Fly Fishing for Rising Trout Starts with One Perfect Cast

A rising trout may give you one clean shot. Here’s how to make the first cast count before the fish gets suspicious.

Fly fishing for rising trout starts with doing everything you can to make your first cast count. If you’ve ever watched a trout rise again and again, you’ll notice the more it feeds, the more reckless it can become. It’s like its success taking down flies makes it more aggressive the next time it sees one.

I want to take advantage of that aggression and recklessness without doing anything that might make the fish suspicious about what’s drifting overhead.

I want the best cast, the best presentation and the best drift, with the expectation that the fish will slam my fly the first time it drifts over its head.

If the fish doesn’t take the fly, I’ll work it a couple more times, but through the years, I’ve found that if I make a perfect first cast, that’s usually all I need.

a fly fisherman makes a cast — *Your first cast is usually your best chance for catching a rising trout. That's why it needs to be just right.*

Fly Fishing for Rising Trout Starts with Finding an Active Feeder

Making the perfect first cast starts with finding a rising trout. I want to see a fish rise multiple times in a particular spot before I try to figure out how to catch it.

That’s to avoid wasting time on a random trout making a random rise. I could spend all day trying to catch that fish without it ever rising again. When I'm fishing, I’m after actively feeding trout.

Match the Fly the Trout Is Actually Eating

Once I identify a trout is actively feeding on flies on the surface, I try to identify exactly what it’s rising for.

There might be multiple bugs on the water’s surface, but there’s usually something specific a feeding trout is taking. And so I watch the fish and scan the water to figure out the preferred food.

a fly fisherman sets the hook on a trout in a stream in Pennsylvania — *When you get it right and your fly drifts into a rising trout's feeding lane, be ready to set the hook!*

Read the Water Before Your First Cast for Rising Trout

Once I’ve got the fly and tied my best imitation onto my line, I study the water to figure out how to cast to reach the trout and get the best drift. There might be multiple currents to interpret to get a drag-free drift over the fish. Where do I need to stand to get that drift?

There are several ways to cast to rising trout. My preference is to be upstream of it. Not directly upstream, but at a 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock angle, assuming the flow is from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock.

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I don’t like to be downstream from the trout and have line drift over its head before the fly. I want my fly to be the first piece of my rig that it sees. To do that, I have to be upstream of the fish.

Get Into Position Without Spooking the Fish

So I’ve identified exactly where the fish is feeding, I’ve got what I believe to be the right fly tied on, and I’ve figured out where I need to stand to get the right drift. Now I creep into position. I approach my casting spot from a direction that keeps me as far away from the feeding trout as possible. I don’t want to disturb it with foot noise or excessive ripples on the water’s surface.

How close to the trout I move depends a lot on stream conditions. In low, clear, slow water, I’m probably going to have to stay far back. But in deeper, faster water, I can generally get closer.

a fisherman with a freshly caught brown trout — *The author caught this pretty brown trout on a stream in Pennsylvania.*

Reset Before the Trout Sees a Bad Drift

Once I get into position, I stand and wait. I want the trout to rise a couple of times with me there, just in case I alerted it in any way. When I feel like the fish is comfortable, I start false casting to strip out line.

I want my fly to land several feet upstream from the feeding trout at a spot on the water that will take it exactly where I believe the trout has been surfacing. That’s its feeding lane, and I want to be in it.

When I lay the fly on the water, I’m going to point my rod tip upstream at the last second so that everything stays in the correct orientation as the fly approaches the trout—fly, tippet, leader, fly line, in that order.

The amount of fly line I lay down, and where I set it, depends on how far I need the fly to drift to reach the trout and what, if any, different currents I need to account for.

If everything doesn’t line up the way I want, I’ll lift up the line before the fly drifts to the trout and set it down again. This is another benefit of working from the upstream side. The trout hasn’t seen anything yet, so I can pick up the line and my fly quickly without spooking the fish.

When the Drift Looks Right, Be Ready to Set the Hook

When everything looks good, I let the current do the work. I follow the fly with my rod tip, and I keep my hand on the fly line.

The fly hits the strike zone, the trout rises and my fly disappears in a splash, so I raise the rod tip while pulling down on the fly line, and the fight is on.

Take the time to make that first cast count and see if your catch rate doesn’t rise like a hungry trout.