I somewhat recently fished a creek with a friend, and since he is a much more experienced fly fisher than me, I tried to just follow his lead. I noticed that when we found a spot on the creek that was both approachable and looked promising, he would subtly encourage a trade-off (you take this hole, I get the next hole) kind of thing. It seemed fair. Unfortunately, my impatience with the lack of action kept me moving. I noticed a couple of times that I had deviated from the unspoken agreement.

A week or two later, I was reading some publication or another about fly fishing and the author mentions a leap-frog method of fishing in pairs. He went on to say that the every-other approach doesn’t apply to "prime" spots. Prime spots should be alternated separately from searching spots. Here is how I now understand buddy fishing to work...

• Approach spot #1 – not a prime spot, but worth fishing – Jason gets a fly wet.
• Buddy (lets call him Brad) approaches spot #2 – downstream (or up) also not a prime spot, but he casts in.
• Jason moves to spot #3 – leapfrogging Brad’s position on the creek.
• Brad picks up and goes to spot #4 – leapfrogging Jason’s position.
• Now, we are working down the creek… this is all fine and good. We re-join our anglers some dozen hops downstream…
• Jason’s move places him in a prime spot (#1 of the day), but when Brad moves downstream he isn’t so lucky.
• Jason picks up to move again, and gets lucky and hits another prime spot. This is where the system changes… prime spot #2 should be Brad’s.  Jason should skip it.
  

No matter who is next in the standard rotation, the PSR (Prime Spot Rotation) supersedes all.  Keep it fair.