Fishing Holes (not the Ole Fishin' Hole)
A hole is encountered when the bottom of the river either suddenly or gradually deepens. Holes are typically found immediately after shoals and or riffles, although they can also occur in the midst of runs – especially within deeper channel bends. Fish will typically hold in a hole for a couple of
reasons – for protection and for use in ambushing prey or gathering floating forage. The deeper water provides cover for the fish and if the water is broken it can provide even more cover. The fish feel more secure in a hole, sometimes gathering in large numbers. Another benefit to fishing a hole is as food drifts down the river and approaches the rim of the hole, the fish can move off the bottom to take the food, and then retreat back to the bottom of the hole until the next morsel of food
comes down the river.
Several years ago, a friend and I were fishing on the Elk River, a tailwater in Middle Tennessee. We were fishing a flat with an uneven bottom. There were several large holes along one of the stretches and we were dead drifting nymphs as we worked our way downstream. Eventually, we came to a place in the river that usually produced fish. As we watched his indicator approach a deeper section in the middle of the river,
the nymph drifted across the edge and dropped into the hole. The indicator disappeared and the fight was on. A couple minutes later he had a nice rainbow in hand and we celebrated a fish that was larger than either of us thought would be in that river. After we released that fish, my friend threw back into the same spot and achieved the same drift. This time when the nymph dropped into the hole an even larger rainbow was hooked and brought to the net. We tried several more times to drift into
the hole, but we had beaten the water up pretty badly, so we moved on drifting nymphs and picking up more fish.
Holes are great places to catch multiple fish with a dead-drifted nymph or midge. But, don’t over look swinging and or stripping a streamer along the front edge of a hole. An angler who can make the streamer appear to be an injured bait fish struggling to keep itself upright in the water column, has an opportunity to pick out even
bigger fish in that hole.