Hi, Group,
I just finished reading an article on, "directed mending", by Jason Borger......p.4, Sept. (current issue) of, FLY FISH AMERICA.
This is worth reading, particularly for additional information on handling separate current tongues in rivers and streams.....or fishing pocket water.
Basically, it goes a couple of steps beyond simply making upstream in-the-air or on-the-water mends, in that these are on-the-water mends specifically directed at tongues of current. Jason has a very good description of just how to do this easily. Some differences between this technique and ordinary on-the-water mends include:- 1.) Raising the rod tip way up, then dropping the created slack into the water. 2.) Flicking the rod tip upstream into the tongue of current.
The problem with this method is that while it works fine as he shows it, unless some other moves are made, it's only good for directing these mends close to the rod tip.
I have added an addition to this technique in order to make a "directed mend" well out beyond the rod tip. That is to make a small forward stroke with just enough power to direct a loop of slack out toward your fly, then time the directed mend as you shoot a bit of line. The sooner and the lower you do it, the closer the mend to you. The later and higher that you do it, the farther it is away from you.
This only works (for me) if I've already got a mend out there into a more distant current.....otherwise, as I make this second, "directed mend" I usually spoil the drag free drift already achieved. This can be minimized by another move in which you, "pop" a couple of waves of line out toward the fly before going through all this
In the salt, I get to use this once in a while fishing the current tongues next to a highway bridge for small tarpon early in the morning with tiny poppers. If you move the popper, you get no strike. A drag free drift, however, will often get a nice take. Problem is that the bridge pilings yield several tongues of current of differing speeds, so your little popper very quickly gets pulled out of its drift unless you do something like this.
Gordy