'Triggers'

No! Not the horse. The term that many fly tiers use to bolster their claim about a fly pattern or design that they have 'invented' (or whatever word you want to use) and causes the trout to hit that particular fly pattern. Now, do trout strike because: of 'triggers'; the 'impression' of the fly; the 'imitative' likeliness of the fly; the 'presentation'; color; size; shape; All of the above. None of the above. Some of the above?
Why is it that at the same location, on the same river, on two succeeding days with almost the identical weather pattern and river conditions, at the same time, same hatch, same flies, etc. you have great success and then get skunked?
I'd really like to hear if anyone really thinks that a particular 'something' works as a trigger. And if it does, why does it not work all the time. And lastly, if you're that sure about 'that 'trigger', then there's only 1 reason to have flies that are another design - you don't really have that much faith in that 'trigger' now do you?

Sorry, but this is a subject I'm always interested in and have found it interesting to discuss, especially with fly fishers who strongly agree with the concept yet, have several hundred or more flies in their vest.
All the above written in good humor and opinions are just that.

Allan

I fee; certain patterns are effective because of particular "triggers" within their design. However, I don't think that the trigger is always what the fish want on a given day. I think where folks are led astray is when they feel that the pattern itself is what made the fish eat it. I would suggest that they only eat a fly when you get lucky and give the fish what THEY want. Regardless of what fly it is.

Fish quite often make us look brilliant. :)

I do incorporate a "trigger" in my nymphs but the "trigger" is not the pattern. While fishing late one evening, a mayfly hatch arrived and they were everywhere and I caught one and noticed that their head/eye had an orange pink tint to it plus there was a tint of it in the body. I guess it was not really a strong orange color and maybe a little orange/pink cast to it. I started using orange thread on my nymphs for the head. I would complete the fly and do a whip finish using whatever color thread I used for making the fly and then do another whip finish over the first one using orange thread. It may make no difference but I have more confidence when fishing them.

Of course there are triggers...we just don't know what they are, hence why we constantly generate new fly patterns in the futile but fun quest for the one magic pattern that works always. Some tire of this game and simplify their patterns to basic generic patterns (refer Bob Wyatt's work for example) but even those souls follow a design philosophy that emphasizes what they think is important. This is as much as part of the sport, as casting, and to me one of the more fascinating and intellectually stimulating aspects of fly fishing and tying. What one must wonder would happen if one were to someday discover the perfect pattern? Despite being the implicit quest of all fishers, it would really make the sport a less satisfying endeavor in my mind.

And of course, "Happy trails, to you..."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Allan

No! Not the horse. The term that many fly tiers use to bolster their claim about a fly pattern or design that they have 'invented' (or whatever word you want to use) and causes the trout to hit that particular fly pattern. Now, do trout strike because: of 'triggers'; the 'impression' of the fly; the 'imitative' likeliness of the fly; the 'presentation'; color; size; shape; All of the above. None of the above. Some of the above?
Why is it that at the same location, on the same river, on two succeeding days with almost the identical weather pattern and river conditions, at the same time, same hatch, same flies, etc. you have great success and then get skunked?
I'd really like to hear if anyone really thinks that a particular 'something' works as a trigger. And if it does, why does it not work all the time. And lastly, if you're that sure about 'that 'trigger', then there's only 1 reason to have flies that are another design - you don't really have that much faith in that 'trigger' now do you?

Sorry, but this is a subject I'm always interested in and have found it interesting to discuss, especially with fly fishers who strongly agree with the concept yet, have several hundred or more flies in their vest.
All the above written in good humor and opinions are just that.

Allan

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Try some of these and maybe thy faith will be restored..."Subtle, yet definite sparkle is one of the keys to this fly. I really like this fly..."

http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/details.cfm?parentID=97


PT/TB ;)

What do people mean by "Triggers"? Dick Walker (one of the most innovative anglers ever) proposed a theory about how trout identify food. He said it is in a similar way to how we recognise cartoons. He used a cartoon like this to make his point.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...n_edited-1.jpg
It doesn't look like a Chinaman but when we see that the character has a wide face, slanted eyes and a coolie hat we think Chinaman. Dick Walker proposed the theory that the trout use similar kinds of "keys", as he called them. This would, he said, explain why the things that are out of character are ignored. So long as we see enough key points in a cartoon we recognise it despite it not looking anything like the real thing. In the same way tick enough of the food boxes and you will get a take. No matter how many other details have to be ignored.

If you are calling these "keys" trigger points then I can see the point. If by triggers you mean something else then I don't know.

