One warm, mid-May morning, some friends and I rented a raft to fish our home tailwater. We’d never floated the river before; usually we spent our days wading the winding river’s public stretches. So, we decided to pool enough money to rent one for a day.
Rafting meant we could hit the holes we’d never seen before, ones flanked on either side by private land and miles out of reach to anyone without a guide or friend in the right place.
The river ran high that year, and fast, and we were blowing past promising stretches. In one particularly good-looking one, we back-rowed to swing through again. And that’s when we heard it, a voice from a guide screaming at us from 20 yards away to never back row a run.
It was jarring to be yelled at on a river by a stranger, and it became my first introduction to one of the many unwritten rules of fly fishing, some based on biology, some on ethics, some on culture and more than a few based on nothing more than an individual’s opinion and mood at the time.
In the last 15 years since that day, I’ve heard most of those rules related to trout fishing, and especially trout fishing in the West. I’ve also learned that having polite conversations can sometimes change attitudes, using scientific studies can help even more, and just like in the rest of life, screaming opinions across bodies of land or water will rarely achieve the desired effect.
But the fact is, as more people become interested in fly fishing, the guiding industry continues to grow, and the grip and grin of the social media post becomes ubiquitous with the sport itself, biologists, anglers and others concerned about the health of our streams and rivers and the viability of our passion’s future have been offering their own set of rules—guidelines, really.
A list I’ve compiled over hundreds of interviews with fisheries biologists from New York to Nevada are less an admonishment about rowing twice through a run and more gentle reminders from people who’ve spent their lives studying how we can all contribute to a fishery’s sustainable future.
Some of these guidelines may sound familiar. Others might surprise you. They’re all worth thinking about. Because ultimately these rivers, streams and lakes we fish are our collective responsibility. While many of the threats they face, from climate change and pollution to invasive species and dams, feel weighty and out of our control, we as an angling community also impact our fish and waters, and that is something we can change.
Capture more than the fish
We’ve probably seen this recommendation before, and yet one scroll through any anglers’ Instagram account—mine included—will offer more than one picture of some trout, bass or other fish gripped between our hands for the camera.
According to most biologists, if you didn’t play the fish for too long, water temperatures aren’t too hot, and it’s only briefly out of the water, that grip and grin is probably fine. Take off any gloves you’re wearing, get your hands wet, and don’t squeeze the fish too hard.
Not only could a fish picture be safe for the fish, that image could also be what connects people with what lives in the waters that many blithely ignore. Pictures help people see what swims beneath and may help them understand why those waters are important to help protect.
But let’s not pretend grip and grins don’t take their toll. Fish are meant to be wet. So, the next time you’re fishing, consider taking pictures of only one or two, the most remarkable ones or the ones with the best memories for you. Do a quick release on the rest.
And then when you share those pictures, include scenes from the rest of your trip. Maybe it’s the chaos of the back of your truck, a bald eagle perched on a tree near the bank, or a particularly stunning flower.
Fishing is about more than just the fish, and we should show people that, too.
Leave the rodeo to the cowboys
There’s often little more thrilling than hearing a reel scream a round of ZZZZZs as line rips down a river with a trout at the end. And it’s tempting to let that trout run before you reel in as fast as you can, then run again. But do that too long, and you’re no longer catching fish but playing with them.
And playing fish, especially on hot days, can take an exceptionally large toll.
So, consider using a heavier tippet, even if you worry it might be a touch more visible. Then focus less on chasing the fish downstream like a whitewater rodeo and instead land it as soon as you can.
Chances are, you’ll still have a heck of a fight, and done right, both of you will live for another round.
Think about your tackle
Increasing numbers of rivers across North American require anglers to pinch their barbs and reduce the number of flies. But not everywhere.
Even if it’s not a regulation, consider pinching your barbs anyway. Yes, a barbed hook does stay in a fish’s mouth better, but leaving the barb means the fish is being handled more, out of the water longer, and also, leads to tearing skin and flesh.
Multiple hooks on lines also lead to increasing odds that a fish could be snagged somewhere you don’t mean to, like a soft belly, fin or even an eye.
I’ve met plenty of purist anglers who only fish the smallest, single dry fly hooks with pinched barbs, and I’m not suggesting we should be those purists. If you’re fishing with your kid or someone who is new, and you want to use a slightly bigger hook or a couple flies (where allowed) you can, but especially after you’ve caught one or two, think about ways to challenge yourself or make fishing just a little harder.
Also expand your tackle kit to include a thermometer. It may sound strange, but in late summer, when runoff has long since ended and water heats up, you may want to take that river’s temperature. Water temperature in the upper 60s can be taxing and above 77 degrees Fahrenheit can be deadly to trout. Added stress from catch and release angling only increases the odds of dying.
A thermometer can tell you if you’re in that window or not, and let you know if you should go ahead and fish or head somewhere else for the day.
Keep some fish
It may sound counterintuitive in a fly-fishing culture built on catch and release, but sometimes the best way to conserve fish is to keep a few.
Take brook trout in Wyoming’s high mountain streams. The nonnative species has flourished with little competition from any other fish, and their tiny bodies—flaked with glints of gold and fin stripe of white—will voraciously strike at anything that touches the water’s surface. But the problem with their desire to eat anything and love of cold, clean water, is they begin to eat themselves out of house and home.
For years, I’ve listened as fisheries biologists ask people to think about those limits of six or even 10 and keep a few to fry for lunch or dinner.
One reservoir that straddles Wyoming and Utah like a massive bathtub has so many lake trout, the region’s biologist has been pleading with anglers to keep some, or even more than some. The limit currently sits at 12.
Lucky for us, little beats a lunch or dinner of fresh fish. The smaller ones you can simply gut, clean, salt and pepper before frying with the skin on and bones in.
It’s a delight to the angler and nonangler and another good way to connect people with fish and water.
Get involved
Sometimes being a responsible angler means something more than doing the right thing on the banks of a river or while floating a riffle. Sometimes it means giving back.
That could be joining your local fly-fishing group. But also consider registering for one of your state’s naturalist programs to learn more about your region’s plants and animals, the aquatic ones and terrestrial ones. Join river cleanups and invasive species removal days.
Then consider documenting those plants and animals you see and uploading them to databases like iNaturalist. Researchers from across the globe use information collected from people like us to understand more about what’s going on in our natural systems.
It may seem hard to imagine how uploading one image of a flower, mussel, fish or bird into a database of tens of millions of images makes a difference, but in many ways it’s like picking up a solitary piece of garbage. The sum of those small acts helps create sustainable conservation.