Natural by design

[Otter]

I have had the good fortune to have been touched by two anglers within the last 12 months or so , two anglers of quite similar attitude in some respects. One I have had the pleasure to spend a few days on the water with , the other I have yet to wet a line with. I will leave the latter to speak for himself.

The former has fished my local river for the best part of thirty years, and probably gets out more in a month than I do in a season. He has a few sayings which seem quite flippant but I believe have a lot of truth in them.

Whilst fishing " They will take a few different things to-day" When I quizzed him about this he simply said that on certain days the trout will feed in such a manner that as long as you present a reasonable imitation of what is or has been hatching quite a number of trout will take, and take quite well. He stated "On such days it is difficult to prove anything, and I simply note date, weather conditions , water tempeature and height and gneral coloration "

When he finds a fly that works exceptionally well he simply says "They really wanted that fly to-day" I asked him had he many such flies to which he smiled and said his box is stuffed with them. He has lost count of the number of flies that the trout really wanted for particular hatches for many seasons and then suddenly failed for one or more season. As to theories on why this may be, he smiled again and said "there are so many variables, i am keeping a diary of it all - and even then it may simply be that the fish were hammered by other anglers to such an extent that their normal feeding patterns have being disrupted "

What really is interesting here is that the type of angler that questions everything and that has the time to do so will end up fishing a parallel universe to most other anglers - and whilst they will occasionally switch of the brain and simly fish the water more often than not it will be fished with real purpose.



Impressionistic, realistic, generalistic - i guesss the answer lies within the eye of the beholder.

[GlassJet]

As to theories on why this may be, he smiled again and said "there are so many variables, i am keeping a diary of it all - and even then it may simply be that the fish were hammered by other anglers to such an extent that their normal feeding patterns have being disrupted "

I do wonder if this clouds the sharing of our different fishing experiences. My fishing club is predominantly course fishing in culture, and has two small stretches of river fly fishing, and the stream that I mostly fish that is yards from my house is the minor of the two rivers.

As a consequence, it is rarely fished, and i mean rarely. In season, ie when the weather is ok (water levels etc) I must get out most days, for a couple of hours, never more than that. I think this last year I've seen two other people fishing it? As in, two occasions of?

Like I think I have said to you before, in another thread - i suspect it is very easy fishing.

Next year, I will pick my head up a bit more, and try things out on more waters than I have so far done. Hope to be getting out again your way too.

But trout is trout

Andrew.

[Soft-hackle]

Otter,
I believe you are correct in the approach to fishing should be, do the best you can for the situation you are fishing, however it is natural for a fly fisherman to question why he's not catching fish especially if fish are active. Investigation is often part of the game and often make it more interesting as well. Also, a questioning attitude at the tying vise is also an approach to more creative fly tying. I'm not saying you can't turn off the thought processes and and enjoy the fishing, but I believe we just naturally look, observe, and question.

Mark

[Otter]

Otter,
I believe you are correct in the approach to fishing should be, do the best you can for the situation you are fishing, however it is natural for a fly fisherman to question why he's not catching fish especially if fish are active. Investigation is often part of the game and often make it more interesting as well. Also, a questioning attitude at the tying vise is also an approach to more creative fly tying. I'm not saying you can't turn off the thought processes and and enjoy the fishing, but I believe we just naturally look, observe, and question.

Mark

Much truth in all of that Mark, but i feel there is a step beyond that which is taken by the really experienced and really "successful" ( measurable off course in different ways, but for this purpose successful in their ability to catch trout will alarming regularity). For years my major hurdles ( and in many many cases they still exist) was simply to take situations and find a successful method. All very enjoyable, however could the success be repeated, in some cases yes in many however a big NOOOOOOOOOOO. And I believe the reason is quite simple, I had and still don't have a handle on the variables and probably never will, simply because it is unlikely that I will ever have sufficient time on the water. Any thinking angler will question why he is not catching when the fish are active, it takes a very different kind of animal to dig much deeper and question precisely why he is catching when the fish are active and why indeed the fish are active at that moment on that particular stretch and considers all the variables that make it all possible.

Off course for many this level of reasoning is extreme and un-necessary, we all choose our own paths and as Glassjet sort of says, two anglers can have a discussion about apparently the same subject but because their experiences on their own waters can be so different their conversation can be lively but inherently useless as the subject matter is in reality completely different.

