Ah, the ol' hand twist retrieve trick!

By Joel Anderson

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my favorite aspects of fly fishing is discovering a new fish catching trick to add to my bag. In some cases, this may equate to rediscovering an old technique that I haven't used in awhile.

I love fishing soft hackles, especially just before dark. If you haven't discovered this method of fishing, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Syvester Nemes' latest book on the subject and apply what you have learned. Anyway, while most fish are taken on the swing, many fish are hooked a slow retrieve at the end of a swing, with the fly is straight down stream from you. Sometimes allowing the fly to flutter back in the current before restarting a slow retieve works wonders.

One thing I've noticed through the years is that while salmon, browns, and rainbows can be downright stupid for this technique, I very rarely catch big brookies with this method. Last night that all changed for me.


Yesterday after catching several good salmon from a particular run using a conventional swing, I was slowly reeling in line to move to a different spot. I noticed a huge boil behind my fly. I continued reeling line and suddenly got a jolting strike from a big fish. Because my rod tip was pointed straight at the fly with no slack, the fish and size 14 fly immediately parted company with my 5X tippet.

Huh?! Was that a fluke or what? I replaced the fly and tried the same swing, repeating the slow steady retrieve using the reel. BANG! Another jolting strike. This time I had left a slight bow in the line from the rod tip to the water for a bit of slack, so the 5X tippet held true and several minutes later I released a football-shaped brook trout in the 3 pound range. I moved to another run and first cast using the slow steady retrieve produced a hard-fighting salmon in the 18" range. There were lots of caddis around yesterday, so perhaps I stumbled upon a good representation of an egg laying female. This is certainly nothing I invented; the old timers used to call it a hand twist retrieve. Man, did it work last night! Turns out, the ol' timers knew a lot about this game of fly fishing long before we reinvented it.

Family commitments forcednme off the water an hour early, but I'm sure I could have continued to catch fish right until dark using this technique. Add another one to the tool box!