Top 5 Low Water Scouting Secrets

Top 5 Low Water Scouting Secrets

How to Make Bad Conditions Pay Off 

The two sayings “there is no bad day of fishing” or “they call it fishing not catching” are two sayings as a guide that I hate. I have been known to give my good clients the gears when they utter one of these statements.  
 
Why? It is not that I disagree with the sentiment. Quite the opposite.  In the article below, I lay out how to make sure there is no “bad day” on the water. It is just that I have seen too many anglers proudly announce one of the above statements and then zone out and give up. They resign themselves to the bad conditions or the lack of fish and don’t utilize the time they have out on the water effectively.  
 
What we do when we are not “catching” really separates average anglers from great anglers.  
 
When we look at this week’s report, the conditions are not good. We are seeing the lowest water levels of the season, and they are close to the lowest I have seen them in the last 5 years. Don’t worry. That is normal for this time of year. It will change and there are things we can do on the water right now to actually catch more fish when the conditions get good again.  

Use the clear water to learn to see fish. It’s a skill that needs practice. There are 3 bulltrout hiding under this log.

Tip 1 – Go Sight Scouting/Fishing  

Do not spend all your time pounding your favorite run or pool. Hit all your favorite pieces of water. Hit them fast and with a mission. The mission is not to catch a fish. The mission is to learn the water. Spend the majority of your time mapping out the structure, depths and holding spots. In clear conditions you will see everything. Things you can use later when the conditions improve. Note: I recommend taking some notes. The river may look totally different when we get good conditions but those structure points you see in the low water will still be there, but you will not remember it all. Take a second and jot the reference points down on your phone or in a note pad.  
 
The side benefit from this is if you cover water and really focus on “looking” at the bottom of the river, it is very common you will see fish. When you know the conditions are at the extreme end of the clear spectrum you can learn more and you will be surprised that you might actually hook more fish by spending more time moving and looking than you would just pounding water.   
Crawl through that log jam, bushwack that thicket, cross that channel and see what’s on the other side.

Tip 2 – One More Corner 

After you have scouted your favorite pieces of water fast use the extra time to “go around the next corner”. What do I mean by this? Push father “around the next corner” from where you have explored in the past. I build “circuits” where I can hit multiple spots in a loop on the river. On bad condition days, push the circuit farther. You never know. There might be an A+ piece of water just around that bend, over that log jam, across that channel. In the low clear water, access is usually easier, and you can get a clear picture of what the run looks like under the water. You might not catch a fish on the day you find the “new” spot but having it in your back pocket for the next trip when conditions improve could pay off big time.   

Tip 3 – You Starve in the Desert 

In a standard walking speed river, if the middle of the run has a sandy bottom, it is the kiss of death. Fish rarely hold on sandy bottoms, in walking speed water, because there is no broken water for them to hang out in. I won’t go into details here about the hydrology but if your “spot”, in normal conditions, is a classic walking speed run, you can use the clear water to identify where in the run there are patches of sand (deserts) and nice patches of head sized boulders. Mark them with references on shore. When you come back in higher water conditions, when you can no longer see the bottom, you can skip over these spots or at least fish them faster as to not waist time.   
 
There are entire runs on the Squamish that have sand bottoms, and you might not know it. I have wasted many hours fishing them, wondering “why do we never catch fish here?” On these cold clear days, I scout and find out why. It is usually because of sand, strange structure or irregular currents that you can see in the low conditions.   

Tip 4 – Don’t Be an Eggs Squasher  

This is more of a conservation issue when covering ground and especially important in low water in the winter/early spring. Think about where the salmon spawned in the Fall. In these low conditions, you will have walking access to more areas where salmon might have laid eggs. Try to avoid walking on any water covered with gravel, especially in side channels, even if there is only a trickle of water over the gravel. Remember two months ago there could have been a foot or two of water on the same gravel and a bunch of salmon eggs could be hiding just under the gravel. They can survive in even damp gravel, but they can’t survive a boot stomp. Note: Sand is very poor spawning habitat. Be careful of soft sand for walking but hard sand is a great thing to walk on and know you are not squashing salmon eggs.   

Tip 5 - When Mother Nature is Mean Don’t Go Home  

Get in the Truck and Go Exploring + A Secret Weapon  
Learning a river system is key. Having multiple access points that you know and can use depending on the conditions is worth its weight in gold.  
 
On days when the conditions are poor, I spend a lot of time in the truck finding access points. I am not going to give away any spots, but I am going to talk about a secret weapon I use to E - scout these access points. 
 
I know there are online services and online land ownership maps you can buy but, in my experience, they are a little complicated and not all that user friendly. My hunting friends put me on to a couple of hunting apps that have done the leg work to overlay all the land use types and combined the mapping information with 3D satellite maps that you can use in the car or when hiking. You can download the data so you can use it out of cell range and with it I have found countless “secret” access points not to mention I can find the private land boundaries to I know I am not breaking Trespassing Laws.  
 
The apps are mostly free and the public land map overlays cost a few dollars a month. I am using I Hunter right now. I just looked at my subscription. It is $14.99 a year for the most detailed land use maps for the entire province of BC. So, for the price of a gas station snack and coffee you can avoid trespassing and find great access points.  
 
I hope this gives you a strategy and mentality to enjoy those tough condition days.  Great fisherman don’t let bad conditions stop them. They put boots to the ground and make the time on the water count.  
 
Good luck on your next scouting mission!  

Matt