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This is the fourth post in our series on how to find fish in any location. To see the rest of the posts in this series, click here. 

By Spencer Durrant

One of the most amazing rivers I’ve ever fished flows through a slot canyon deep in the American West. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it eventually merges with another, larger river, in some of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet.

As much as I love fishing there – casting a fly rod beneath sandstone cliffs creates a wonderful juxtaposition – I’m more enamored with a certain hole on the river, than I am with the incredible scenery.

The hole in question is a long, crystal-clear pool that’s home to some of the river’s biggest fish. It’s unquestionably the toughest spot on the river to fish. The trout – mostly rainbows, though a few stray browns are often swimming around – are wary, as you’d expect from fish living in what amounts to a giant fishbowl.

I caught a few fish from this pool on my first trips to the river, but never with any real rhyme or reason that made me feel like I knew how to fish a pool.

That all changed after one of my buddies took some pity on me and showed me how to fish pools. Once I understood how to fish calm, deep water like this, the pool on the river yielded tons of great fish. The key, as with almost everything in fly fishing, was learning the why behind how pools work and why fish hang out in them.

The goal of this post is to help you crush that learning curve, so you don’t spend as long as I did trying to figure out the best way to fish a pool. So, get comfortable, and get ready to learn!

What is a pool?

To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s clearly define what a pool is.

A pool is a deep, slow section of a river. It’s usually located before or after a set of riffles. Water moves quickly at the head of a pool, slowing down exponentially as you get closer to the middle. The water picks up the pace again at the tail of the pool.

Here are a few examples of real life pools:

Why do fish hold in pools?

As with any type of holding water, pools have a few characteristics that make them attractive to trout. Let’s take a look at each of them in depth.

Slow, easy current

The biggest difference between a pool and most other holding water is the current speed. Other than the head or tail of a pool, most of the current is moving at a much slower rate than current in the rest of the river. This gives trout a nice place to hang out, sleep, and leisurely snack on whatever food drifts by.

Protection from predators

Pools – especially deep ones – offer great protection from predators in two ways. First off, the deeper water makes it tougher for predators to catch fish that are otherwise more vulnerable in shallow water. In addition, the color of deep water helps trout stay shielded from anything that might eat them.

Decent food availability

We know that trout exist to eat food. And we know trout want to expend the least amount of energy in exchange for the most amount of food. That’s why they love riffles so much – the energy expense to food received ratio is wonderfully high.

Pools don’t have quite the availability of food that riffles do, but there’s still enough in a pool to keep trout well-fed. The low current speeds also help, since trout don’t have to spend a ton of energy to eat their food.

Perfect for low-temp situations

As water warms up, the amount of oxygen in water tends to decrease. Trout make up for this by migrating to faster-moving water – like riffles – where oxygen content remains high, even during the warmest months of the year.

When winter rolls around, though, pools are the ideal place to be since they offer high amounts of oxygen, and little major current to contend with. This is one reason that you focus on fishing pools and slow, deep runs during the winter.

How to fish pools

If you look for information on how to fish pools, you’re going to come across the same general theory: you need to work through a pool in sections. The terminology might be different from writer to writer, but the idea remains the same.

To help give you the most actionable information possible, I’m relying on tactics provided by folks like Tom Rosenbauer, Devin Olsen, and Ted Leeson, in addition to my own experience.

So, with all that in mind, let’s walk through how to fish a pool together.

Start at the tail

It’s best to start fishing a pool from the tailout – where the pool becomes shallow and the water speeds up – up to the head. This gives your flies the most natural drift, and will usually help you avoid spooking fish.

This is a side-view diagram of what a pool looks like, and it should help you understand why we start at the tail first. Pools have a U-shape, with the deepest part of the pool usually in the middle. The head and tail of the pool are the shallowest, and where the current is moving the quickest. Starting at the tail helps you break the pool down into manageable chunks, ensuring you cover all the water and spook as few fish as possible.

This is an overhead view of the same diagram, to help give you some more context as to how pools are broken down.

