Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

One thing you rarely see in a fly-fishing column is a story about not catching fish.

Just for once, I would love to see a fly-fishing magazine cover, with an angler holding up a bare rod or an empty net with the caption, “I spent $3,000 going to Montana an I didn’t catch a dang thing!”

Fly-fishing can be a tough avocation. Sometimes you don’t catch fish.

These are the types of days anglers rarely talk about.

When I was learning to fly-fish, getting skunked happened more often than not.

There were many days back then I had no clue what I was doing.

I still have those days.

Today was one of them.

On the South Fork of The Holston, the water was running high, a little milky, bank to bank.

Earlier this year, under these same conditions, I used a gold and silver tinsel Clouser, and rocked the rainbows using an upstream quarter cast, catching fish with a fast pop, pop, pop strip.

Because of the conditions, and because there were no Blue Quills, no Blue Winged Olives, no nothing, this tinsel streamer seemed like an obvious choice. Using this fly on the Jackson last summer, I saw its effectiveness as an attractor, catching both rainbows and browns.

This fly flashes like strobe in the water, so you know it will be seen by the fish.

Today, I am sure it was seen, but it yielded nothing.

Time for the orange ant. Tied on some Frog Hair 6x and lengthened my leader and tippet combo to 12 feet.

Had some nice drifts. Really worked the edges. Nothing

Next. A parachute BWO. Didn’t feel right. Snip.

Next. Big rubber leg woolly bugger. The old “go to” cheater fly that I learned with… ZERO. Back to a blank ant, with an orange post.

Snip. Fuchsia Salmon egg. Several good drifts in tail outs and riffle ends.

Nothing.

Tied on a Chartreuse Egg as a dropper to the Fuchsia Salmon Egg. That way, if it’s a color thing, I will play the odds. Nothing.

Looking at two eggs drifting & bobbing like candy, I realized this looked ridiculous, and the trout thought so too.

Time to call it a day.

Writing this, I remember Bruce Wankel telling me one time when a fellow guide called him during a fishless day on the Tailwaters, and asked Bruce, “what am I doing wrong?”

His reply, “Probably nothing. You are going to have some days like this.”

It is days like this that keep you coming back. Where I was fishing today, I knew there were hundreds of wild trout.

One this exact stretch of the Holston, there have been days when we have released double digit numbers of trout.

There have been days where we measure fish over 20 inches, but today wasn’t one of them.

There are a lot of factors that come into play with fly-fishing. They are: water conditions. the amount of entomological activity, the amount of bait fish activity, ambient temperatures, and the great mystery of barometric pressure.

And, it is safe to say trout never feed at the exact same time everyday.

It is also safe to say, if you think you can know exactly what to use every time you are fly fishing, you are kidding yourself.

The wonderful thing about this time of year, it gets easier everyday.

For the novice fly rodders, the concept is basic. Trout eat bugs and other fish to live.

As the temps warm, there is more of everything for trout to eat, and as the water temps rise with the outside temps, the trout are much more eager to expend energy to eat.

As spring becomes summer, there are a universe of what we call terrestrials dropping off leaves and riparian growth (leaves) into the water adding to the food source, which widens the choice of flies that are likely to yield fish.

But on the first week of April, the Holston runs cold and fast, and the fishing can be tough.

Fishing is a matter of numbers though. The more you fish, the more fish you are going to catch, and the more you fish, the more you have to accept that on some days it is not going to happen.

Last year, I went out on the Gulf with Captain Tom Stephens to fly-fish for Cobia.

We cruised north and south from Casey Key to Lido Key and back again rummaging for those big brown bruisers.

I started seeing mirages…. random brown floating weeds in the Gulf looked like surfacing Cobia, and after about six hours of hounding the Gulf we turned in.

These are the tougher days. No matter where you are, there is nothing like peeling off $400 for this privilege, and nobody feels good about a day like this. Even the guide takes it personally.

Salt or fresh water … loveless days can happen more than you care to think about.

And that brings up something that most fly-fisherman will not admit.

It takes a little luck.

We all need to admit that when we have one of those double-digit days too.