Field brief

Current seams

The line where fast water runs against slow — visible as a crease, a change in surface texture, or a trailing foam line.

Why: A fish can sit in the slow side and let the fast side deliver food. It is the cheapest lie on the river, so it is usually the first one taken.

Find it: Stand back and look across, not down. Seams show as a long straight edge in an otherwise broken surface, often below a riffle or beside an obstruction.

Riffle, run, pool, tailout

A river repeats the same four-part sequence: broken shallow riffle, deeper walking-pace run, slow deep pool, then a shallowing tailout at the pool's exit.

Why: Each part holds fish for a different reason and at a different time of day. The run is the workhorse; the tailout and the head of the pool are the feeding stations.

Find it: Walk the bank and name the parts before you fish anything. If you cannot name where you are standing, you are guessing.

Outside bends and cut banks

On a bend the current is thrown to the outside, which scours it deep and often undercuts the bank; the inside builds a shallow gravel point bar.

Why: Depth, shade and an overhead lid in one place. On a bright day or in low water this is where the better fish are.

Find it: Follow the bend with your eye: darker water and a hard bank line on the outside, pale gravel on the inside.

Eddies and current breaks

Slack or reversed water behind a boulder, bridge pier, log jam, wing dam or point of bank.

Why: A resting lie right beside a feeding lane. Fish move between the two rather than holding in the push all day.

Find it: Look for the pillow of raised water upstream of the obstruction and the smooth pocket behind it. Fish the pillow as well as the pocket.

Tributary mouths and confluences

Where a creek or a side channel enters, bringing different temperature, clarity, oxygen and food.

Why: A concentration point that works in almost every season, and a refuge when the main stem is high, warm or coloured.

Find it: The colour or texture line downstream of the junction shows how far the incoming water carries before it mixes. Work that line.

Wood, undercuts and sweepers

Fallen trees, root wads, sweepers hanging into the flow and undercut banks held together by roots.

Why: Overhead cover plus a current break. It is also the hardest water to fish cleanly, which is exactly why it holds fish.

Find it: Read the current going into the wood, not the wood itself — the fish sits where the flow is broken, usually on the upstream or downstream edge, not in the tangle.

Depth changes and shelves

The lip at the head of a pool, a mid-river shelf, a gravel-to-bedrock transition, a dredged slot.

Why: Fish use depth changes as travel routes and as ambush points. A one-foot change can matter as much as a ten-foot one.

Find it: Polarised glasses and a low sun angle. Colour change on the bottom is the cheapest depth sounder there is.