Start with the risers

On any section of a pool, you want to target the rising fish first. So, if you see fish rising in the tailout, tie on a dry fly and get to work!

If fish are rising in the middle or head of the pool, don’t worry – we’ll get to them soon enough! What you don’t want is to try a longer cast to the middle of the pool, only to spook fish that were holding in the tail.

You want to cover every part of the tailout. I usually fish from left to right, but how you approach it doesn’t matter. It can be helpful to visualize a grid over the water, and you want to present your flies in each square of that grid. Speaking of flies – a dry-dropper rig is perfect for the tail of a pool because it lets you cover two parts of the water column at once. It’s also fairly easy to adjust the depth of your dropper to ensure that nymph is getting down deep enough.

As you can see in this graphic, the dry-dropper rig is covering the holding depths for the trout in the tail of the pool. This is the coverage you’re aiming for.

Finally, make sure you’re paying attention to line management. With the current picking up speed in the tailout, there can often be a few different currents moving simultaneously. That means you have to watch your drift to eliminate drag. Usually, casting across the current and making small mends to your drift is a good way to manage the multiple currents you might encounter in the tail.

Move to the middle

Once you’ve covered the tail, it’s time to move to the middle of the pool. Again, if there are fish rising, tie on a dry fly and make some casts to them. If the fish aren’t rising, then it’s time to get to work.

Devin Olsen, in his book Tactical Fly Fishing, articulates beautifully how to think about fishing the middle of a pool:

The center of a pool is a location where fish are prone to suspending in the column. Therefore, I will usually start with a dry-and-dropper rig to work from shallow to deep. Sometimes there can be several layers of fish willing to eat in a pool, and more fish will materialize as presentations work progressively deeper.

Pay attention to what Olsen says at the end – as presentations work progressively deeper. That’s key to fishing the middle of a pool. With such a slow, leisurely current, trout can hang out almost anywhere in the water column and still have easy access to food. Your first drifts through the center of the pool should focus on the higher parts of the water column, which is why Olsen recommends a dry-dropper rig.

As you can see in this diagram, we have fish holding all over the water column in the middle of this pool. The dry-dropper presents the opportunity to catch the trout highest in the water column without spooking fish holding beneath them.

Once you’ve covered that water – again, using a grid pattern is helpful to ensure you get your flies everywhere fish might be hanging out – then it’s time to go deeper. Fish can, and will, hold throughout the entirety of the water column, so you want to be thorough in the depths at which you drift your nymphs. A two-nymph rig beneath an indicator is great here, as is a Euro rig. Both allow you to easily adjust the depth of your flies and target specific areas.

After you’ve covered all the different depths, you’re ready to move on.

Stop at the top

The head of a pool usually presents the most complex currents. It’s also where you’re likely to find very active trout, since the fish here have first dibs on any food drifting down through the current.

The currents at the head of a pool are faster, as well, as you can see in this diagram:

A dry-dropper rig is what I usually stick with when fishing the head of a pool. This rig gives me better management of my drift than an indicator rig.

The head will be shallower, and this is where you’ll often see a shelf, too. Shelves are great places for trout to hide, so you want to get your flies dropping over the lip of the shelf and into the main part of the pool, to effectively mimic the real thing. That’s what this diagram illustrates:

Jump in!

Pools are some of the most quintessential fly fishing water, but also some of the most complex. I ruined many a good pool in my early years of fly fishing because I just didn’t know how to effectively cover all the water.

By taking a more methodical approach, you’ll be able to get your flies in front of almost every fish in a pool – and who knows? Maybe you’ll finally catch that really big trout we all know lives there.

This is the third post in our series on how to find fish in any type of water. To see all the posts in this series, click here. 

By Spencer Durrant

My wife and I used to live in a suburb of Salt Lake City. On the drive home from work or fishing, I’d head down a four-lane thoroughfare stacked with fast-food restaurants. With all the traffic during evening rush hour – and a grumbling stomach – I usually pulled into the first place with a short drive-through line to grab dinner. I didn’t much care where it was, so long as I didn’t have to wait too long.

