Learn Wading & Water Safety Tips When Fly Fishing

Video Transcript

Hi! I’m Jim Dowd at Zoar Outdoor for Expert Village to talk with you about fly casting and fly fishing. As in any sport, you need to be aware of safety issues with regard to fly fishing. One of the things you need to know about which we’ve already talked about is to make sure you are wearing a hat for protection and glasses. The other thing to bear in mind is that when you are wading in a moving river, you have issues that what you endanger you need to pay careful attention to. The first is foot entrapment. Foot entrapment is the easiest hazard to avoid, but it is also one that can kill you in an instant. Because what happens with foot entrapment is that you can get your foot stuck underneath an obstacle like a ledge such as this in heavy current, and if it knocks you down, the flow will put you on the bottom of the river and you can’t extricate yourself, so you are going to live only as long as you can hold your breath. The easiest way to avoid foot entrapment is to be very careful about where you put your feet, and as a general rule never wade above mid thigh. Another way to avoid that is to use a wading staff, which this happens to be one called a full staff. As you can see, this one has been used for a long time. This particular full staff is almost 30 years old, so they are really durable. A ski pole or a stick will serve you just fine. This way you’ve got a 3 point control system, so that if you do have to wade out to mid thigh, you take your time, place your staff down, get one anchor with one foot and then move the other. With the 3 point control system, 2 points are always solid, so you don’t move until you’ve got that solid position. Now I’m at mid knee depth, and I wouldn’t go out any further probably than just beyond that eddy line, because that looks like it is a little more than waist deep. Chest waders are fine. People wear those all the time, but I strongly encourage you not to go much more than mid thigh because otherwise you will be fishing where the trout are, standing where the trout are, and where you should be fishing. The other things to know about safety is if you do go in, get your feet pointed down stream and your toes up near the surface. That way you will avoid foot entrapment. Back stroke toward the shore; you can even use your fly rod to help move you. It provides you with an awful lot of leverage in the surface and it is almost like a paddle. So remember safety at all times.

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