Question:
And now, back to your regularly scheduled programmming….. bite me Warren!
Go smoke a whitefish! — Warren Findley Remove (nospamZZ) to respond via email http://www.geocities.com/troutbum_mt/
Response:
fishing depends (at least in part) on thinking like a fish. I’ve tried it. Makes my brain hurt.
My guess is that if we are thinking like a fish we would eat sticks and rocks. I keep finding them in the fish that I keep. Big Dale
Response:
Excellent synopsis Peter. These types of discussions were what first attracted me to and later hooked me on ROFF. My thanks to you, Willi, et all for the thought provoking insights/explanations.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled programmming….. bite me Warren!
Response:
I am a fairly new fly fisher and an even newer tier. I have been fortunate enough to have a few experienced hands tell me that I am far more picky about my flies than the fish. Also, worry about developing the tying skills and your flies will look more like the store flies as you get better. In the mean time, it’s pretty darn cool to catch a fish on something that you made by hand. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Even during hatches, not all the fish will be keyed into the same features on a fly. With some, wings may be important, others how high or low the fly floats, others size, others sparseness, other "action", others color, other orientation etc. etc. Just like people, I think there are fish that look for certain "right" characteristics in a fly and are triggered by it, those that look for something wrong and if found will reject it, and those that just want something to eat. Individual fish have individual feeding habits and preferences. There is no magic fly. Being successful means finding a fly that appeals to the majority of fish and turns off few. Like most fly fishermen, I judge a fly by how it looks to me. But there is an added dimension to this that we tend to overlook. A fish is a species of animal that has more differences than commonality with man. It is impossible for us to perceive a fly as a fish perceives it, in a direct way. Color is an easy example. Trout and other fishes that live in shallow/clear water, perceive colors farther in both the shorter and longer wave lengths than people. This means that it is impossible to judge how a fish perceives the color of a fly using our eyes. What looks like a color match to us, may be completely off to a fish. Willi
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<snipped a whole bunch for the Grand Poohbah Often times a fish will demand a perfect size match, or wing or color etc. but will ignore that hunk of metal sticking out of the fly’s butt. If a fish can discriminate between a size twenty and a size twenty two fly, they definitely have the acuity to see the hook bend. Do they ignore it if enough other characteristics of the fly are "correct" or do they "not see it" because of the way their little brains interpret what the signals their eyes are sending?
Willi, I can’t remember if you were there when this happened during the clave or not. We were fishing and saw a fish swallow a bunch of moss and then spit it out. Perhaps there was a morsel of food in that bunch of moss and the fish separated it and then spit the moss back out. It could be that the fish sees the hook as debris to filter out from the food and takes the fly anyways. Just a thought. — Warren Findley Remove (nospamZZ) to respond via email http://www.geocities.com/troutbum_mt/
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What a trout perceives is a problem amenable to experiment….and it’s been done.
Wolfgang, Like usual, I don’t know how to take what you say but did you mean the above? If so, I’d like to see it. Willi
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – As we all know, the trout’s brain is quite small and simple. Not to be a wise-ass, but we do? I mean, I think you’re right, but to pull a Wolfgang (which ain’t easy, lemme tell ya), how do we know? Granted, we can measure it as far as physical size, and do some experiments as far as electric charges, etc., but how can we (at this point, anyway) really know what a fish is "thinking" or perceiving? It ain’t SUPPOSED to be easy! Nevertheless, here’s a little tip: never try to get away with making two (or three) points look like one.
Well, thanks, but, basically, I was calling you fat…. A trout’s brain IS small and relatively simple. We could go into all kinds of tedious detail about comparative neuroanatomy (and the literature is voluminous) but it’s late and I need to get to bed.
And so is the literature that says there is, or isn’t, a God or Gods, that Communism is the best thing since, well, others say it wasn’t, and with the advent of the Web, probably quite a bit claiming Elvis, JFK, and Marilyn Monroe are having a nightly GB at Bill Gates’ house. What a trout perceives is a problem amenable to experiment….and it’s been done.
