Backing & the Arbor Knot

Adding backing to your reel before loading the fly line serves several purposes. The obvious reason to add backing is so that if you hook that big one you’ve been hoping to catch and it takes out a lot of line, the leader won’t break when you hit the end of the 90 feet of fly line.

Usually the backing will be 100 or 250 yards of 20 or 30 pound braided Dacron. Since the backing is wound tightly on the smaller portion of the reel the backing needs to be something that won’t retain memory. The backing will most likely stay wound on the reel for several years without ever being straightened. If you used monofilament you would find that as the line came off the reel, after being tightly wound so long, that it would come off in tight coils and most likely tangle if not careful.

You don’t want this to happen when you're fighting a fish big enough to take you into your backing. The backing also needs to not retain water, otherwise mold would grow. The backing also serves to take up space on the center portion of the reel so that the actual fly line is not coiled so tightly. The fly line being wound on the outside portion of the reel allows more line to be reeled in on each turn.

The Arbor Knot is a simple knot for attaching the backing to the reel. It is formed by bringing the backing around the the arbor, tying an overhand knot around the line leading to the arbor, then tying another overhand knot at the very end of the line.

Warm Weather in November

 Paul called and said the weather was too nice to resist riding his Harley up to the Weber River. I met him on the river after work. The water was still a little murky. I started off using some caddis nymphs fishing my way downstream. I caught a medium size white fish and hooked another brown that got off as he jumped. There were small Baetis mayflies (blue-winged olives) coming off the water so I switched to two different styles of mayfly nymphs. I headed back upstream to catch up with Paul. On the way I managed to catch a large white fish. It uncharacteristically sat still on the bank while I took the hook out of its mouth and it let me take a couple of pictures. After Paul came over and took a look at the fish I gently nudged it with my foot and it swam back into the flow of water.

I kept fishing upstream and caught a nice brown that jumped five times during the fight. It ended up being about 15 inches long. I got a throat sample of what it had been eating, small black Baetis nymphs – just like the nymph imitations I was using.

By this time the sun had slipped behind the mountains. Paul was going to head back before it got too cold so he could enjoy the motorcycle ride home. I switched fly rods and began fishing with streamers. I had about an hour to fish before it got dark. I fished upstream starting with a green streamer, the Dungeon again. After 20 minutes I switched to a grey rabbit strip streamer. After another 20 minutes I switched to a black one. In the course of the hour I only hooked one small brown that threw the hook on its first jump.

One Brown On A Streamer

The fall is my favorite time of year for fishing. The browns get feisty right before the spawn. For this reason I decided to give streamer fishing a try last week. The Weber water level was average for this time of year. In mid October the water level dropped from about 180 cfs to about 70cfs. This drop usually happens in mid September. It seems this year things are running a little later than usual.

Within the first 20 minutes I caught one nice 16 or 17 inch brown. I was excited that this would be a good evening. After not getting another strike for 20 minutes, I switched streamers. The first one I was using was green rubber leg streamer. I switched to a yellow one, still no strikes. I kept switching streamers every half hour. I had no more strikes the rest of the evening until the last few minutes. I switched to a green Dungeon and finally hooked one. The fish started swimming upstream toward me. As I stripped the line in, it got off. Checking the hook, there was a scale on it. I must have foul-hooked a big white fish. At least that added some excitement. By this time it was 6:40 and starting to get dark. I was a long way downstream by this point and needed to hurry if I was to get back to the truck by dark.

The Beaverhead Day 3

 On day three Jon and I headed back to the stretch above High Bridge where we had fished the day before. It was cold rigging up the rods in the morning before the sun hit the river. Using a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear and a Pheasant Tail Nymph as a dropper we tried coaxing the huge rainbows to hit. It seemed like they weren’t even there.

There were some bare gravel spots that the brown trout had prepared for spawning that we used as markers on where to fish. We couldn’t figure out why they weren’t biting like the day before. Again we caught a couple of smaller 15 to 16 inchers but none of the 19 to 20 inchers we were hoping for. At about 11:00 we decided to head to the Henneberry Walk-in Access stretch that we enjoyed so much the day before.

Crossing a short channel and heading around the bend there was a riffle that dumped into a big pool. I cast a red midge nymph into the shallow riffles and let it drift into the deeper pool. Immediately a small brown hit and I reeled him in. I thought this was pretty good for the first cast. I tried again and another brown hit.

This was an excellent start for this section of river. I fished my way upstream to where the river started to braid. At another curve in the river the water was shallow and riffled and dumped into a deep pool similar to the one I previously described.

A large brown, it had to have been over 20 inches long, jumped right at the seam of shallow and deep water. It was brightly colored with its spawning golden hue. I must have fished this hole for a half an hour trying to catch this fish. I ended up catching seven fish from this hole but none the size of the one that jumped.

I continued moving upstream to the next hole but didn’t have any strikes. By now it was getting to be about 1:15 and I needed to head back. On the way back I fished the stretch where I had the hard strike on a streamer the previous day.

Wham-O, I hooked a big one. It jumped and threw the hook. This was a good note on which to end the trip.

I caught back up with Jon and we headed back to the truck and then began the long drive home.