Selective feeding?

[tomitrout]

In almost all such situations, they are refusing it based on drag, not appearance.

Perhaps you and I have different idea about the definition of 'drag.'

How is drag imparted upon a naturally floating, naturally hatched, real life fly, floating by itself on the water?

 

[Eccles]

pcray1231 wrote:
In almost all such situations, they are refusing it based on drag, not appearance.

Changing the tippet length, or slightly adjusting angle will take those fish. Just changing pattern or fly, not so much.

You often hear this strong argument made for drag being the main cause of refusals. But naturals drag too. Why can't it equally be that on heavily fished waters the fish, having been caught a couple of times on particular imitations of whatever the hatch happens to be, become suspicious of both natural and artificial because they have no real way of distinguishing between the two.

 

[dryflyguy]

Eccles wrote:

pcray1231 wrote:
In almost all such situations, they are refusing it based on drag, not appearance.

Changing the tippet length, or slightly adjusting angle will take those fish. Just changing pattern or fly, not so much.

You often hear this strong argument made for drag being the main cause of refusals. But naturals drag too. Why can't it equally be that on heavily fished waters the fish, having been caught a couple of times on particular imitations of whatever the hatch happens to be, become suspicious of both natural and artificial because they have no real way of distinguishing between the two.

They often do develop a way of distinguishing between the two - movement.
And many times on hard fished waters, I can't get fish to hit a fly until I move it - usually just a small twitch.
Of course, there is a difference between twitching a fly - and slowly dragging it across the surface

 

[Reeder]

I have had multiple fish refuse a bright yellow sulphur pattern, then had them take the exact same sized fly tied with a pale yellow dubbing instead, all from the same angle, with the same tippet.

Extremely selective trout can end up with a stomach full of different insects all while being selective.

Here is an example. This past summer I got skunked out back one night while several different hatches were coming off...sulphurs, slate drakes, golden stones, little green stones, cahills, etc. I fished every fly I had of those patterns...nymphs, emergers, duns you name it, I couldn't get any fish and the water was boiling. The same thing occurred over the next few days and I finally figured out what was going on and started catching the fish. They were feeding exclusively on the emergers of each hatch as they came off in short bursts, and they weren't far apart. The trout would start coming up every where, rise after rise after rise, for 5-10 minutes, and then stop for a short time. There were no duns on the water. After they stopped rising, the slate drakes began appearing and flying off the water. Maybe 20 minutes later, the water started boiling again for 5-10 minutes, then slowed down. The sulphurs then appeared. Another 15 minutes goes by, the water starts boiling again, goes quiet, and here come the cahills off the water and up into the air. It was like clockwork every night for several days. They wouldn't touch nymphs on the bottom, duns or spinners during all of these hatches. Emergers and wet flies is all they would take, and they were only taking each certain one for short periods of time before the duns appeared. By the time you could see what duns were on the water and get that emerger tied on, the window had pretty much passed. I began anticipating this and started just fishing emergers before the fish were rising. The slate drakes were usually first so I'd start with them and get a few here and there. As soon as it slowed down I would switch and fish a sulphur and cahill emerger at the same time the rest of the night. It worked out well for a couple of nights and right about when I had it down everything changed and ti was back to square 1. But to sum it up, those fish were extremely selective and feeding on multiple hatches over the course of an hour, and had stomachs full of several different bugs.

 

[pcray1231]

They often do develop a way of distinguishing between the two - movement.

Agreed.

There is drag, where a fly moves unnaturally.

And then there is movement, which is moving legs, flapping wings, etc.

I have seen quite often where fish refuse even naturals when they are not moving. You see lots of sailboats. The one that's flapping about gets nailed, the rest float on by. Occasionally one is flapping about and a fish comes up and has a look, and it stops moving, and the fish then refuses it.

That's not an easy thing to replicate. But I try, with some success. Imparting intentional movement in the form of twitches, without any steady drag, routinely outperforms a perfect drag free drift. I think this holds for nearly all dun situations, as well as egg laying caddis, though the advantage is certainly magnified on less aggressive fish (more fertile, more pressured, or slower water).

Emergers and spinners, not so much...

But for duns, using something that floats well, and then casting beyond the fish and then skating it back into the lane, twitch, drift, twitch, drift. That has become standard operating procedure for me. What I need is a dry fly powered by the worlds tiniest battery to make the wings flap, lol.....

 

[Swattie87]

This is why I fish for Gemmies. Size 12 Royal Wulff dragged across the surface within 2.5 nautical miles of the fish. Done.

Relative to the thread however, my favorite/most effective method for fishing duns is the method pcray outlines above. Cast upstream and beyond the target fish, intentionally yank the fly back into the fish's lane but still upstream of him, then alternate little jerks with brief periods of natural drift. The twitch or jerk often puts just a little slack in the leader/tippet and immediately following it you get a very brief period (perhaps 6 inches or a foot) of a very natural drag free drift. That’s when they most often get nailed I find. Works especially well with Sulphurs, but is still my preferred method with other Mayfly duns too…BWO’s, SD’s, MB’s…works with them all.

 

[foxfire]

Sorry, but have to ask!!! As a kid we were always told that the trout's body will reject the hook and it will rust-out rather quickly with no harm to the trout. Has that ever been proven to be true?!?!?

 

[salmonoid]

foxfire wrote:
Sorry, but have to ask!!! As a kid we were always told that the trout's body will reject the hook and it will rust-out rather quickly with no harm to the trout. Has that ever been proven to be true?!?!?

Destiny of hooks remaining in the body of Japanese charr Salvelinus leucomaenis and masu salmon Oncorhynchus masou masou [may2005]

Doi, T.(Tochigi-ken. Fisheries Experiment Station, Utsunomiya (Japan))
Nakamura, T.
Yokota, M.
Maruyama, T.
Watanabe, S.
Noguchi, H.
Sano, Y.
Fujita, T.

Abstract:
The destiny of hooks remaining in the body of hatchery-reared smaller (15 cm in total length) and larger (=15 cm) sized Japanese charr Salvelinus leucomaenis and masu salmon Oncorhynchus masou masou after catch and release by bait and fly fishing using barbed hooks were examined in experiment ponds. When the hooks that lodged in the mouth remained, the rejection rate of the hooks within 21 days after catch and release was relatively high (70.0-100%) for each species, size and fishing method. In the bait fishing, when the hooks that lodged in the esophagus remained, the rejection rate of the hooks from the body was low (0-l6.7% within 21 days and 15.0-50.0% within 81 days after release). Many hooks (41.2-75.0%) that lodged in the esophagus were rusted within 81 days, but few hooks were broken. Fish that have hooks in the esophagus are dangerous as food for not only humans but also other wild animals such as birds that eat fish. Anglers should take away the fish when the hook has lodged in the fish's esophagus. Also, anglers ought to use hooks that rust quickly, such as hooks without rust-proof coating.

For bass (study done by Maryland DNR):
http://web.vims.edu/GreyLit/MDNR/HooksInBass

 

[foxfire]

Thanks Sal!!!