on the far side of the
river and has erroneously assumed that the flow of the river is
from the right to the left. It’s actually flowing from the
left to the right. The holding fish are swimming in a back-eddy
and are faced down current from the angler, though the fisherman
doesn’t know it. He stood there for hours frustrated at not
getting a single bite.
Finding fish is not enough to ensure fish on the hook.
You must know how to fish each hold in order to entice strikes. Know
elements of rivers and lakes. Look for the best spots known amongst
veteran anglers as: Slots, Seams, Eddies, Undercuts, Tributaries,
Pools, Tail-outs, Confluences, and Drop-offs. Each one of these types
of holds has varying speeds of current. It’s possible to fish
water that has fast current at the surface but slow water down deep;
so how do you get to fish when there are two separate speeds?
You have to compensate by making fishing adjustments. In almost all
cases if you let offerings move in water with natural flow of currents
fish will strike with vigor. Going against currents will spook holding
fish into either not biting or moving from the area entirely.
Study varying reaches of water. The universal constant of water movement
translates into fish on the hook anywhere in the world. Fishing techniques
that employ current work in the U.S. will work in Germany. Fishing
techniques that work in China will work in Chile. Gravity is not partial
to any location on the planet, which is why it’s possible for
me, and many students, to fish many different rivers, lakes, streams,
bays, coves, inlets, estuaries, and saltwater environments within
the span of a single season.
Watch currents and make adjustments with casting and weights to properly
fish each hold and you’ll hook into fish all the time. It’s
possible. I’ve seen people who have never touched a fishing
line get fish on the hook the very first trip to the water. If they
can do it you can too.
© Timothy Kusherets 2006/10
