5 Must-Know Tips for Landing Trophy Brown Trout
With: pakito_flyfishing
If there’s one thing I love, it’s swapping fish stories with anglers who live and breathe the sport. This time, we caught up with Pakito, a seasoned fly fisher from northern Spain who’s spent decades chasing big, selective brown trout. From his early days learning the ropes with dry flies to mastering European nymphing, Pakito has dialed in a system that consistently puts trophy fish in the net. He shared his top tips, his go-to strategies, and a few hard-earned lessons for anyone looking to hook into the brown trout of a lifetime.
Pakito, what got you into fly fishing, and when did you start chasing brown trout specifically?
Thanks to the location where I live in northern Spain, in the community of Castilla y León, without having to travel long distances, we have countless rivers of all kinds. I have been fishing since I was a child, and I shared my fishing days with my father, who instilled in me this great passion. In those years, I fished for brown trout using different lures. It wasn't until 1997 that I bought my first fly fishing gear; a friend of mine was already practicing this type of fishing, and thanks to them, my curiosity was sparked, leading me to acquire my first fly fishing equipment.
The beginnings were not easy; there was very little information and few shops that could advise me. However, little by little, my fly fishing outings began to yield their first catches. In those early years, my fishing was exclusively focused on dry fly fishing. Over time, I started to fish with nymphs at certain times of the day. Those moments of nymph fishing began to produce their first catches, even though I didn't quite understand the technique I needed to develop. Also, in those early years, I became curious about tying my first flies, and I started buying my first materials to tie my first imitations.
Years later, around 2006, thanks to a friend who was already practicing it, I began to fish with nymphs in the European style. This type of fishing was fantastic for those moments of the day when there was no surface activity from the trout.
What are your 5 best tips for anglers looking to catch their first trophy brown trout?
In these lines, I will try to give some advice on how to catch trophy brown trout, as we like to call them. First, as is obvious, it is essential to fish in rivers or sections of rivers where we know this type of trout resides. Have patience and spend a lot of time observing the waters, and do not fall into despair and frustration when the catches do not come. We know that this type of trout is not easy to catch, and we can become desperate for various reasons, one of which is tippet breakage.
Use a tippet appropriate to the size of the trout that inhabit the river areas we are fishing; we should not obsess over using tippets that are too thin. Another very important aspect in certain fishing scenarios is observation—walking along the banks in search of trout feeding on the surface.
Being able to practice different fishing techniques in a single day is crucial; trout do not always feed on the surface, and we will need to employ other techniques such as nymph fishing, streamers, or tandem fishing (fly-nymph).
Little by little, as we progress through different fishing outings, we will see results, and I can assure you from my own experience that fishing days will be completely different, and you will always be thinking about catching a trophy trout larger than the previous ones.
The rod is also important based on my experience; more specifically, the type of action of the rod can be decisive in whether or not you land that dream trout. Generally, I do not use very thin tippets, so I prefer a fast or medium-fast action rod depending on the fishing scenarios.
Big browns are known for being smart and selective—what’s your go-to strategy for fooling them?
There is no miracle strategy for catching trophy brown trout, but there are attitudes of the angler that can help. The most important thing is to be patient and have faith in every moment we spend on the river. We know that the most challenging part is not tricking that trout with our fly; the real battle begins after that moment, and every movement we make in the river to try to touch it will be decisive.
We must sense what the trout are eating at every moment we are in the river, from the nymph stage to when the flies drift on the surface. In sections of the river that we frequent, we can know where these types of trout reside, and in river sections that we fish infrequently or have never fished before, we will need to read the waters carefully. The most important things are perseverance and patience; with more or less time, our catches of trophy brown trout will not be long in coming.
If you want to know more about me, you can visit my Instagram account @pakito_flyfishing.
Before I finish these lines, I would like to express my gratitude to Hatch Outdoors for the trust they place in me, and of course to Fly Life Media for giving me the opportunity to write these lines.
