Prospecting is a strategy for covering water. It’s about pace. A lot of what we do, day to day on the water, is searching. We’re looking for activity. We’re trying to find feeding fish.

Sometimes we’re looking to find the fish themselves, and other times, we know the trout are there, but they won’t eat, so we’re faced with the choice to change tactics or change flies . . . or we can move on and look for the next opportunity.

All of that can fairly be called prospecting. But for this discussion, we want to think about how covering water and looking for the players — for the hungry ones, is a unique strategy. It’s a lot different than settling in over risers or even working a hundred yards of some pocket water with nymphs.

The truth is, we’re searching for something on every cast, no matter what our approach is. But what we call prospecting is a bit different. It’s about canvassing an area, casting a wider net, searching for that next fish and then the next one. Then we take that data about where and how trout are feeding, and we use it to inform our next decision.

Often we might dedicate a whole day to prospecting. And on other days, it’s a prospecting approach that helps us dial in the rhythms of trout. So we’d like to find where trout are feeding and what they’re feeding on most. Then we might sort of change gears to a more targeted approach and do the opposite of prospecting.

Resources

PODCAST: Troutbitten | Cover Water, Catch Trout
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Cherry Picking or Full Coverage

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