Sometimes the fish just are not feeding. Also there are things that we just can't imitate with our flies. I have had trout take midges off my size 28 Griffiths Gnat. The midges were using the fly's imprint on the surface to crawl through the meniscus. They wouldn't take anything larger, and no one makes hooks that small. On the R. Wharfe one day I arrived to find Mayflies (E.Danica) riding the current on the far bank, and trout going mad rising under the trees where the mayflies drifted over them. I went through every large dry fly in my box. I could not get a rise to any of them. Eventually I tried a Female Adams, with a greenish yellow tag. Bang! Every drift I had rises. Eventually I worked it out. They were taking aphids that were falling off the trees, and had keyed in on the green. The rest of the size 12 fly was being ignored because there was a tiny touch of green in it. I had fish to both wet and dry aphid imitations and a caddis pattern with green in it. Green was the key. It isn't often that we can spot what the trout are using to identify food, but when you crack it it is very productive.

Strange that in relating my experience I have also shown that colour can be of importance in a dry fly.

Dick Walkers theory may not be 100% but it is useful in that it helps me catch more fish.

Cheers.
A.

I think a trigger point is more of an attribute to a particular fly, that is not meant to resemble an attribute of the natural explicitly. Such as adding a strip of flashabou flashback to a wing-case of an otherwise perfectly impressionistic pheasant tail nymph. Or a new dubbing such as Ice-dub to an existing fly adding flash. Or adding a colored bead head to a nymph that is not a normal color within the ecosystem. When these types of additions work and cause fish to take the fly noticeably over the closer to natural pattern, most label that flash or color as a "trigger point".

Here are a few 'triggers' that I've actually seen trout take with consistently: Cigarette butts tossed off of a bridge; While standing on a bridge/overpass, a bunch of flies all types, sizes and patterns flew out of a fly box and into the water. As they floated down the river, unencumbered by any attachment, every one was taken; I've watched underwater videos where trout take in all kinds of debris. If, after all these observations I had to identify 1 'trigger' it would be that the food source, whatever it was, was completely free in its float and looked natural to the trout. Had nothing to do with 'bubbles', or wing height, or footprint, or brightness/dullness of the shuck, or any proclaimed 'trigger'. Think not? Get a bunch of old - even used flies(but take any tippet off the hook). Toss them in a water where you know there are trout and see what happens.

I agree, drift/presentation is probably "THE" most important factor of all. But trying to pidgeon-hole an attribute of feeding among trout is like trying to get water to only go through one hole in a strainer. :)

ed engle lists four "triggers," three of which i've included in this soft hackle...

.Attachment 13179

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Allan

No! Not the horse. The term that many fly tiers use to bolster their claim about a fly pattern or design that they have 'invented' (or whatever word you want to use) and causes the trout to hit that particular fly pattern.

Now, do trout strike because: of 'triggers'; the 'impression' of the fly; the 'imitative' likeliness of the fly; the 'presentation'; color; size; shape; All of the above. None of the above. Some of the above?

Why is it that at the same location, on the same river, on two succeeding days with almost the identical weather pattern and river conditions, at the same time, same hatch, same flies, etc. you have great success and then get skunked?

I'd really like to hear if anyone really thinks that a particular 'something' works as a trigger. And if it does, why does it not work all the time. And lastly, if you're that sure about 'that 'trigger', then there's only 1 reason to have flies that are another design - you don't really have that much faith in that 'trigger' now do you?

Sorry, but this is a subject I'm always interested in and have found it interesting to discuss, especially with fly fishers who strongly agree with the concept yet, have several hundred or more flies in their vest.

All the above written in good humor and opinions are just that.

Allan

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Allan,

A member of this forum asked me to repost here, a post I made on another forum about how trout become selective feeders. The questions you are asking, for the most part are answered in the post below. You are basically asking why trout will at one time or in fact at one location with the same flies/hatch hit a particular fly and at another time not.

The thing to remember is that trout are biologic organisms whose behavior is population based. Given a smorgasbord of food, not everyone on this forum would eat the same food, or in the same order, or in the same amount. And yet we seem surprised when trout that were hitting a fly one day will not on another. Although you say that the weather was the same, the flies were the same, and the time of day was the same, the behavior was NOT the same.

My answer is that there had to be parameters that were not the same. When you read the post below, one possibility is that the fish where you were fishing were more selective and the fly and presentation that worked when the fish were less selective did not work with a population of fish that became more selective. The longer a hatch goes on and the denser the hatch, there is increasing probability of selective behavior for the reasons I explain in my main post.

