The conversation focused on fishing as my friend Shawn Iman and I made the drive east last weekend to fish Huntingdon County’s Little Juniata River.

At one point, an AC/DC song played in the background at a decibel level far lower than had I been by myself.

Shawn recalled that back when he did a lot of steelhead fishing on Lake Erie tributaries, he would often wear head phones that piped in the hard rock music, a tactic that kept him pumped up on days that commonly provided challenging weather and water conditions.

Naturally, the drive home later that day — amidst some crazy sleet and hail squalls — was a critique of the day’s activities.

During the conversation, it occurred to me that appropriate music to accompany this kind of fishing could include Puddle of Mudd’s “Drift and Die,” as the drift can be such a big part of the deal.

“For me, getting the right drift is the biggest thing,” said Iman, whose day had included multiple wild brown trout up to 15 inches as well as a thick rainbow that pushed 20. His fish came on a beadhead green caddis larva fly fished below a strike indicator.

So what constitutes “the right drift?”

According to Iman, it’s presenting the fly at the same pace at which natural food is washed downstream.

Regardless of the season, trout tend to hold in places where they can duck out of the current yet still be close enough to pluck off an easy meal that drifts or swims by.

One of Iman’s most productive spots during our outing was a run about three to four feet deep, 20 yards or so below an incoming riffle.

The current was modest; the bottom covered with irregular rocks that furnished feeding lies for the trout.

Standing in one spot, Iman took three nice fish in short order.

His attempts when working both upstream and downstream produced nothing.

“When I first approach a pool, I work the water closest to me first, making short upstream casts not much more than a rod length away,” he noted. “I position myself so that the spot I consider most likely to hold fish is pretty much straight out in front of me. That’s the place where I want the fly to be drifting naturally as it passes by.”

To attain this, his cast is made at about a 45 degree angle upstream. This way the fly (or flies when fishing with a dropper) have had a chance to sink by the time they reach the prime zone. He also makes any necessary line mends — typically a flip of the fly line upstream — so that the setup is drifting drag free when it flows through the sweet spot.

After fishing the “close water” Iman makes progressively longer casts to reach more distant lies. He repositions himself, though, when working upstream or downstream, again aiming to achieve the perfect drift as the strike indicator passes perpendicular to his location.

Keeping the fly close to the bottom is also a large part of the program, especially at this time of year when the water is cold.

Trout feed, but usually won’t move too far off of the bottom to intercept a fly.

Typically, Iman fishes two flies.

One is tied to the point of the leader tippet.

He then uses a slider knot to tie a foot-long section of tippet material above the point fly and secures a second fly to the end of this tippet.

The slider knot jams against the point fly, but can be slid back up the leader if he chooses to change the point fly. Nymphs, caddis larva, scuds and egg patterns can all be effective now.

Split shot — size and number adequate to get the flies down quickly — is pinched on a foot or so above the point fly.

A strike indicator like the Float Master is fastened on the leader. The position of the Float Master is easy to adjust, which is important.

You want the flies to occasionally tick bottom, but not so much that hang-ups are frequent.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.