It can take a surprising amount of time for the glaringly obvious to dawn on some of us. If you read the wrong stuff as a beginner you will as i did waste many seasons, I matched the hatch, if Large Dark olives were coming off I fished a well proven dun pattern and caught little, BWO's the same, Spurwings the same and on and on and on. Then some genius handed me a bwo emerger one evening , that simple little fly changed my fishing beyond recognition. Last season I was fortunate to fish three afternoons in a row during good hatches of LDO's. The river was boiling with rising trout yet for the three days I seen no more than 2 ro 3 fully formed Duns taken. And so Otter declares that trout do not take LDO duns,,,,,, wrong wrong wrong - they were not interested in LDO duns for those three afternoons on that little stretch of that particular river - it is in generalisations in my view where we can so easily go astray. My river is an ever changing ecosystem and I must be alert and change with it.

Is Glassjets willow fly a good LDO imitation - it may well be, when fished on the right river in the right way at the right time

[GlassJet]

Is Glassjets willow fly a good LDO imitation - it may well be, when fished on the right river in the right way at the right time

No, but it's not a bad impression

But you're right about the constantly changing eco-system though - you can walk twenty yards upstream and the fishing can be completely different.

These discussions can get to seem a bit prescious and all 'angels on the head of a pin' stuff. But I think it is important to sort out what we mean by these terms, because it informs us of what to aim for when we are sitting at the tying bench.

If the ideal we are aiming for is to imitate, then that ideal is to imitate is to duplicate is to copy. That will always fall short, and we can only attempt to 'copy' what we see, not the fish.

But if we begin with a more impressionistic approach, as per Mark's definition above, (or mimic, or caricature) we might come up with something completely different.

Surely that approach is how a lot of the classic Irish patterns have been arrived at?

The way of thinking seems to work for me, anyway. I tie flies, I catch fish, I am happy!

Andrew.

[Otter]

[quote="GlassJet]
Surely that approach is how a lot of the classic Irish patterns have been arrived at?
Andrew.[/quote]

and theres millions of them

[Jim Slattery]

Imitative, impressionistic and mimic are indeed three words that describe what we are trying to achieve when tying and fishing flies. For me, the word mimic and in turn mimicry, directly implies movement such as a mime . Movement is something that must not be forgotten when sitting down at the vise, I feel that it is very important. Motion is a core value that makes some flies more effective than others. Of course movement or imitative movement,is not an absolute for successful flies ( Czech nymphs for example) but it most assuredly is another bullet in the gun. In terms of tying adding motion to the imitative process in developing a fly can make a good pattern great. The current fashionable dress for flies is adding rubber legs to flies, wet or dry, making them more effective. CDC is another "craze" that has been successful as well. Short of being able to incorporate motion into a fly then illusion or impression of movement is the next best thing, and to me this is done by making a non moving thing look like its moving, such as wound grizzly hackle, un stacked deer hair allowed to flare out as a wing in a Stimulator for example, or as has been pointed out multiple colors blending to create a color. These are some important aspects to fly tying when trying to mimic a living thing.

Jim

[GlassJet]

FWIW, I think that is a very good summary of it, Jim...

Andrew.

[kanutripr]

"Attractive" in the sense that a fish will not refuse a fly which appears and behaves naturally. Flies with excessive movement will often trigger the fish's instinctive refusal,most especially in regard to larger intrinsically warier fish, although it may on occasion trigger a fish to strike, I think the refusals caused by excessive movement in small imitative flies far outweigh the "induced takes", and by a very very large margin. My own personal experience also bears this out in practice. If I move my flies too much I catch a lot fewer fish.

Yes, yes, YES!


Vicki

[redietz]

As for "trout is trout", that too is subject to massive variation. Although it is common for people to assume that all trout behave in a similar manner, this is very far from the truth. There are obviously some commonalities but there are very many more differences.

Absolutely there are. When I lived in California during the 1980's, I'd fish a small creek on the eastern slope of the Sierras with a co-worker who'd grown up in west. We'd fish the creek until we'd each caught 20 or fish, and then go look for more challenging quarry elsewhere. On two different occasions, when we each stopped at 20, I'd caught ten brown and ten brook trout, he'd caught 10 rainbows and 10 brookies. Each time, we were fishing identical flies. It was easy to see who'd learned to fish for trout in brown trout inhabited eastern streams vs. rainbow inhabited western streams (and that brookies are easier to catch in general.) I'm really convinced that "trout is trout" is not true.