Continuing our series on streamers…..

One of the keys to fishing a streamer is this - the fish we’re after, the predators at the top of the food chain, are used to seeing smaller fish fleeing away from them. 

That translates into a simple on the river fact - you simply must not cast the fly and retrieve so that it is swimming toward your target fish.  Doing so guarantees (most often) a spooked fish - a 4 inch baitfish attacking a 20 inch brown trout just doesn’t happen in nature, and you can be darned sure the brown trout will recognize that something isn’t right.

You really need to be able to think like a fish - in this case like a fleeing baitfish.  You know that you can’t swim against the current and escape - you’ll instinctively swim downstream.  You know that you must race for the nearest cover - or flee so recklessly that you might even leap from the water in a last, wild jump to escape. 

Another key is this - many great streamer fisherman strive to keep the streamer at the level of the target fish - not as easy as you might think, but very critical for maximal exposure of your streamer to the target fish.

Understanding how a fleeing baitfish behaves will supercharge your streamer fishing….

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