That experience – crammed into traffic, surrounded by other hungry motorists, all of whom seemingly don’t know how to drive – is fairly similar to what trout experience when feeding in a riffle. The river moves quicker, and trout are more willing to compromise on a good drift if it means they have a chance at a large meal – kind of like the time I pulled into a Subway, even though I swore off their food years ago.

A riffle is moving quicker than other typical holding water, but fish hang out there because the opportunity for food is so high. The extra energy of swimming against the current is worth it if they get a steady stream of caddis tacos. Because riffles flow quicker than traditional holding water, I know many anglers who skip them entirely. These anglers are skipping some of the best opportunities to catch fish, especially if there’s a hatch on.

I don’t want you to miss out on the chance at some great fishing! In the rest of this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about locating fish in riffles, and the best ways to present flies in this specific water type.

What is a riffle?

First off, we need to define what a riffle is.

Riffles occur when water flows over a high-gradient streambed that’s littered with smaller rocks and gravel. As the water flows over this steeper section of streambed, it hits the rocks and gravel. The water is forced to either side of the rocks, and sometimes even back upstream, if the water hits the front of a rock with enough force. All this extra movement creates the telltale signs of a riffle that us anglers are familiar with.

Here are a few examples:

Riffles can be short or long. The Madison River in Montana (last picture) is often referred to as “a long riffle” because the entire river is seemingly that same water type.

Often, you’ll find riffles occur between pools or deeper runs.

Why do fish hold in riffles?

I need to give a tip of the hat to Devin Olsen for his excellent work on riffles in his book Tactical Fly Fishing. Much of what I’ll share here can be found in fantastic detail in that book.

Basically, riffles create the perfect environment for aquatic insects. The rocks and other detritus littering the riverbed that create a riffle create a good buffer from the main current where aquatic insects can hang out. Bugs like to live in the small gaps between rocks, of which there are tons in a riffle. These small gaps combine with the buffer from the current the rocks provide to form ideal aquatic insect habitat. On top of that, the fact that riffles are shallower than other spots in a river means they get more of an impact from sunlight. That means more aquatic vegetations grows, which is the food source for aquatic insects. All of these factors combine to make a riffle the ideal habitat for bugs – and bugs are the main food source of many trout.

This is why you’ll sometimes hear riffles referred to as “the food factory” of a river – much like the four-lane thoroughfare example I gave earlier. It’s easy to understand why trout spend so much time in riffles, when you realize just how much food is available.

Trout also hold and feed in riffles thanks to the nature of riffles themselves. As water hits and moves around rocks – thereby creating the riffle – the water slows down just enough in spots that fish don’t have to expend a ton of energy to hold there. Even though there’s not an obvious seam on the surface of the water, the current is slower enough near the river bed for fish to hold comfortably.

Since riffles are moving quickly, they tend to have higher concentrations of dissolved oxygen. As water temps rise during the summer months, the amount of dissolved oxygen in slower-moving water decreases. Fish will automatically seek out riffles during the warmer part of the year not just for the food, but for the increased amounts of dissolved oxygen, as well. During the winter, that trend reverses. With colder temps and less sunlight, aquatic insects aren’t as abundant in riffles, so fish aren’t getting as big a return on their expenditure of energy to stay there. Fish will usually leave riffles to hang out in pools during the coldest parts of the year.

Finally, it’s worth noting that fish hold in riffles because the choppy service offers some protection from overhead predators. If you’ve ever tried to spot fish holding in a riffle ,you know how hard it can be to find them amidst all the bouncing water. Trout like feeling safe and protected, and riffles offer that.

Where do fish hold in riffles?

Generally speaking, fish will hold just about anywhere in a riffle. That’s why, if you look for any information about where to find fish in riffles, you’ll usually come away with a bunch of tips on how to fish a riffle. With riffles, it’s usually a good idea to thoroughly fish them, because it’s hard to predict exactly where the fish will be holding. It’s not like pocket water, where you know trout will hold in the seams.

