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Successful fly-fishing is built around two fundamental skills: Reading water and presentation.

Reading water is the ability to visually survey a fishing area while noting subtle features that suggest locations where fish are most likely to be found or holding. Once these key areas, or likely holding spots, have been noted, an angler must now decide on a particular method of approach, the presentation, that will best drift or swing their fly offering to elicit a strike or a take. As fly rodders, we continually refine these two fundamental building blocks of fly-fishing, whether we know it or not, each and every time we go out fishing.

Understanding a river, and learning to read its anatomy, is vital to improving anyone's angling success. In fact, it's the one aspect to fly-fishing that clearly separates a beginning angler from a veteran fly rodder. It's the latter angler's ability to read the water effectively and know where the fish should be that gives them a significant angling advantage. This skill, however, is not learned overnight nor is it obtained in a single season. In this column, I offer a few tips that I'm confident will help jump-start your learning and assist you in the ability to read water and better understand the anatomy of a river.

Generally speaking, all rivers share a common anatomy. Regardless of their length or size - short or long - they are all comprised of several key water types that simply repeat themselves. Each water type offers specific characteristics and features which defines them for example, pools, runs or glides and riffles. To assist you in visualizing these key river components or water types, think of pools as holes. They are the deepest, most carved out areas of the river and usually have the slowest current flowing through them. They also have a smooth flat-water surface. Runs, or glides, in contrast are not as deep, usually four to six feet in depth and are usually located below pools. They are associated with moderate current speeds that flow over scattered boulders or rocky bottoms. Because water in glides or runs flows over an uneven substrate, its surface is also uneven yet not broken. Riffles are even shallower. Water flows swiftly and briskly over small boulders mixed with cobblestones in riffle areas and the water surface is almost always broken and choppy. Riffles are most commonly found at the very bottom end of pools where water funnels or spills out or at the very top end as water transitions before flowing into a pool.

As you acquire and spend more time on the water, you'll quickly become more comfortable and proficient at identifying the water types that you fish in. At this stage in your learning, whenever you find or hook a fish, it's important to remember the type of water or water feature associated with that location or drift. Over time each angling experience on a stream will add and contribute to your overall understanding and ability to effectively and efficiently read water. Similar to reading a book, and reading beyond the simple plot, as you continue to learn and become more proficient at understanding the anatomy of a river, you'll soon begin dissecting rivers and watersheds beyond just general water types as pools or runs and eventually find yourself analyzing their finer subtleties. It won't be long when bubble lines that were once overlooked in a glide or run might offer you insight to locations where trout might tend to be feeding. Or a difference in water coloration, a simple shadow perhaps or a change in the surface texture might suggest a drop off or a ledge that yields to deeper water where fish tend to seek refuge.

Then there are current seams. A current seam is the area between the main (fast) current and a slower adjacent current. Recognizing current seams and targeting them is always a great place to start when approaching a pool or a run. Both salmon and steelhead have an innate affinity for seeking out current seams. They do this because they can conserve precious energy while resting in the slower water but can also avoid danger and predators almost instantly by slipping into the faster adjacent currents.

Reading water is a skill in which every fly fisher should invest in. The ability to competently read water allows you to quickly locate potential areas where fish might be holding by recognizing specific features and subtle characteristics conveyed by water. This approach of reading where fish might be enables you to fish more effectively and efficiently. We've all heard the phrase that ten percent of the anglers catch ninety percent of the fish and I'd bet that those in the ten percent are also well versed in reading water.

Rich Culver is a fly-fishing freelance writer and photographer. He can be reached at flywater@alaska.net.