Granted, we…well, ok, "we" implies the wrong thing, so – someone can likely get general info, like, "shine light, fish swims away" and "fish tries to eat this, but not that," but I’m dubious we can truly know what fish "think," perceive, or whatever you call it, i.e., knowing the fish "thinks" a particular thing is or isn’t, and more importantly, why. For example, I’d run away from a group of people having a Beastie Boys marathon, but not because I’m scared of the people, music, or the Beastie Boys, but I don’t like them, either. On the other hand, I might sit and listen with a group of gangbangers who happened to like, oh, say, Bobby Short, Bob Wills, or certain Jane’s Addiction cuts. One reason I’m sure "we" haven’t discovered such information (past a certain superficial level, anyway) is because especially with things like fish, which leads to fishing, is that it would get exploited before the ink was dry on the reports. I hate to sound cynical, but I think if "we" could truly and accurately figure out what makes fish "tick," or what they "think" (again, accurately is key), companies would be on it like, well, fish on scientifically-developed foolproof (the key) lures. Moreover, even when the ability to vocally express how a creature is feeling is there, even that isn’t a completely accurate measure…look at women, for example…. We are all familiar with the adage that suggests success in fishing depends (at least in part) on thinking like a fish. I’ve tried it. Makes my brain hurt.
Yeah, and it’s always made me laugh…why the hell would I want to think like the thing I’m trying to outsmart and catch. For example, if a lion thought like a Tommy, would another lion get confused and eat him, or even more odd, would he get confused and die of exhaustion trying to outrun himself? Heck, maybe he’d just have a crisis of conscience and run off and become a vegan and try to convert the pride. Soon, he’d be smoking clove cigarettes, getting arrested with Al Sharpton, and whining about Nike factories and under-sized limos. Next thing you know, he’d be hanging out with Paul McCartney, and Lord knows what else…well, actually, I think the Lord did know, which is why lions don’t flit about trying to think like Tommies…..they just catch ‘em and eat ‘em….. TC, R – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Wolfgang
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As we all know, the trout’s brain is quite small and simple. Not to be a wise-ass, but we do? I mean, I think you’re right, but to pull a Wolfgang (which ain’t easy, lemme tell ya), how do we know? Granted, we can measure it as far as physical size, and do some experiments as far as electric charges, etc., but how can we (at this point, anyway) really know what a fish is "thinking" or perceiving?
It ain’t SUPPOSED to be easy! Nevertheless, here’s a little tip: never try to get away with making two (or three) points look like one. A trout’s brain IS small and relatively simple. We could go into all kinds of tedious detail about comparative neuroanatomy (and the literature is voluminous) but it’s late and I need to get to bed. What a trout perceives is a problem amenable to experiment….and it’s been done. We are all familiar with the adage that suggests success in fishing depends (at least in part) on thinking like a fish. I’ve tried it. Makes my brain hurt. Wolfgang
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <Big Snip I’ll take dogs as an example, I know them pretty well after working with them for many years. If we try and understand how they smell things based on how we smell things, we couldn’t even begin to understand the complexity, importance and usefulness of smells in their life. Their sense of smell, how they interpret smells, and how they can use them is as alien to our sense of smell as our "intellect" is to theirs. If we used our sense of smell to try and understand theirs, our knowledge would be completely erroneous. Willi I told my wife about this post and tried to get her to conduct an experiment, but she wouldn’t do it. All I wanted her to do was let me get the video camera and shoot video of her sniffing our Basset Hound’s butt and then giving me her perceptions. Among "other" things, she said I’d been on this news group way too long. <g
Post of the week, great image!! Willi
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[snip] What does a trout see when our dry passes overhead? – a protruding hook that is below the surface and produces no dimpling or halos
This is one of things that convinced me that a trout’s perception of a fly is very different from ours. In looking at the photos of underwater views of a fly, the bend of the hook and the barb is VERY prevalent. To my eye it is probably the most prevalent thing. However, a trout will overlook this but at times demand an exact match in terms of size, shape, color, etc. Willi
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First off, the dimpling of the surface film has to look right, it’ll be the first thing the fish responds to.
I believe this is often of major importance. When fishing with a dry fly, I often cast to spots I *know* hold fish, and I get no response because the fly is riding a little low in the water. After treating it with desiccant it will be riding on the very tips of the hackles; it just amazes me how this can trigger strikes from fish that weren’t the least bit interested in the same fly moments earlier.
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First off, the dimpling of the surface film has to look right, it’ll be the first thing the fish responds to. I believe this is often of major importance. When fishing with a dry fly, I often cast to spots I *know* hold fish, and I get no response because the fly is riding a little low in the water. After treating it with desiccant it will be riding on the very tips of the hackles; it just amazes me how this can trigger strikes from fish that weren’t the least bit interested in the same fly moments earlier.
