Jack O'Malley Interview w/ Dave Richey
I knew that hole, and it held a big log that had toppled into the river years before, become waterlogged, and kept sinking closer to bottom. I’d lost many flies to that submerged log over the years.
Brown trout like this are common catches with this fishing method.
This man, if nothing else, was methodical. Each cast was made to a certain portion of the hole, and he’d hit that mark with regularity. The fly would start to swing on a tight line in the current, and he would strip in three feet of fly line with each pull, and after several pulls, he would roll cast to get the fly in the air, false-cast it twice, and bang out another cast to the same exact location.
He would make three to five casts to the same spot, take two steps downstream, and start over again with a perfect cast and the fast, hard strips of the line and then another cast.
It made my arm and shoulder hurt. I knew this method worked because the former owner of The Troutsman in Acme — Kelly Galloup — wrote a book on the topic.
He stressed reading the water, fishing water that should hold big trout, and use large streamers. Some of these flies were big enough for saltwater use but they produced big trout.
The method consists of picking each hole apart with several casts to the same area, and then slowly cover all the water. If nothing happens, choose a different streamer and work down through the area again or try another hole or run.
Strip line hard & fast.
The success of this method relies on precision casting, putting the fly near a big fish, and make long and hard strips of the fly line to make the fly appear to be some type of forage fish trying to get away.
It’s like running from a bear or a mean dog. It triggers the animal to attack, and for trout it can mean making the fish feel like a hefty meal is getting away. Sometimes the wake of a big fish homing in on the fly can be easily seen.
The strike is hard and ferocious. Sometimes the trout is hooked and often it is not. A hit between line strips can leave the fly hanging for an instant in the current as the hand reaches forward for another line haul. This means a fish can hit, and the fly line slips through the hands, and the fish is never hooked. Stuff happens!
This man was accomplished at using this technique, and it appeared his back, shoulder and arm muscles were finely tuned and accustomed to the cast, strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, roll cast, two false casts, and more rapid line strips.
The guy could drop the fly near shore if need be, behind a cedar sweeper, or near the head or tail of a deep pool. His shoulders had to be fit to keep this up, non-stop, for hours on end. The man was like a fly-casting machine. He never appeared to tire nor did he pause to shrug the kinds from his shoulders and back.
I watched him land two browns in the 18 to 20-inch range from a stretch of water that is heavily fished. The first fish came from under the end of a sweeper, and sitting on a side hill 50 yards away, I could see the wake of the brown closing on the rapidly departing streamer.
Read the water, fish where big fish should hold, & try this method.
It hit, the rod tip arched back, and the fish was on. He played the fish hard and fast, knew how to break the fish’s will, and he never took the trout from the water. He reached down with a hemostat, and twisted the fly free. The brown swam back home under the sweeper to safety.
The next hour he hooked a larger fish by swimming a big streamer through a deep hole and stripping the fly in hard and fast. He was midway through a line strip when the brown hammered the fly, and again he triggered the strike at exactly the right moment.
The brown half-jumped once, wallowed for a moment, and bored away on a 25-yard upstream run, rose to the surface, and splashed around. The fish turned, headed downstream past the angler, and he followed, staying close to the fish.
He landed it, and the big fly hung from the lip of the brown trout like a half-eaten sandwich. The two hours made my shoulders hurt thinking about making so many repetitious casts, but the method works during the summer months.
It’s a method that should be in every angler’s bag of tricks, but truth be told, most anglers aren’t used to working that hard for their trout. For them that likes it, a huge streamer fished fast and hard is the only way to fish. But, it is hard work, and make no mistake about it.
It’s too mechanical and too much work to suit me. I’ve caught lots of trophy browns, and don’t need to work that hard to catch another that would be released. Besides, it’s my choice to fish at my own pace, pause to watch a beaver swim by or to study the hatches.
My gift to younger anglers is to let them have this method. I’m more interested in a different kind of challenge, and one that’s easier on an old man.