Another possibility is a masking hatch. Could there have been an event such a flying ants that was totally unexpected. Ants are extremely hard for an angler to detect and I have been fooled by them more than once. This happened to me just a few weeks ago on the Madison River when a fly that should have worked did not. There were size 22 flying ants in the drift.

The term trigger in fly fishing to me means an attribute of the fly, without which the fish will not hit the fly. It may not even be how the fly looks. It can be the water column that the fly seeks, or the angle in that water column that the fly naturally assumes. It is something about the fly that causes the fish to "pull the trigger."

With the introduction above here is my post on "How Trout Become Selective Feeders".

Part 1:

Please forgive me for this long post. I have posted on this subject on other BBs and I have found that most fly fishers do not understand the biologic basis of selectivity or matching the hatch.

The underlying principle behind matching the hatch is selectivity as a feeding behavior. What is it and why does it occur? Why do fish sometime eat sticks and hit strike indicators, and at other times will ignore a well presented fly that imitates the current hatch?

There are several principles that need to be understood.

The first rule is that any behavior is population based. What I mean by that is that when we are fly fishing, it is our nature to assume that the behavior we see is the behavior of all the fish. It is not. Just because one fish takes a fly or refuses a fly, we cannot assume that all the fish will do the same thing.

In fact, the behavior we observe may be an atypical one. This is called sampling error. When we fish, we are sampling the populations for those fish that are susceptible to the method we are using; and therefore, any success we have is based solely on statistical variation. We are more likely to be successful when using a method that targets a greater proportion of the population, but we often forget that fishing is a statistical sampling method.

The second rule is that selectivity is a survival mechanism and is not based on intelligence.

The third rule is that selectivity can only occur in fertile watersheds.

The fourth rule is that larger fish must become more selective than smaller fish if they are to survive.

So with those principle in mind, here is my view of selectivity.

Selectivity occurs only in situations where there is abundant food. If the fish live in a stream where food is scarce, they will feed opportunistically. They cannot be selective to just a single food source because there is never a large or sustained hatch to become selective. So selective feeding occurs only in nutrient rich environments.

Selectivity is the most efficient method of feeding. An organism can only survive if the energy it gets from food is greater than the energy it expends to catch and eat the food. Selectivity then is a biologic necessary method that optimizes survival. It is a biologic adaptation that gives the organism that uses it a survival advantage. That is the reason that the fish feed selectively. They cannot help themselves from becoming selective feeders.

Another biological cause of selectivity is the size and age of the fish. As fish grow older and larger, their energy (calorie) requirements become relatively greater. A large fish requires more energy to chase food and yet gains fewer calories per body weight when it eats the food. Because larger fish expend relatively greater energy to catch food, but receives relatively less energy when it captures food; it must feed effectively if it is to survive. What is crucial then is not the total number of calories in a food item, it is the ratio of the calories spent vs the calories consumed per body weight.

For large fish, selectivity is more important as a survival strategy than for smaller fish. That is why we see smaller fish chasing food and our flies but rarely do large fish chase a fly unless it is a large fly that promises a large reward in calories.

Once a fish feeds selectively, it cannot help itself from feeding on our fly, if the fly meets the criteria for food.

How then does a fish become selectivity? Well, they don't do it through intelligence. Trout cannot reason. What trout can do is sample; they sample what they think is food. If the item is food and it is abundant enough, the trout will feed on it often enough that the visual pattern of the food eventually becomes imprinted. Then the fish then begins to search for this food pattern exclusively and ignores most other items that could also be food. If the food is very abundant, the fish will begin to both narrow the area it searches ( the fish feeds only on food that is in a narrow "feeding" lane) and the fish will develop a feeding rhythm. The fish mechanically moves up and down, taking the food item that happens to be in its feeding window.

The psychologist term for the development of selectivity is Operant Conditioning, Operant conditioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia as first described by B. F. Skinner. The fish is rewarded when it feeds on an item that is food and if there is enough of this particular item, the fish becomes conditioned to feed only on that food. That conditioning is what we call selectivity.

The fish does not reason, it takes whatever is in the window that meets its search pattern. It is all automatic and the fish cannot help itself from taking our fly if it meets the search pattern, and it is in the right place (feeding lane) at the right time (rhythm).

The question then becomes, what are the fishes search criteria (triggers)? Everyone seems to agree that size, shape, behavior and color are search criteria. We know this, not because of positive evidence, but because when the fly does not meet all or most of these criteria, the selective fish refuses to take the pattern when it is in the right place at the right time.

Part 2 of "How Trout Become Selective Feeders".


