The Stop

A few years ago I was talking barramundi and other matters with Tasmanian guide Chris Bassano. Chris has fished many waters for many species, and is also a successful competition angler.

We got onto retrieves and the importance of how and when we move the fly and how and when we stop it. Chris said something that’s stuck with me ever since: “Sometimes I think the only reason we move the fly is so we can stop it.” Thinking about it, over the years, I’ve seen more fish caught on a stop, or pause, during a retrieve than while the fly has been moving.

There are several natural scenarios a stop can suggest to the fish, and weighted, floating and neutral-buoyancy flies all have a part to play. Some stops allow the fly to move vertically. Others are made so it simply doesn’t move at all for a while, whether floating or suspended at a depth. It’s all to do with a predator’s reaction to prey.

ON THE DROP

If you dive or even snorkel, especially to observe baitfish and how they behave, you will notice the natural rise and descent as they feed. You’ll also see plenty of small reef fish darting up to grab something, sometimes only to be grabbed by something bigger as they dive back for the reef. Most bites come on the descent — ‘bit on the drop’ is an old saying among jig fishers, and I’ve heard it plenty of times from fly fishers too.

Dead and damaged bait also falls. This occurs in most pelagic feeding, especially when predators with teeth or bills are involved. I once witnessed a remarkably different example of this. From a distance, we saw fish attacking a bait ball. As we got closer we couldn’t work out what they were. My first thought was giant herring, as these feed with lightning-fast lateral attacks, but when we got close we were astonished to see eagle rays attacking the bait. They ripped through the densely packed sardines at incredible speed, with rooster-tails of spray coming off their wing tips. Then they returned to feed at leisure on the damaged bait falling below.

It’s not only pelagics that take advantage. Over a deeper reef system with baitfish schools hanging above it, the resident demersal species feed on dead and damaged baitfish falling from the carnage above. My largest giant herring came from sinking a fly dead under a school of baitfish that appeared to be completely un- molested. The herring was probably full, but the Monsieur Creosote factor of ‘one morsel more’ played its part. The fish didn’t have to do anything. There was no effort required.

Now consider the ‘immobility’ or ‘freezing’ response. This occurs right through the animal kingdom, and is different from that of a damaged baitfish. It’s either a surrender to the inevitable — that flight is just no longer possible, perhaps through exhaustion — or an attempt to hide. Long time permit guide Steve Huff told me he loves to present his crab fly to look like it’s heading for the shelter of the substrate. He wants the fish to see that falling crab, not to come across it already down there.

SELF CONTROL

Regardless of target species and prey behaviour, the stop requires self-control and patience. Even the fastest fish in the ocean will accept the option of an easy feed and would prefer not to use energy to run down their prey. It’s quite something to see a fish following a retrieved fly it could very easily run down, but not looking like it will eat, and then inhaling the fly when you stop the retrieve.

A drag-free dead drift is essential in much trout fishing. If a fly moves unnaturally there’s a high probability it won’t be eaten. For other species it’s more about making it easy for the fish, rather than trying to allay suspicions, although we can also capitalise on their naturally inquisitive nature.

We could never move a fly too fast for any of the mackerel species, and although they are usually turned on by speed, much of their feeding is done on scraps of damaged and dying baitfish. Mackerel feeding tactics usually involve a blindingly fast attack with slashing teeth, followed by a leisurely return to pick up the pieces. They are the classic predator using this hunting method.

In south-east Queensland and northern NSW spotted mackerel turn up in early summer and migrate south into autumn. At the top end of Hervey Bay they feed on the bait balls off Platypus Bay for several months. Provided the pro fishermen aren’t ring-netting them, or harassing the schools, you can sight cast to them for hours through the day. This gives you a great opportunity to observe them feeding. A pack of mackerel can have their own bait-ball and graze on it until either they’re disturbed, or it’s all eaten. If you can move quietly with it they’ll just continue to feed, at first in a frenzy. Once this settles down they’ll just follow the remaining bait, keeping it balled up and on the surface, and picking away at it with high-speed attacks.

On a bright day with full sun overhead, these sharp-eyed fish will rarely react to a stripped fly no matter how exact a copy it is, or how fast you move it. But throw a good imitation among the bait on an intermediate line, let it sink naturally, and provided you aren’t using a wire bite tippet, they’ll pick it up time after time. The line just comes tight. It’s important to use a hard fluorocarbon bite tippet of around 30–40 lb; you will lose flies but you will also catch fish. On one trip when fishing for mackerel with Steve Gresham, with a bit of luck we could catch half a dozen on one fly before it was eventually bitten off. But it was just as easy to lose half a dozen flies in a row, without even feeling the bite.

STRIP TEASE

Golden trevally are not usually particularly fussy. I love their lack of guile, especially as a relief from permit fishing, and we are indeed fortunate to have such a willing and cooperative large fish patrolling our shallows and flats. Often it’s a case of get the fly in front of them, move it, and they’ll eat it. But not always: even goldies can have their moods, such as following close behind a retrieved fly and never looking like opening their mouth. If this happens, before they see the boat and spook, stop the fly dead and they’ll often swim into it, open their mouths and eat it. It always feels like a great victory.