That being said, you still need to give the riffle a thorough inspection before you start blindly casting. For example, you might find a submerged log, or a rock, behind which – as we know from the article on pocket water – there will be a cushion of softer water. These are excellent spots to cast to first, as it’s highly likely trout are holding there. Since riffles cause so much surface disturbance, an obstruction might not make the same surface waves we’re used to seeing, especially if they’re small. But as we know, trout will seek out any bit of calmer, slower water to hold in while waiting for food to drift by. If you see anything that looks like is might offer trout some shelter from the current in the riffle, cast there! You’re probably right.

How to fish a riffle

Now that you know fish are likely dispersed throughout a riffle – unless you see some obvious obstruction they might be hanging out around – it’s time to talk about how to fish this type of water.

You should have a couple of goals when fishing a riffle:

• Cover all the water
• Cover all the depths

Fish might be right on the bottom, munching on worms, scuds, and mayfly nymphs. Or perhaps they’re suspended in the middle of the column, eating both nymphs and emergers. Or, if you’re lucky, they’re looking up and willing to eat just about any dry fly with a decent drift. The fact that fish can be just about anywhere underscores the importance of covering as much water as possible.

Just like that old saying, about eating an elephant one bite at a time – don’t try to fish the whole riffle all at once. Follow these simple tips to help make it easier:

• Break it into sections: Focus on the head, middle, and tail of the riffle. Cover all the water in the tail, then move onto the middle, then the head. This approach works whether you’re fishing facing upstream, or if you’re standing to either side of the riffle.
• Adjust your depth: I like to fish riffles with a dry-dropper rig. Fish are more forgiving of bad drifts in a riffle, and they’re more likely to eat dry flies, too. I typically have a big dry fly, followed by two nymphs. I space my nymphs out so one is riding close to the bottom, and the other is somewhere in the middle of the water column. If you just fish a single dropper, play around with the depth until you start hooking into fish. If you’re fishing with two nymphs under an indicator, adjusting your depth is as simple as moving your indicator.
• Be thorough: Yes, fish feeding in riffles are forgiving of less-than-perfect drifts, but that doesn’t mean you’ll hook into one on every cast. Give every spot at least a half-dozen drifts to make sure all the trout have had a chance to look at your fly.
• Stay tight: Don’t let a ton of slack line come between you and your flies. Takes in riffles can be very subtle, and you’ll miss them if you have a ton of slack in your drift. Keep the drifts tight and close enough that you can easily set the hook on the smallest indication that a fish has eaten your fly.

Riffles in action

Back when I lived in Utah, I frequently fished a little stream that was well off the beaten path. I loved a particular section that was only accessible via a long walk on a steep dirt road. The road ended right where the stream flowed from tight pocket water into a large, broad riffle.

Within that riffle I could routinely catch 5-10 fish, depending on the day. The fish held in different spots each time, but they were consistently there, willing to eat my flies.

The tragedy is that I skipped over these riffles for years, focusing instead on the pools. Once I started fishing riffles more frequently, though, I wondered how I’d ever let such a great piece of water literally pass me by.

Chances are, your local fishery has a few riffles that go unfished. Pay them a bit of attention next time. Thoroughly cover the water, and who knows what you might catch.

This is the second post in our series on how to find fish in any type of water. To read all the posts in this series, click here. 

By Spencer Durrant

Pocket water is perhaps the most intimidating type of water to learn how to fish. It just looks insurmountable – sort of like a plate of 24 buffalo wings with a heaping serving of fries. How can I possibly eat all this? you wonder. Before you know it, the wings are gone, the fries decimated, and you’re feeling pretty proud (or bloated) of your accomplishment.

It’s the same thing with fishing pocket water. It looks tough, but once you understand where the fish hang out in this type of water, you’ll be able to pick them apart like…well, like buffalo wings. Once you learn how to navigate pocket water, you’ll be surprised at both how much more fish you can catch, and how much more water you’re able to fish on your local rivers.

So, settle in and get ready to learn the fundamentals of pocket water!