When discussing selectivity, or selective feeding, we must realize that we are discussing a biologic system. In any biologic system there is variation in the population and there will be a variation in behavior. So although the discussion above treats a population as a single unit of identical behavior, the reality is that there will be a variance in both behavior and timing, so that what we find is similar to a bell curve distribution. Although the majority of fish may be feeding on a given stage of emergence, some fish may be still feeding on an earlier stage or may have progressed to a later stage.

Combine this variation in behavior with overlapping or simultaneous multiple hatches, and the possibilities become confounding to the angler who is trying to "match the hatch".

This confounding behavior, however, is not a conscious attempt by the fish to fool the angler. It is just the result of an efficient feeding method superimposed on a fish population with biological variance.

Why do some fish take other forms of food when most are selective? Again it is biological variance. Fish are not automatons. There is room for variance, and in fact, if there was no reported variance in a biologic system we would suspect that the data was flawed or manufactured. It would be too good to believe.

So a fish breaking out of selectivity can mean either biologic variance in a large fish or a juvenile fish that has no need to feed as selectively to optimize its caloric intake.

It is also apparent to me that selectivity is not an all or none proposition.

What I mean by that, is that at any given moment you may have both selective and and non selective feeding. Even more confounding, the selective fish may be feeding on different stages of the hatch; or if there are multiple hatches, there may be trout that are feeding selectively on different stages of different hatches.

If you fish in waters where multiple dense hatches occur often, you will find yourself in such a situation. To say that the theory of selectivity is not valid because a fish takes a Royal Wulff during a hatch does not disprove selectivity. What it proves is that some fish will take a Royal Wulff when some or most of the other fish are feeding selectively.

Biological systems have variant behavior. To observe such behavior and state that that observation disproves a theory is simply not correct in my view. The question is not how a single individual trout may behave at a single instant in time, but how the average population behaves over a length time. An individual fish may break a selective feeding pattern to take a Royal Wulff. But my view is that this does not negate the overall behavior which is selective feeding.

Here are two Venn diagrams that illustrate what happens during a hatch and how selectivity develops.

The vertical Venn diagram below demonstrates what happens during a hatch with the nymphs turning into emergers and emergers into adults. Note that the size of each of the portions is relative to the timing of the hatch. In the diagram below, most of the nymphs that will emerge during that hatched have already turned into adults. At any given time the number of emergers is relatively small compared to the number of nymphs and adults BUT the emergers are trapped in the film so they may be small in absolute terms but they are huge relative to the number of the insects that can be taken by the fish. Most of the adults are already in the air and the majority of the remaining nymphs have not yet begun to emerge.




http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...ennDiagram.jpg



The longitudinal Venn diagram below shows the development of selectivity in the fish as they go through a transition phase from opportunistic to selective feeding. Before the hatch they are feeding opportunistically and as the hatch develop they become selective.



http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...ennDiagram.jpg



If we look at the population of trout as a population distribution of feeding behavior and graph the number of fish in the Y Axis and selectivity along the X axis we get an approximation of a bell curve. The blue curve is when most of the population is feeding opportunistically and the center of the curve gradually moves to the right to the pink scale as they become selective.



http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...nce/images.jpg


The graph below demonstrates what happens if the hatch last a long time and is regular and heavy. The population begins to cluster and feed more alike as virtually all the fish center around a core of selective behavior. There are relatively fewer and fewer outlier fish that exhibit no selective behavior. Again they move from a wide spread blue distribution to a more consistent pink bell distribution where the behavior is more uniform across all the feeding fish.



http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...bellcurve1.png



What the graphs demonstrate is an idealized situation. For this to occur in the real word, the macro and micro environment of each fish would have to be identical. Every fish would have to have access to the same number of nymphs, emergers and adults as every other fish. That cannot and does not occur in the real world.

So as you move from place to place in a river, the fishes behavior will mirror the change in environment from where your were to where you are.

Isn't that why we move from a place we are not catching fish in to a place where we hope we will catch fish in? The graphs and explanation above is the scientific underpinning of why we do what we do to catch fish as selectivity develops during a hatch.

For example, say we are faced with almost all the fish feeding super selectively as in the pink graph above. Frustrated with not being able to "match the hatch" we employ the "hatch breaker strategy" of using a fly that is completely different that the hatch but familiar to the fish when they are feeding opportunistically. So we put on an ant or a beetle or we strip a big streamer. Unfortunately this does not work and with our knowledge of what is going on with these "Red Zone" super selective fish, we decide to move.