Moving the fly is something we most often use to attract a fish’s attention, and once that’s happened the angler is tempted to keep the fly moving. This is often a mistake. Perhaps the most notorious and enigmatic of the ‘moved fly, dead fly’ dance are blue bastards. It’s how they earned their name. The difference between a blue bastard and a permit is only a matter of time: the torment from a non-eating permit can be over in a split second, but a blue bastard can have you in agony for minutes. Craig Radford and I spent 15 minutes on one fish that just refused either to spook or to eat, and we tried everything we knew. A good name for a fly would be ‘the kitchen sink’ because that was about the only thing we didn’t throw at it.

The standard procedure is to have these fish either arrive on the scene as the fly hits the bottom, or attract them to it by a subtle movement that they detect almost incidentally. Blue bastards just love a bit of subtlety. They are the most subtle fish I know. Once they’re onto the fly the ‘strip-tease’ begins and it’s a series of short strips that induce a follow, then a stop that we hope induces a bite. BBs can hover on a stopped fly for a time that surely redefines Thomas McGuane’s ‘Longest Silence’, which he defines as the time it takes for a fly to reach the bottom in front of a cruising permit.

With all due respect, Mr McGuane has not fished for blue bastards — by comparison, permit take a nanosecond. Blue bastards go head down and tail up, then swim off. Move the fly and they come right back at it again. Keep it moving and they spook from it. Stop it again and they’ll just look at it. Maybe they’re just really dumb, but sometimes the controlled stop gets too much for them and they finally pick the fly up. It’s a great moment.

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive stop of all is the presentation to a teased billfish. These are among the fastest fish in the ocean and a billfish’s beak is solid bone. The corner of the mouth is just about the only place a hook can find a purchase. They also often use that bill to club and damage baitfish, returning to pick up the wounded and dying at leisure, and they treat teasers the same way.

The first time I fished for billfish we were exhorted by the skipper and the deckie to “STRIP, STRIP, STRIP!” in the belief that once the boat lost way after it had gone into neutral the fish lost interest. But the problem was actually quite different. If the fly kept moving the fish kept clubbing, not eating, and that meant you never got a hook-up because the hooks were hitting solid bone. Get the fly into the water and leave it to sink dead and the fish will just eat it without any poking around, hopefully with a side-on take at full speed that pulls the hooks back into the corner of its mouth.

STAY ALERT

Saratoga are yet another species that just love a dead sinking fly, especially one incorporating materials with plenty of inherent movement as it sinks. Throw a fly into good saratoga holding-cover and it will probably be eaten on the drop. Staying in touch with the fly and watching the end of the line as it sinks is critical. But if you don’t get a take on that first drop and you do start a retrieve, put plenty of pauses in there. A great retrieve that’s full of stops and starts is going to have the best of both tactics: movement to attract, and sinking to induce the bite.

Barramundi can also be moody. Sometimes they smack a fly with a flashing strike more like an angry pelagic fish. At other times they’ll have that fly in and out so fast you might feel only a slight bump if you aren’t watching, and even if you have visual contact with the fly, the hit will be over before you can react. However, they react very well to a pause. In fact I consider it to be an essential part of a retrieve for barras, but you really want to be ready with your strip-strike. Many times I’ve paused for a look around, only to have line ripped through my fingers. Stay alert for the take.

SHY TYPES

Some fish — bream and bass particularly come to mind — can be pretty much terrified of a moving fly. Seeking photos on a small mountain stream filled with big bass, I tossed a couple of big live grasshoppers onto the water. Immediately there were bass under them, all trembling and agitated, but they would not eat the kicking insects. Disappointed, I sat back to watch. Ten minutes later, when the hoppers had stopped their kicking, they were smashed off the top. But the fish had lined them up from down deep and you didn’t know when they were coming.

Bream can also be very shy of a moving fly, especially a surface fly. Like bass they can be highly-strung nervous creatures that would rather not go anywhere near something that’s actually kicking or blooping. I recently had a great session on some surface-feeding bream in shallow water — tough to see and as spooky as a Western Lakes brown with long casts demanded. They came at a popper hard and slashed and chopped at it, but this produced no hook-ups, so after a couple of these hits I’d stop the fly and this was inevitably followed by a solid bite. It was great fishing.

In the same water, in a deep hole in the middle of the day, I extracted some big bream on a dead sinking fly. Nothing happened on the retrieve. I like a floating line and a long leader for this fishing because the floating line brings the fly back to the surface, then you let it sink again and repeat. But it’s the sink that matters most: that’s where you get the bites.

FIRST CHOICE

You would think that a warp factor 5 retrieve for big queenfish would be an essential, especially on the flats. When the water is cooler in winter I’ve found a fast-moved fly will get their attention. They’ll follow it all the way to the boat before they spook. But once you have their attention it’s the stopped fly that gets the bite, especially a neutral buoyancy fly that is a good imitation with little flash and fished on an intermediate line.

The stop or pause in a retrieve should not be some sort of special thing you do from time to time. I can think of very few applications where the fly needs to be in constant lateral motion. My first-choice retrieve is either none at all, or something with plenty of stops, or something with a judicious stop placed in among all that movement.