(I noticed you use this technique on a fish that short struck the other day on the Big T) And sometimes the opposite is true, the fish will take a partly submerged fly after rejecting the same fly floating high and dry. This happened to me yesterday. Willi
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This is one of things that convinced me that a trout’s perception of a fly is very different from ours. In looking at the photos of underwater views of a fly, the bend of the hook and the barb is VERY prevalent. To my eye it is probably the most prevalent thing. However, a trout will overlook this but at times demand an exact match in terms of size, shape, color, etc. Willi
I think that the most dominant visual feature is the light refracted through the dimpled surface film. The fish first react to that and everything else is superfluous until it is an inch or so from the fly. At that point, colour, size, wing, etc. come into play. A partially drowned fly may work if the fish is keyed on emerging or drowned insects. Peter Visit The Streamer Page at http://members.home.net/pcharles/streamers/index.html
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – This is one of things that convinced me that a trout’s perception of a fly is very different from ours. In looking at the photos of underwater views of a fly, the bend of the hook and the barb is VERY prevalent. To my eye it is probably the most prevalent thing. However, a trout will overlook this but at times demand an exact match in terms of size, shape, color, etc. Willi I think that the most dominant visual feature is the light refracted through the dimpled surface film. The fish first react to that and everything else is superfluous until it is an inch or so from the fly. At that point, colour, size, wing, etc. come into play.
That’s how the photos of dry flies from underwater appear to us. I question that they are perceived in the same manner by a trout. Often times a fish will demand a perfect size match, or wing or color etc. but will ignore that hunk of metal sticking out of the fly’s butt. If a fish can discriminate between a size twenty and a size twenty two fly, they definitely have the acuity to see the hook bend. Do they ignore it if enough other characteristics of the fly are "correct" or do they "not see it" because of the way their little brains interpret what the signals their eyes are sending? The point I’m trying to make is that when we use our vision to try and explain how a trout or any other animal uses their vision, I think that alot of the assumptions made are going to be erroneous. This is especially true if, like in the case of trout vision, there are demonstrative physical differences in vision components between that animal and ourselves. Also, vision is more than how the eye perceives something, it is how the brain interprets the signals that it receives from the eye. I’ll take dogs as an example, I know them pretty well after working with them for many years. If we try and understand how they smell things based on how we smell things, we couldn’t even begin to understand the complexity, importance and usefulness of smells in their life. Their sense of smell, how they interpret smells, and how they can use them is as alien to our sense of smell as our "intellect" is to theirs. If we used our sense of smell to try and understand theirs, our knowledge would be completely erroneous. Willi
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I’ll take dogs as an example, ….. ….. If we used our sense of smell to try and understand theirs, our knowledge would be completely erroneous.
True, but no more erroneous than if we *didn’t* use our sense of smell to try to understand theirs. ;) I agree with everything you say about our sense of vision necessarily being different from a trout’s, but it’s really the closest thing we have to work with and base our guesses on. Otherwise we’re reduced to throwing up our hands and relying on "conclusions" drawn from what are really small, highly variable samples (our own personal experiences). AND we’d have less to BS about. JR
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I think that the most dominant visual feature is the light refracted through the dimpled surface film. The fish first react to that and everything else is superfluous until it is an inch or so from the fly. At that point, colour, size, wing, etc. come into play. That’s how the photos of dry flies from underwater appear to us. I question that they are perceived in the same manner by a trout. Often times a fish will demand a perfect size match, or wing or color etc. but will ignore that hunk of metal sticking out of the fly’s butt. If a fish can discriminate between a size twenty and a size twenty two fly, they definitely have the acuity to see the hook bend. Do they ignore it if enough other characteristics of the fly are "correct" or do they "not see it" because of the way their little brains interpret what the signals their eyes are sending?
