1. Choice of equipment Rods, reels, fly lines, fly floatants, clothes, glasses and other useful items.

- It depends a little on what I am going to fish, the type of rivers, scenaries, fish etc ... I choose my equipment, generally for more or less large rivers and where I need to use somewhat longer casts and where I won´t use very fine tipets. I usually use rods of 9 or 9`9 feet of a line 4 or 5, usually of medium progressive actions, with lines of long and somewhat aggressive heads between 10 and 13 m that allow me to be able to make good shots with long leaders for when I can't get close to the fish and I have to fish them at a long distance.

If on the contrary I am going to fish smaller rivers or where I can simply get closer to the fish, I fish in rivers where I have to make a finer and a more delicate fishing with finer terminals, of the 6x. I like more to use softer rods of 9 feet or more and a line 3 with more sensitive pointers but with power in their lower sections, in case you have to fight bigger fish. This type of equipment allows you to protect the tipet against breakage and at the same time be able to pry on fish of a certain size. Finally, I also like the lines with shorter heads maximum 9 meters approx with profiles that allow me to work with very long leaders of two and a half rods or three rods long.

I always like reels of the large arbor type, with good brakes that you can adjust to the millimeter so that the line comes out progressively and without alterations during the fight with the fish.

I only use greasy floats for the bottom of the line, for flies I prefer to dry them or with a tissue, or with amadu or cellulose and then if you need apply drying powders, but never greasy floats for them, sometimes they leave an oily mark on the water and this is something I don't like.

I like to use waders with pockets to carry the boxes of flies that I will use that day, the spools of thread and thus be able to carry only what is necessary. If I have to use a fishing vest, I like them comfortable and short, so it can allow me to do deep wading if necessary and to not have much capacity so you don´t go crazy looking for things. So don´t overload them too much, this can be a problem for our back.

In the case of having to do more back country fishing, a good comfortable backpack with enough space, that allows me to carry a camel back seems to me like a great option for those fishing days where we will walk many kilometers throughout the day through all types of terrain and where due to variable climatic circumstances we need to bring some warm clothes, a raincoat, food, water, fishing reels, a spare rod and everything you need. In this case, capacity and functionality seems fundamental to me.

For me, a cap, if possible with a dark visor at the bottom and polarized glasses with crystals that give me a lot of light are essential to face all kinds of fishing days in lakes and reservoirs, too.

- 2 Leader material, build up, length and knots.

I like to use conical leaders of 12 or 15 feet finished in 3x to be able to supplement with different gauges and sections depending on the length and action of the leader that I need at certain moments. I usually carry different conical leaders and different nylon or fluorocarbon coils to be able to adjust to the different fishing situations that come my way.

The knots I use the most are: the perfect loop, to make small loops at the end of the leader, the surgeon's knot, to join lengths of thread, and the Duncan or Clinch, knot to tie the flies.

-3 Approach and stealth 

Before going fishing any river, lake or reservoir I like to observe everything that happens around it, sometimes spending half an hour looking around can give us the key on how to face certain positions, we can see a fish that we did not see before or an insect that suddenly flies by. There are a thousand of things around us that can show us many of the guidelines to follow that day, or at that time. 

Walking very slowly in or out of the water, making sets with as little noise as possible, facing the positions from the most suitable position, placing our fly as delicated as possible where we want and making them drift in the best way is always a guarantee of success.

- 4. Reading the water.

Analyze the different postures, currents, types of bottoms, submerged vegetation, rocks that protrude from the water or make a change in the direction of the currents, trees that provide shadows or shelter in and out of the water. Anything influences, we must observe and take everything into account.

Especially if we want to fish in the water when we are not seeing activity on the surface, but if we scrutinize certain corners well we can get to nail a good fish that is simply not showing its face, but that would not hesitate to eat one of our well presented imitations. Meanwhile having one eye on our fly and the other looking at the rest of the river could make us detect small signals that shows us the fish we are looking for.

-5. Casting ability which casts are essential.

Having a good casting technique is something that will always play in our favor and will greatly facilitate the way we face different scenarios, presentation sets, laterals, curved sets, hooks, stretches, stacks and having precision. Having a good control of our line and our loops are essential to have a great precision and to be able to put our imitations in any point of the river, as well as to be able to handle all kinds of leaders no matter how long they are.

-6. Entomology, what should we know.

The knowledge of the insects that are part of the feeding of the fish that we usually fish is something very important, more than knowing exactly all their names. To me it seems  much more important to be able to detect their different phases, how they hatch, the times, in the different ways they usually do it and the type of scenarios where they usually appear. Once we know those details, adjusting as much as possible the shape, size and color is usually enough to fool the fish.

-7. Rise forms Can they tell us something?

The way the fish are eating not only tell us that they are eating, but also in what moment they are, their degree of alertness and the degree of activity they have at that time.

According to the different types of rise we can intuit if they are eating one type of insect or another depending on how they do it: if they are slow or aggressive, the rises are more or less appreciable. If they do it sporadically or continuously, if they move continuously to eat something in particular, if they are very close to the bottom looking among the stones, or if they are placed in the middle of the water and simply move a little opening and closing their mouths to eat the nymphs carried by the current, if they are placed in the highest layers waiting for the flies to pass in order to eat them, etc. Without a doubt, all these factors provide us with the most valuable information that helps us face the day. 

-8. Fly selection, Size, shape, materials, which flies are essential.

For me as a fly tighter and fisherman it is very important to have a large selection of flies of different sizes and built with different materials in order to face all kinds of situations and scenarios. From my point of view it is important to have the same flies built with different materials because fishing in the rain is not the same as fishing in a sunny day, or fishing in slow water than in fast water, high, medium or in low water courses where both insects and the behavior of fish is usually quite different, as in the way they eat.

I usually fish a lot with flies with CDC for its delicacy, naturalness and great floatation, but this type of flies on rainy days or in areas with high humidity in the environment I recognize that they can be a headache.

-9. Presentation and drifts.

Without a doubt this is the most important part of fly fishing and in which many factors influence such as the type of cast, our position in the river, our bass line, the length of our tipet and even the type of fly that we are using. We can have the best flies in the world but without a good presentation and a suitable drift for each circumstance and even the type of fish, they won´t work for us.

-10. Upstream or downstream?

Fishing downstream or upstream is something that we must decide when facing the different positions that we find, for me both are just as effective and necessary and to know how to apply them, when and why is something that every fisherman should know. There are many positions that are much easier and more effective to fish downstream and others that we will inevitably have to face upstream or even we can fish upstream and continue drifting downstream making different mendings or different types of sets.

-11. Fighting fish.

Whenever the situation allows us, I am in favor of, when fighting the fish, try to be as close to it as possible and try to always stay behind it in such a way that the fish is never below me and with the current in his favor, since in this way the weight of the fish will be pulling our tipet and our rod and will make it much more difficult for the fish to get tired and above all, much more difficult for us to reach it and put it in the landing-net.

However, if we stay below it when we pull the rod upwards, the current of the river will tend to lift it and in this way it will be easier for us to put it inside the landing-net, it will also get tired much faster since it will be swimming continuously against the current. 

I think it is important to anticipate what the fish is going to do and not let him do what he wants, if we anticipate him we will break his schemes and that will destabilize him and put things a little more in our favor, although we won´t always be the ones in control and that is something that we all know, each fish is usually different and has its own strategies to beat us.

Javier Peña.