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Taking a stroll with your whips on fly tanks is a great way for all anglers to practice all year round. Perfect your casting skills, try out rods and tackle, prepare for the next opening by rubbing shoulders with some nice catches... All good reasons to visit these special waters!
1) To improve your casting technique
Whatever your level or experience of fly fishing, it's always worthwhile not to be idle during the 6 months when trout fishing is closed. For fly-fishermen new to the sport, reservoirs are a great way of perfecting their skills and mastering this specific technique more effectively. Even for more experienced anglers, there will always be a new type of cast to master on these waters: backhand, roll or double pull, useful in lakes to reach fish sometimes posted far from shore...
2) To familiarize yourself with casting on different rods
For some of us, river trout fishing is mainly done with 3 to 5 fly lines, effective for fine, discreet fishing with small imitations. Reservoir fishing provides an opportunity to try luring trout with larger flies. This is a good opportunity to get to grips with more powerful rods, and to propel larger streamers on 6 or 7 fly lines. Training that can later be used to tease larger prey in the wild: perch, bass, pike, even nice catfish...
Even with light rods, reservoir fishing with friends means getting to grips with different whip actions and thinking about the types of rods you might buy next for river fishing.
3) To learn how to measure up to big fish
In rivers and in the wild, it's not so often that you can measure yourself against fish over 60 centimetres long. In most fly fishing reservoirs, it's rainbows that populate the water. These fish are not wild, but rainbows are nonetheless formidable fighters, renowned for their power and aggressiveness. Being in the grips of a pretty fish allows you to test your tackle in real-life conditions, to appreciate the action of your whips during a fight, to measure the strength of your leaders... These are just some of the ideas and improvements we can make in the future, when fishing opens up in the first category.
4) To better understand streamer fishing
Reservoir fishing is practiced with fairly specific flies, which are often only used on these closed bodies of water populated by trout. This may be a mistake, as most of these flies have also proved their worth in the wild. You might think that bobbies only attract farmed trout, but to try them in mountain lakes, for example, is to adopt them for good, and sit on certain preconceived ideas. It's during the winter months that you'll be able to understand the swimming actions and animations to be imparted to all these streamers, and then try them out in the spring to see if fearful brown trout can also be tempted.
5) To help you prepare for your opening
As March draws nearer, the pressure begins to mount, and trout anglers will inevitably want to begin preparations several weeks before the fateful date. Rather than waiting to take the whip out of its sheath on the eve of opening day, a little trip to the reservoir in the middle of winter allows you to leave the second category trout alone, while testing your equipment in real fishing conditions. Reliability of connection knots, silk condition, reel check-up... These are just some of the checks you need to make sure you're ready for the new season.
