Beginner Fly Fishing: A Conveyor Belt of Food-Why Fish Love Foam Lines

Basic fly fishing instruction tells you to look for and fish the seams, where slow water and faster water come together. In the beginning, this isn't always as easy as it sounds to untrained eyes.

Foam Lines Are Your Friend

Another way to recognize a seam, and one that is easy to see, is foam lines. A foam line is a strip of frothy-looking water that resembles soap suds. Foam will gather along seams and carry flying insects, crawling insects, and organic matter that fish will eat. Fish know this and tend to feed the foam lines.

Don't Skip the Eddies

An eddy is another facet of moving water that can gather concentrations of foam. Whenever I come across an eddy with a build up of frothy water, I'll fish it with a bead-headed wooly bugger, and this often leads to hook-ups. I use a weighted wooly bugger because the foam that concentrates in eddies is usually too thick for a dry fly or most nymphs to penetrate. A bead-headed wooly bugger will drop through the foam to a fish looking for a little morsel to chomp on.

A Conveyor Belt of Fish Food.

I've guided anglers reluctant to fish foam lines because they thought it was pollution and found it unappealing. In some cases, the foam buildup is caused by pollution, but most of the time, it's not. If you know you are fishing a clean river, the froth is a buildup of dissolved organic matter that becomes agitated. From underneath, to the fish, it looks like a conveyor belt of food mixed in with debris.

Follow the Bubbles

I once guided on a river that was full of grayling. It was a full day float, and for better part of the day we threw dry flies, nymphs, streamers, and wooly buggers. We couldn't buy a bite. Once we got to the lower part of the river, we started noticing foam lines near the bank. The water was warmer and had more organic matter. Our first cast to the foam line, and we hooked up. Further down the river, we could see fish splashing only where the bubbles were. Lesson learned.

Carp Diem

Never rush past a foam line if you are fishing warm water creeks and rivers for carp. The foam is full of edible organic "stuff" that carp love, and they will come up to feed off the surface as it drifts by.

Fish Stew

Think of the foam line as a soup or stew of organic matter floating down the river. Part of its makeup will be insects and fish know this. A dry fly on top, a nymph or streamer below, has a good chance of enticing a bite. KB

"The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.” - Herbert Hoover