What is pocket water?

We’re going to learn how to find fish in pocket water, but before we do that, we first need to know what a pocket is.

Pockets are formed when water passes around a large obstruction. Typically, we associate pocket water with large boulders. As water passes around a rock, the regular current of the river is interrupted, and that interruption forms multiple pockets. Water in these pockets moves slower than water outside of the pockets, making them ideal places for trout to hang out.

So, pocket water refers to sections of a river or stream that are made up of primarily pockets, instead of the usual long runs and pools we associate with fly fishing.

Why do fish hold here?

What are trout looking for in holding water?

Happiness? A warm hug? Cheap gas and winning lotto tickets?

Not quite. Trout are looking for a place to hang out that meets the following criteria:

• Easy access to food
• Reasonable cover from predators
• Away from the main push of current

Thanks to the turbulent water surrounding them, most pockets offer great protection from predators. All that moving water delivers a steady stream of bugs to hungry fish, but the reduced speed of the current means trout don’t have to expend a ton of energy to hang out in a pocket. All things considered, pockets are some of the best habitat for trout you’ll find in any river.

Where do fish hold in pocket water?

Just because you’ve found a pocket doesn’t automatically mean you’ve found a hole that’s lousy with fish. Trout disperse throughout the pocket, looking for the best lies, just like they do in pools or riffles.

There are five main places to look for fish, as you can see in this graphic. We’ll go through all of them in greater detail below, so keep on reading!

Spot 1 – Front Side of Rock

The obvious place to find fish is in the slow water immediately behind the obstruction that created the pocket (most often a rock). But trout will hold elsewhere, too, as Devin Olsen excellently explains in his book Tactical Fly Fishing: 

 On the upstream face of the rock, the water current is temporarily halted before it divides around each side of the boulder. Because water cannot compress like a gas, the molecules colliding with the face of the rock momentarily exert force back upstream before sliding around one side of the rock or another. This momentary stall creates a pressure wave that acts as a cushion that trout can ride.

So, trout will hold in front of a rock, as well. The slower current allows for the fish to exert less energy, while simultaneously putting itself in good position to pick off food tossed by the strong main current of a river. These spots can be pretty tough to fish, but you’ll be surprised at how many fish you’ll pull from the small cushion right in front of a rock.

As you can see from this diagram, fish will hold right in front of the rock, chilling in that slower-moving water.

Spot 2 – Side Seams

If we move downstream from the front of the rock, the next holding lie is the side seams. Friction is created as water flows past the sides of the rock, which slows that water down. This slowdown of water creates a seam next to the water that’s moving faster in the main current.

The seam between fast and slow water is a perfect place for a predator, like trout, to set up shop because it provides an excellent blend of cover and food availability. The turbulent water offers cover from aerial predators and gives fish a consistent stream of food, too.

Spot 3 – The Pocket

The third spot to look for fish is in the pocket itself. It’s usually a spot of extremely calm water – relative to the water around it, of course. It sits immediately behind the rock.

Most pockets are moving too slow for fish to hang out exclusively in the pocket. Often, fish live on the seam between the pocket and any faster-moving water, as you can see in the graphic below.

As with most holding water, the speed is key here. Trout won’t hang out in the pocket unless it’s moving at their preferred holding or feeding speed (a half-foot per second for holding water, and 1.5 to 2.5 feet per second for feeding water). If the rock creating the pocket is smaller, there’s a high chance fish will hold in the pocket itself. The rock isn’t big enough to slow the water down beyond the ideal trout feeding or holding speed.

Spot 4 – The Y

Sort of like the pocket, The “Y” isn’t an ideal spot for trout to hold, but you might catch some there from time to time. The “Y” is formed where the two side seams join beneath the pocket, as you can see in the graphic below.

With two seams coming back together, there’s a ton of turbulence at the “Y”. Water is getting pushed in all sorts of directions, which makes feeding a tough proposition. It’s also probably moving quicker than what trout prefer from their feeding water, too. However, the “Y” isn’t all bad. It creates arguably the most productive part of pocket water – the tailout.