[snip] As we all know, the trout’s brain is quite small and simple. It can only process so many visual cues. If we make this process overly complex, I think we make it more difficult than it need be. I believe that a trout processes the visual cues that say "food" and ignores those that suggest otherwise (e.g. the hook.) After all, a trout’s world is full of drifting debris. It has to have a simple, yet quick way to differentiate between a small stick and a nymph, for example. If your fly has the necessary cues, the trout takes it, despite the big, ugly hook. This differentiation process is probably learned through repetition – the more bugs of a certain type that pass by a trout, the more likely it will fixate on them and begin to feed. It probably has to learn what is good to eat, every time a major hatch occurs – this explains why the early part of a hatch may not engender much of response. It may well perceive colour, light refraction, etc. differently than us, but there is only a few cues we need to get right. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like to stray too much from the original materials in an old recipe. Skues talks about how certain materials have a special quality in the water and appear more like the natural when presented in the trout’s world. I think if you get the hackle and tail, size, and colour right, you’ll fool trout more often than not. Peter Visit The Streamer Page at http://members.home.net/pcharles/streamers/index.html
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I think that the most dominant visual feature is the light refracted through the dimpled surface film. The fish first react to that and everything else is superfluous until it is an inch or so from the fly. At that point, colour, size, wing, etc. come into play. That’s how the photos of dry flies from underwater appear to us. I question that they are perceived in the same manner by a trout. Often times a fish will demand a perfect size match, or wing or color etc. but will ignore that hunk of metal sticking out of the fly’s butt. If a fish can discriminate between a size twenty and a size twenty two fly, they definitely have the acuity to see the hook bend. Do they ignore it if enough other characteristics of the fly are "correct" or do they "not see it" because of the way their little brains interpret what the signals their eyes are sending? [snip] As we all know, the trout’s brain is quite small and simple.
Not to be a wise-ass, but we do? I mean, I think you’re right, but to pull a Wolfgang (which ain’t easy, lemme tell ya), how do we know? Granted, we can measure it as far as physical size, and do some experiments as far as electric charges, etc., but how can we (at this point, anyway) really know what a fish is "thinking" or perceiving? It can only process so many visual cues. If we make this process overly complex, I think we make it more difficult than it need be. I believe that a trout processes the visual cues that say "food" and ignores those that suggest otherwise (e.g. the hook.) After all, a trout’s world is full of drifting debris. It has to have a simple, yet quick way to differentiate between a small stick and a nymph, for example. If your fly has the necessary cues, the trout takes it, despite the big, ugly hook.
Maybe they just intend to eat what appears to be the bug and not what appears to be whatever the hook appears to be. When one gets a club sandwich, one doesn’t think, "Hmm, this looks good, well, except for that frilly stick in it. I wonder if I have to eat that, too?" so perhaps it simply looks like a fish’s frilly stick or parsley sprig or whatever, or maybe they see insects on or near actual sticks, and eat the bug and either not eat or spit out the stick – maybe they see a stick and a bug, and when they spit out the stick, to their surprise and your consternation, the whole thing goes. Or maybe, just like most living creatures, including humans, close is good enough if you are hungry enough or the food looks good enough. If simply looking odd or different prevented predation, we’d be up to our hat brims in things like albinos, genetic appearance deformities (that had no health ramifications), etc. because they’d be no natural predators of such things (well, except man and a few other things), they’d gradually become more prevalent. This differentiation process is probably learned through repetition – the more bugs of a certain type that pass by a trout, the more likely it will fixate on them and begin to feed. It probably has to learn what is good to eat, every time a major hatch occurs – this explains why the early part of a hatch may not engender much of response. It may well perceive colour, light refraction, etc. differently than us, but there is only a few cues we need to get right. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like to stray too much from the original materials in an old recipe. Skues talks about how certain materials have a special quality in the water and appear more like the natural when presented in the trout’s world. I think if you get the hackle and tail, size, and colour right, you’ll fool trout more often than not.
