To Set or Not To Set
We almost didn’t fish it, almost didn’t even get out of the truck and walk down the path to see what it looked like.
But we did.
It was our last spot of the day and for a reason I can’t quite remember - most likely the continued generosity from Andy - I fished it first. If we could’ve added 40 or 50 CFS to it, I think we would’ve but still, it look really good.
I started high in the run, with a short line, knowing that I’d be able to cover the whole thing pretty well and intending to do just that. Soon, I was casting to the other side, and started taking small steps downstream. Then, I reached the bucket.
The inside was slow, and the swings were stalling out as they came into the bank, but between there and the middle of the river, it looked and felt beautiful.
I felt a middling nibble, made the same cast, and had another. Trout.
The next cast, as my fly came into that slow inside, the swing gradually came tight and I felt the faintest but surest tension. My mind was like a flipped quarter, spinning in the air, one side of it saying Don’t You Do A Damn Thing! and the other saying Set The Damn Hook Now, You Fool!
The question to set or not to set the hook while fishing a swung fly for anadromous fish must be at least as old as the pursuit itself. In fact, I’d wager that it’s even a bit older because I imagine that very first swung fly angler asking themselves the question before they actually started fishing: So I’m just going to cast this fly out there and let it the current swing it around and hope that a fish takes it, but if one does, I wonder what I should do then?
Despite my 15-ish years of anadromous angling, much of it with much more talented and experienced anglers, and some of it with decades-long guides, my study of this critical question and moment has been limited. Thankfully, at some point along the way, I did come to realize that it’s better to let the fish try to set the hook on itself rather than for me to try to set it myself. And, perhaps even more importantly, at some other point along the way, I finally had enough encounters to be experienced enough to have the mental and physical patience and control to actually let this scenario play out. Of course, I don’t hook them all, but I feel pretty good about my averages and typically know when I mess it up.
However, my standard approach was called into question a few years back while fishing for summer-run steelhead on a Columbia River tributary with a long-time guide. He’d put me in high bank, deep- and slow-water spot that I probably would’ve rowed past but halfway through one swing, my rod tip started to twitch softly and he yelled, “What are you doing?! Set it!”
I’d never heard a steelhead guide say that before. I just turned my head and looked at him.
“Really?” I asked.
He started laughing. If there is absolutely one thing a fishing guide can do that you should not question, it’s when they tell you to set the hook.
After the encounter with Andy, I did some proper research: I consulted the home library. While by no means exhaustive, I felt confident in pulling four works from the shelves, their origins spanning fifty years and geographies ranging from Atlantic to Pacific anadromous species. One might argue that such an investigation would’ve been worthy when I (or before I) started fishing for steelhead and salmon, and I would agree. But, we learn when we learn; we set the hook when we set the hook, and we don’t when we don’t.
I began with the Bush Pilot Angler, Lee Wulff. His The Atlantic Salmon (originally published in 1958, updated in 1983) covers the subject at length in the chapter titled ‘The Rise’. Wulff wrote, “The fleeting instant at which a salmon takes a fly into his mouth may be the most important one in his capture. The moment requires maximum judgement and control by the angler.”
I find Wulff’s writing style a wonderful mix of personal experience, anecdotes, cerebral analysis, and humor. That it was written more than 50 years ago also adds an historical flavor and style unique to today’s writing. As example, I can’t help but smile when Wulff writes, “Must one strike with a wet fly? The answer is yes, and no.” I personally find these types of ruminations amusing but at the same time, I get the feeling that Lee probably wasn’t trying to be funny; he was just telling it how it is.
(As another favorite example, there’s an segment with Lee in the Master Collection DVDs in which he comments on a few pattern, proclaiming it to be appropriate for striped bass specifically in the 20 to 30 pound class, and “maybe even fifteen pounders.” When I first heard this, I started laughing because, what kind of claim is that?! But in hindsight, I think Lee was being candid - he had simply done very well with that pattern on stripers fish of that size.)
Wulff doesn’t simply leave the question to ‘it depends’ reasoning though. He goes on to add, “If a choice must be made between an early strike or a late one, where the conventionally fished wet fly is concerned, the late strike should be the choice.” This is definitive advice and consistent with my way of thinking to date but it also raises the point that there are instances when there is no choice to be made on the matter; that the angler could just know whether to strike or not, depending on the circumstances.
I was surprised to find that Trey Combs’ Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies (1976) does not include very much information on the topic. It does offer the following, relating to sinking-line, swung-fly presentations: “Often the winter steelhead strike occurs in name only. The fly is simply stopped. If our line is under sound control, the attention is promptly telegraphed, and we strike, hard.” Again, definitive, and what Combs describes is pretty close to what had happened to me with Andy that day. But still, I wanted more. From there, Combs’ book moves to the section ‘After The Strike’, so I continued in my research.
In The Complete Steelheader (2008), Oregon steelheader and author John Larison writes, “You’re best off refusing the impulse to immediately raise the rod when a steelhead takes your swinging fly.” This is consistent with Wulff’s approach to Atlantics, but Larison adds the qualifier of time - “immediately”. To combat this, he recommends carrying a loop when fishing swung flies, dropping it on the take, and letting the hook set itself against the tension from the reel, adding, “…once the line has come tight to the reel, the best practice is to raise the rod in a firm and steady motion.”
Larison’s book dedicates a chapter to various presentations and a section within each chapter to ‘Hooking Takers’. As to greased-line presentations he writes, “The proper striking motion… is no motion at all.” So again, consistent with Wulff (“The answer is yes, and no.”)
Finally, I changed media and browsed through the film Fly Fishing for Pacific Steelhead, made by Lani Waller in 1987. While waist deep in the Deschutes, he says, “The general rule on hooking steelhead is to wait until you feel the fish pull on the line.” And then he promptly hooks one. I appreciate the simplicity of this approach and also noted that he was carrying a loop, which got ripped out of his hands. I’d venture a guess that that fish had itself pretty well hooked.
Waller also adds a comment that brought me back to what Wulff wrote about there being a choice to set the hook or not. Before hooking that fish, Lani says, “I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do if I hook a fish here.” He’s referring to how he’ll play the fish - where he’ll wade, if there are any snags in the river, etc. - but it made me realize that this exercise is (was!) a gap in my angling. A worthy question to ask oneself while angling, especially while fishing the swung fly for anadromous fish is, If a fish takes my fly on this swing, what will I do? In the case of that day with Andy, I should’ve been thinking about that slow inside and what I might expect to feel, should a fish stop my fly there. If the angler can anticipate the strike - where, when, and what kind - perhaps the choice to set the hook or not ceases to be a decision at all, and we simply know what to do, leaving us to deal with the very enjoyable ‘After The Strike’ moments.
To recap: my fly had just swung through the bucket and into the soft inside, stopped, and came into tension. I froze in indecision. I wanted to set the hook and feel the weight of the fish, but at the same time, I didn’t want to lift my rod and feel no resistance on the other end.
So, I did nothing. Well, not nothing. I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until I realized that the fish was gone.
And then, I wished that I had set the hook.
The strike… is all right, regardless of circumstances, if it hooks him. It is all wrong when it pulls the fly out of his mouth or, for any other reason fails to hook him.
-Lee Wulff
