I have been thinking a lot about this over the last few days (you know if you are obsessed if you think about fishing multiple times throughout the day - sorry I can't help it)
Anyway, when I was younger and fished only with dry's, we never hit the river until around 10:00. We knew that the best time to fish was from 10:00 - 2:00 and then just right before dark.
As I have switched from dry's to nymphing, I have taken that same philosophy with me (fish from 10:00 - 2:00).
The problem with that is, if you are fishing a popular river, if you wait until that late there might be someone in your favorite spot and 3 other people might have fished it before that.
So, do you wait until the right time or do you ensure that you get your favorite spot by getting there early?
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Neither. You certainly don't get there early to "sit" on "your spot" until you're ready to fish it, thereby "guarding" it so others can't. If it bothers you to wait until the "right" time, and by then there's already someone in your favorite spot and its been hit be three others--go to another spot. That "spot guarding" business is practiced on certain stretches of certain rivers from time to time, and it stinks. Either fish, or get the heck out of the way. (Heck is ok to say here, right?[laugh])
If I'm sitting on the bank, waiting for a hatch, for example, I actually INVITE any passing angler to fish the water I'm watching if they so desire. I wave them right in. If I'm not casting or watching something going on (a riser), and someone else wants to fish that water, they have every right.
If the whole issue is bothersome, and you want to be the FIRST person every day to fish the spot you are fishing at 10 am, I'd find another river, or another section. Then you can start anytime you want. Or, float, and launch early. Just keep on floating until 10:00, and by then you should still be the first boat in line, and whatever hole you come to at 10 am, you will be the first.
That's what I do. No since racing or guarding spots though. That's not why we fish, is it???
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i do this on one day and one river only.... it would be on a saturday, on the middle provo simply because there are 3 very nice holes i love to fish right in a row from each other below the midway bridge. so ill show up at o'dark thirty to be the first to fish them and then move on simply because once someone else gets there they will sit on that hole for the rest of the day and not move an inch.
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That's kind of why I brought it up. When I do fish the Weber, I usually fish on Friday's. Anyway, there was this hole that I was guaranteed to catch a fish. Last year every time that I went the same guy has been in that hole and he does the same thing; sits there for the rest of the day. I have left the hole for hours and have come back and he was still there. Maybe I will have to try getting there early one of these times just to try it out.
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