If you look at writers of the beginnings of the "dry fly era of prominence" (say from about 1870 to Mary Orvis Marbury, etc., forward), you find that there are vast differences of opinion as to replication vs. stimulation vs. "tempting" vs. simple guessing vs. planned experimentation. Many felt that "fooling" the fish by making them think the fly was a true natural was all but impossible, and the closer you tried to get, the more "unnatural" your imitator would appear. Maybe it was a mirror of the Impressionists, but some seem to feel that "suggesters" were more effective than imitators. FWIW, my view has always been (and admittedly, it is both acquired from others and self-discovery) that there is much more to it than accurate-to-us appearing imitators, but YMMV. For example, how many have had beat-up, ratty, tattered old flies, lures, etc., that produced better than new, truly accurate imitators? As to the history of the subject, if anyone is interested, I have some pretty old volumes, and some do talk about this very subject, plus I’m sure there are many others with other works, so perhaps we can piece together a history of this aspect of the sport. TC, R
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<Big Snip I’ll take dogs as an example, I know them pretty well after working with them for many years. If we try and understand how they smell things based on how we smell things, we couldn’t even begin to understand the complexity, importance and usefulness of smells in their life. Their sense of smell, how they interpret smells, and how they can use them is as alien to our sense of smell as our "intellect" is to theirs. If we used our sense of smell to try and understand theirs, our knowledge would be completely erroneous. Willi
I told my wife about this post and tried to get her to conduct an experiment, but she wouldn’t do it. All I wanted her to do was let me get the video camera and shoot video of her sniffing our Basset Hound’s butt and then giving me her perceptions. Among "other" things, she said I’d been on this news group way too long. <g
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Excellent synopsis Peter. These types of discussions were what first attracted me to and later hooked me on ROFF. My thanks to you, Willi, et all for the thought provoking insights/explanations. — Warren Findley Remove (nospamZZ) to respond via email http://www.geocities.com/troutbum_mt/ – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [snip] What does a trout see when our dry passes overhead? – a hackle dimpled surface film producing halos of light – a tail that also produces a dimpling along its length and the same light refraction – a protruding hook that is below the surface and produces no dimpling or halos – a body that for the most part is in shadow – the solid outline of a dun’s wings – all of this seen against a bright sky background First off, the dimpling of the surface film has to look right, it’ll be the first thing the fish responds to. As she gets closer, the colour and wing start to become important. A fish can focus on a fly less than an inch from its nose – its close range vision is excellent – so the rest of the details have to start to make sense, the wing, the body colour, the size, etc. Trout seem to take flies for a number of reasons – obviously hunger and it matches what she’s been eating for the last half hour, curiosity, aggression, and playfulness. I mentioned in a much earlier post, being fooled by three little browns that raced around chasing Gray Foxes. It’s not wise to take an anthropomorphic interpretation of their behaviour, however, had they simply been hungry, they could have sat in one of the many feeding lanes and sipped Gray Foxes all afternoon. It’s difficult to interpret their pack chasing behaviour as anything other than playful competition. They also keyed on moving Gray Foxes, a still natural or imitation didn’t get a look. To sum it up, the fly should sit right, producing the right halos, plus it should cast a shadow of approximately the right size, and finally, it’s details should be right to pass the close range examination. This applies to picky fish in slower water condition; brookies in fast water tend to slash at anything that looks like food. So in my neck of the woods, flies that will catch brookies on the cascade section of the Credit, will be a complete bust on the slow glides of the Grand. There’s too much variation o attempt generalize much further than this. (Much of the above wisdom, courtesy of various books by Lafontaine, Skues, et al.) Peter Visit The Streamer Page at
http://members.home.net/pcharles/streamers/index.html
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<snipped interesting speculations of an experienced fishtricker They also keyed on moving Gray Foxes, a still natural or imitation didn’t get a look.
kinda like on penns creek when we were there… the march browns had to quiver a bit and just right to interest most of those finicky browns …anything just floating motionless on the water generally wouldn’t be touched. i saw dozens of fish nail the bug just as it was starting to take off from the surface, and several coming full-body out of the water like a salmon to grab the bug in the air. that was one of those memory etchings i look forward to collecting more of…
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Even during hatches, not all the fish will be keyed into the same features on a fly. With some, wings may be important, others how high or low the fly floats, others size, others sparseness, other "action", others color, other orientation etc. etc. Just like people, I think there are fish that look for certain "right" characteristics in a fly and are triggered by it, those that look for something wrong and if found will reject it, and those that just want something to eat. Individual fish have individual feeding habits and preferences. There is no magic fly. Being successful means finding a fly that appeals to the majority of fish and turns off few. Like most fly fishermen, I judge a fly by how it looks to me. But there is an added dimension to this that we tend to overlook. A fish is a species of animal that has more differences than commonality with man. It is impossible for us to perceive a fly as a fish perceives it, in a direct way. Color is an easy example. Trout and other fishes that live in shallow/clear water, perceive colors farther in both the shorter and longer wave lengths than people. This means that it is impossible to judge how a fish perceives the color of a fly using our eyes. What looks like a color match to us, may be completely off to a fish. Willi
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Just like people, I think there are fish that look for certain "right" characteristics in a fly and are triggered by it…
- "Hey, Jimmie, looks like we got a hotty floating by at three o’clock!" – "Woa, dude, check out the hackles on *that* one!" – "Hey, there, midge! Why doncha drift on over to *my* riffle, baby?" –Steve (if fish could talk)
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Like most fly fishermen, I judge a fly by how it looks to me. But there is an added dimension to this that we tend to overlook. A fish is a species of animal that has more differences than commonality with man. It is impossible for us to perceive a fly as a fish perceives it, in a direct way. Color is an easy example. Trout and other fishes that live in shallow/clear water, perceive colors farther in both the shorter and longer wave lengths than people. This means that it is impossible to judge how a fish perceives the color of a fly using our eyes. What looks like a color match to us, may be completely off to a fish.