Spot 5 – The Tailout

Where the two arms of the “Y” join and begin to flow back downstream is called the tailout. Thanks to all the turbulence at the “Y” junction, the tailout is moving substantially slower than water surrounding it, as you can see in this graphic.

The tailout is a slight seam, and as we’re now aware, seams are a fantastic place to look for fish. The tailout beneath a pocket is usually home to a few good fish, and it’s always worth fishing.

So, to recap – when fishing pocket water, you should look for trout in:

• Front of the rock, in the small cushion of slow water
• The side seams coming off either side of the rock
• The tailout below the pocket

We put this graphic together for you to help illustrate exactly where fish hold in pockets. It’s worth saving to your phone so you can reference it while on the water.

How to fish pocket water

Now that we know what pockets are, and where fish hold in them, we’re ready to start fishing them!

The thing I love about fishing pocket water is that it’s fast. Pockets are small, so drifts are short. Usually, fish pounce on flies in pockets a bit quicker than in a riffle or a pool. All the turbulent water means food gets tossed around quite a bit, and I’ve found most trout in pockets are very opportunistic feeders.

The trick is, of course, properly presenting your flies in a pocket.

Tip #1 – Get Close (without spooking them), Reduce Drag. High Sticking is great!

The first tip for fishing pocket water is to make sure you’re able to get close enough that you can drift your flies without getting any extra drag.

Drag is one of the biggest potential problems you’ll face when fishing pocket water. You’re dealing with so many currents in such a small space, so drag is tough to avoid. The best way to avoid it, in my experience, is by high-sticking as much as possible. Keep as much of your fly line, and even your leader, off the water. This increases the sensitivity of your rig, but also extends your drifts since you have less line out to start creating drag on your flies.

Now, I want to make sure this point is really driven home, so consider this: there’s no real sense of personal space when it comes to fishing pocket water. Get up and close with that pocket! Confront it like it took your place in line at the DMV! You wouldn’t just let that slide, right? You’d get right in that person’s face and give them a piece of your mind!

That’s what you’ve got to do when fishing pocket water. You need to be close. Like, you only really need maybe two feet of fly line out the tip of your rod, along with a 9-foot leader, to fish that pocket. Since pockets are so turbulent, you can get really close without spooking fish. The closer you get, the better you can control the drag and drift of your flies. If you try to control it from too far away, you’ll just end up making things worse. Keep the fly line use to a minimum, and get as close as you can without spooking fish. I like to get right up on a pocket so that I can fish them without any fly line out of my rod – just the leader and my flies.

Tip #2 – Keep your fly(ies) in one current

Tip #2 ties directly to tip #1. With all the different currents moving at different speeds in pocket water, it’s tough to manage your drift. A great way to do that is to ensure that you land your flies in the same current. If you’re fishing with an indicator or a dry-dropper rig, make sure those are in the same current as your flies, as well.

Look at the graphic below to get an idea of what I mean.

If I make a cast like you see in the second photo, my flies and indicator are all in different currents. I’ll have maybe a second of good drift before all those currents start dragging my flies and indicator out of place.

If I make a cast like you see in the last photo, though, my flies and indicator line up nicely, eliminating most of the potential for drag.

Tip #3 – Have an Open Mind

Something that’ll surprise you with fishing pocket water is just how many tiny pockets hold fish. The cutthroat in this photo came from a TINY pocket of calm water in an otherwise high, off-color river.

Don’t be afraid to fish every little piece of water within a pocket. You never know where trout are going to hold, and if they’re willing to eat.

Hit that pocket

Phew. That was a lot! But fishing pocket water is something I personally love. Most anglers skip over pockets, especially the not-so-obvious ones. Runs and riffles are usually easier to wade and fish than a pocket. Chances are the stretches of pocket water on your local fishery receive far less pressure than the good-looking runs and pools.

The best way to learn how to fish a pocket is by doing it. Hopefully this article serves as a jumping-off point for you to start hitting the water that most other anglers pass up.