Should you fish upstream or downstream for trout?

Should you fish upstream or should you fish downstream? Well, in this particular situation, the river is wide enough so that you could work it downstream. But the problem is that this is very smooth water. It's silty. And by working downstream, you'd kick up a lot of silt and that might get into where the fish are. So in a situation like this, you definitely want to work upstream, particularly when you've got sighted fish and clear water. It's really tough to fish downstream. In a small stream like this, you really need to fish upstream. If you try to fish downstream here, you're just going to be so close to the fish. They're facing upstream, of course. And if you fish downstream, they're going to see you a lot easier and you're going to spook more fish than you're going to catch. So you really need to work upstream. And whether you get in the water and start fishing upstream and then walk back, or if you don't have that option, get on the bank away from the creek and walk down until you have enough water to fish and then fish back up. And how you fish it doesn't really matter. You can fish a dry dropper, a dry nymph, a streamer, whatever. But you really should work upstream and fish upstream in a small piece of water like this. We're on the Baker River at Patagonia Baker Lodge at Magic Waters, and this is a big wide river. I don't have to worry about spooking the fish. They're way out there. I can stay back here. I'm not going to scare them. And I can work downstream. I'm not going to spook the fish. You can work upstream if you want, but you're going to have to constantly fight the current. So sometimes on a bigger river, it's easier to cover water by working downstream. What a stupid fish. Well, we had a one beautiful rainbow here rising very happily in this big, deep, beautiful pool. And I had a little pheasant tail on with a purple haze dry. And he I should pay attention to this fish. And he he ate the nymph and I pricked him and missed and he backed off and he didn't look like he was terribly excited or upset. So I put another cast up there and he came and ate the dry stupid fish. Oh, and he's off.