With low, very clear water conditions prevailing in both Carolinas, your stealthy approach to the creek is more important than ever. This is a subject that’s come up quite a bit lately due the current conditions. Rather than re-hash several techniques from the previous articles, Stealth On The Fly – Fish Like A Ninja and More Stealth On The Fly – Grasshopper, I wanted to briefly touch on one other method I like to keep in my stealth arsenal. This method is simply using objects in the stream to land your fly line on, reducing it’s impact on the water’s surface.
Fly line cast onto rock to allow for decreased disturbance of water's surface.
The above picture illustrates the use of a rock in the stream as a landing zone for the fly line, which reduces the line’s impact on the water’s surface in the target area beyond the rock. Other objects such as logs will also work, however logs are more likely to snag your line. You can also keep your rod tip raised very high to help keep your fly line off the water as much as possible. These are just two more ways to improve your covert opps. on the trout stream.