What a start to the season, Rain, Sun, Snow and of course floods. Across the entire East Coast we've seen some crazy weather. Most of us are booking in weekends to fish weeks or months in advance, then crossing fingers and toes the weather drys up and the rivers clean up.. but as we all know this rarely happens.

So how do you have save the weekend when Huey has dealt you a savage blow of poo brown water and flooded banks? You can still go fishing, you just need to mix it up a little and work smarter and harder.

In this article, we've come up with a few tips that have worked for us this season when hitting flooded, chocolate coloured rivers

HOW TO FLY FISH FLOODED RIVERS

FIND THE EDDIES & THE POCKETS ON THE SIDE

It's pretty likely that your usual spots are now flooded and holding bigger pools of water and most likely holding fish too. Fish will always seek cover in pockets on the side where they can easily hold without expending more energy than they need, so look for the new pockets of water that are now filled up.

HIT THE EDGES

Don't spend all your time trying to put lengthy casts right out to the middle. Fish your feet, right up the edges of the river. We've found that fish are moving into these muddy sections right up against the banks and more often than not, right at our feet.

We're not saying they won't be in the middle of the river, but more recently we're finding fish pooled up on the edges, you need to cover every bit of water, high and low, side to side.

HOW TO FISH IT?

Getting the fly in the water firstly, more casts, more searching, more runs means more fish. We've spent less time trying to put in huge lengthy casts and insteaed we're running our flys deep, changing the weight a few times to effeciently cover different depths and heights and we're putting in a lot more quick, short casts.

We love getting snagged.. at least a few times anyway. It let's us know we're hitting the bottom, from here we'll work our way up and down the water column sometimes Euro-nymphing depending on the run. 

Basically we're just trying to ensure we cover off every bit of water, just because you can't see the fish, doesn't mean they aren't there.

BIGGER, BRIGHT and BLACK

We're liking a few flys at the moment. We're finding bigger and heavier nymphs, Size 10 and 12, have been the go during these flooded water events. It helps to get them down deeper and make them more noticeable. You've got to remember there's a heap of talent coming down the river and a very short window for trout to decide to eat or not, we need ours to stand out!

Pink bead heads have always been a fall back for us, alternatively any darker/black nymphs with a flash we also seem to pull out regularly. Lastly and often frowned upon, we'll resort to the squirmy wormy.

If we're fishing streamers, we find Bigger and Blacker is what these fish want, sorry boys, it's the truth. Short sharp strips seems to get these fish out from under the banks and eating aggressively.  

STABILITY

Permanent structures like big trees, boulders, undercuts.. anything that won't be changing is what we're always targeting. The rivers change so much with flooding, and it's likely the flooding event will have removed those classic gravel beds that we know and love. So instead we look for areas where trout can hold comfortably.

NOT FEEDING, NO WORRIES

If trout aren't actively feeding, they'll look for bigger, deeper areas, perfect to strip a streamer through. We're finding this out lately that when we fish tight 'trouty' looking runs with no hits, then we'll get to the top of that run where it opens into a bigger pool where we'll run a streamer to often immediately get some action.

FLOODED FOOD, WHAT'S ON THE MENU?

During a flooded river, there's a lot of junk moving down flows, so often you'll see trout hitting the surface to eat a leaf or a twig, something we've noticed all too often and often quickly changed to a dry fly to then get absolutely no hits, so don't be fooled.

They're eating anything that can survive a flood, and as mentioned earlier, worms seem to be something they just can't resist, so always keep a squirmy wormy in your flybox!

See ya out there!