What To Look For On Big Rivers (48 of 51)

Big rivers can be really intimidating and you can't fish everywhere, you'd drive yourself crazy, and the fish aren't everywhere. One of the obvious places is along the bank. But you want to look for water along the bank that's slower. We just went through a real fast deep area where the water pushed right against a high bank. There was one little slow pocket in [00:00:30.160] there, just one little slow pocket. I was kind of sitting there thinking I'm not going to fish this. But I saw that one little slow pocket, I threw the fly in that one little slow pocket and the fish came out and grabbed the streamer. So you have to look for those slower areas of water.
Another place you want to look in a big river is a place like this where there's a shallow riffle off to the side and it shelves off into deeper water. The water is nice and slow [00:01:00.479] and uniform in here. And the fish could literally be almost anywhere in this area, not just along the bank because it's got slow water, it's got protection from the fish, it's got broken water. And yeah, there's good bank water here, but there's also, all the way across from the bank to where I am is good looking water. So I'm going to retrieve this streamer [00:01:30.540] all the way back to me because it's all good. Fish could be lying...Oops, there was one. Fish could be lying anywhere in here. We just passed some water that was too fast. And now we're in the slower, softer water. And it didn't even make sense to make a cast in that water up above. But this is moving at the right speed. There's some structure over in there in those logs. It's not too [00:02:00.060] fast. Fish could be anywhere, actually anywhere in here, all the way to the boat.
Another thing you want to look for in big rivers, it's kind of obvious, is a tributary coming in, a little spring or a bigger river. Different water temperature, different bugs, different water clarity, you know, sometimes it can make a difference. And it's a good place to target when you're on a big river. So this is a really good example of one of those riffles that [00:02:30.240] shelves off into slower water. We've got fast water, fast ripple above us. And then it kind of drops off here into this deeper water. You can see the change in color, the darker water. That's the kind of stuff you want to look for. A rainbow. A rainbow. Nice rainbow too. [00:03:00.560]