SIGHT FISHING BASICS
In the opinion of many anglers (myself included), “sight-fishing” is the most exciting form of fishing ever devised. Seeing your prey before you make a cast and then watching its reactions to your bait, lure or fly lifts fishing to another level altogether, and really ratchets up the “hunting” aspects of our wonderful pastime… It’s also highly addictive!
Starlo with a lovely wild brown trout taken while “sight fishing” in a New Zealand stream. Sight fishing is possible even under relatively heavy cloud cover, especially if the water is reasonably clear.
Whether you prefer to use natural baits, lures or artificial flies, I believe that there’s simply no bigger thrill in the whole wide world of fishing than sneakily stalking your visible prey, carefully placing your offering in front of it and watching what happens next. I defy anyone not to hold their breath and tense every muscle in their body with delicious anticipation as that target fish closes in on the trap you’ve just set. It matters little whether it’s a beautiful, wild brown trout tailing in the margin of a shallow lake, a fat, blue-nosed bream mooching under an estuary snag, a lumpy golden trevally hunting across a tropical sand flat… or even a stinky old carp mooching through the shallow margins of an outback dam! Time seems to slow and stretch as the seconds tick agonisingly by. Will the fish eat, or will it spook away in alarm at the last moment?
Sight fishing in clear, “skinny” water is arguably angling’s ultimate thrill.
For better or worse, once you’ve tasted the sheer delights of sight fishing, “blind casting”, “prospecting” or “flogging the water” will always be a distant second best.
THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS
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