Not only do we merely perceive color differently than the fish (probably), we probably also overestimate color and underestimate behavior of the bug. This idea is explored in "What The Trout Said" and "Dry Fly: New Angles".
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Like most fly fishermen, I judge a fly by how it looks to me. But there is an added dimension to this that we tend to overlook. A fish is a species of animal that has more differences than commonality with man. It is impossible for us to perceive a fly as a fish perceives it, in a direct way. Color is an easy example. Trout and other fishes that live in shallow/clear water, perceive colors farther in both the shorter and longer wave lengths than people. This means that it is impossible to judge how a fish perceives the color of a fly using our eyes. What looks like a color match to us, may be completely off to a fish.
And although it simply states the obvious, the fish views the fly from a completely different angle, and through a different medium, so even if they did see (eye construction- and placement-wise) in the same manner as people, their frame of reference is completely different. It’s unlikely that man and fish will ever see a fly the same, regardless of the difference in the eyes. Moreover, we can not know what differences would go ignored, which would be seen as different but "OK," and which were different and off-putting. As a simple example, most people would recognize and accept Wendy’s square hamburger as just another burger variant and eat it if they wanted a burger (yeah, yeah, eyeball jokes, taste, etc., aside), but given a choice between a burger with, say, asparagus spears, raw oysters, and orange sherbet and a plain burger, most would likely choose the plain one (even if they’d eat all the items in other combinations). But as Willi points out, fish seem to be like people in that they do have individual habits, and occasionally, just like kids drinking pickle juice over ice, a fish might try and eat something different. Fish "dine" on what comes past or is within sight, they don’t seem to "plan" dinner – "Ooh, honey, doesn’t the Four Seasons sound good, and then, we can go by the Carlyle for drinks and a little Bobby…" or decide that the tacos at El Asadero sound better than the seafood at Costa Azul and head that way. But they can sometimes be tempted by teasing them with something that looks "food-ish" enough AND different enough to tempt them into taking a chance, just like you do when the waiter suggests the entire tenderloin, rare, with Hollandaise and a large side of creamed spinach, or the dessert cart comes by with the Double Chocolate Drunken Fudge Cream Cake with Buttery-Sweet Ice Cream on top. You know you shouldn’t, the better half is gonna bitch, but like a moth to a flame….or rather, a hog to a trough…. TC, R – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Willi
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[snip] What does a trout see when our dry passes overhead? – a hackle dimpled surface film producing halos of light – a tail that also produces a dimpling along its length and the same light refraction – a protruding hook that is below the surface and produces no dimpling or halos – a body that for the most part is in shadow – the solid outline of a dun’s wings – all of this seen against a bright sky background First off, the dimpling of the surface film has to look right, it’ll be the first thing the fish responds to. As she gets closer, the colour and wing start to become important. A fish can focus on a fly less than an inch from its nose – its close range vision is excellent – so the rest of the details have to start to make sense, the wing, the body colour, the size, etc. Trout seem to take flies for a number of reasons – obviously hunger and it matches what she’s been eating for the last half hour, curiosity, aggression, and playfulness. I mentioned in a much earlier post, being fooled by three little browns that raced around chasing Gray Foxes. It’s not wise to take an anthropomorphic interpretation of their behaviour, however, had they simply been hungry, they could have sat in one of the many feeding lanes and sipped Gray Foxes all afternoon. It’s difficult to interpret their pack chasing behaviour as anything other than playful competition. They also keyed on moving Gray Foxes, a still natural or imitation didn’t get a look. To sum it up, the fly should sit right, producing the right halos, plus it should cast a shadow of approximately the right size, and finally, it’s details should be right to pass the close range examination. This applies to picky fish in slower water condition; brookies in fast water tend to slash at anything that looks like food. So in my neck of the woods, flies that will catch brookies on the cascade section of the Credit, will be a complete bust on the slow glides of the Grand. There’s too much variation o attempt generalize much further than this. (Much of the above wisdom, courtesy of various books by Lafontaine, Skues, et al.) Peter Visit The Streamer Page at http://members.home.net/pcharles/streamers/index.html
wayno