We move and find that our hatch breaker strategy is picking up fish. Why? It is because we have found a population that is in the "Green Zone" and those at the lower end of that green bell curve are still open to feeding opportunistically to the hatch breaker fly we are presenting.

As a physician with an undergraduate degree in chemistry, I know that theories are propositions that seem to correlate with reality. By that I mean that theories do no have to be absolutely true for them to be of usefulness. All they need to do is to predict or explain behavior such that we can use the theories to help us remember how the world works and to predict what will occur.

What do I mean by the above? As an example we can use Newtonian physics which explains and predicts the motion of planets. Newton believed that gravity was due to the attraction of heavenly bodies. We now know that Newton was wrong. Einstein showed that gravity is actually a wave that is pushed out from an object that distorts space. Well so what?

Well, it is apparent to me that even if Newton's theory was wrong, we can still use Newton's laws of gravitation to predict the motion of heavenly bodies. It may be wrong but it correctly predicts what happens and what will happen.

Therefore, the theory of selectivity does not have to be absolutely true. If selectivity explains the behavior of a fish and predicts what will happen during a hatch, it gives us useful information and gives us a framework with which to understand and predict behavior.

Selectivity and any other "theory" of fishing does not have to be absolutely true. It just has to explain and predict behavior better than a competing theory.

Wow! Tough post to follow but here goes. If a 'trigger' is something about the fly that entices a fish to eat it ....I challenge anyone to tie a fly that catchers fish and doesn't have a trigger.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tig

Wow! Tough post to follow but here goes. If a 'trigger' is something about the fly that entices a fish to eat it ....I challenge anyone to tie a fly that catchers fish and doesn't have a trigger.

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Trigger is used in the context of selective feeding. I should have made that more clear.

When trout are sampling the drift, they try all sorts of things as the poster that referred to cigarette butts noted. They hit thingamabobbers, they hit floating leaves, etc.

Selective feeding implies that the fish MUST be selective to something about the fly or the presentation. Sampling feeding means they are just sampling the drift so there is no specific "trigger" other that the item happens to be in the drift.

If what I posted is true, then it also must be true that when we fly fish, we are sampling the trout. We are sampling the trout for those trout that are susceptible to the fly and techniques we are using.

Have you ever been in the situation where you caught a number of trout with a particular fly or technique and then that fly stopped working and the other feeding fish refused the fly? What has happened is that you have sampled and caught the fish that were susceptible to your fly but the other fish were feeding on another food item or the same food item that is at another sage of emergence. You have just proved biologic diversity of feeding behavior.

Fly fishing is a method of sampling the fish and we hope that method of sampling matches what the fish is susceptible to. It is no different than using a magnet to pick out the objects that contain iron from a box of items. So we should not be surprised when one fly works and another fly does not. That is why we carry various flies.

Fish can also change their behavior based on what has happened to them while feeding. This is the negative behavior modification of operant conditioning. Recall that selective behavior is the result of the fish being rewarded by food when it eats a particular item so it become operant conditioned to eat that item. This is selectivity.

They can also become selective in the opposite sense in that they will refuse an item that give them negative feedback such as being caught by a particular appearing or acting fly. This is why they refuse a fly that is dragging. They can also become selective in the negative sense that they will refuse particular flies. We experience this type of behavior when a fly that has worked well becomes the "magic" fly on a river and then over a season it stops working. This is negative operant conditioning in action. The fish will ignore this fly because they have been caught with it with negative consequences. This is another reason I will carry several types of dry fly patterns of the same hatch.

I have been in a situation on the San Juan River when the fish were so selective they fed only on a subset of BWO duns. I was fishing with some friends and was called over by one of them who was casting to a pod of feeding rainbows in slow water. He had casted to these fish and not been able to catch a single one so he called me over to try. I asked him to cast again and I could not see any problem with his presentation. There was no drag. The fish just refused the fly.

We could see that the rainbows were taking mature duns. The fish had refused both his comparaduns and parachutes. I had some no hackles and put one on and the fish took the fly.

Then I caught a few more but there were fish in the pod that refused the no hackle and yet I could see that they were taking duns. Why did these fish refuse?

I stopped casting and looked a bit closer and I finally noticed that these fish refused the duns with perfectly upright wings and took only the duns that were canted to one side or the other with one wing up and the other down. So I fixed my fly so that it would float canted, and I was able to catch more of the fish.

This is the only time I have ever witnessed this super specific feeding behavior because the fish on the San Juan are not angler shy. You can really get close to them and they will continue to feed.

My theory is that these are super pressured fish, and when the hatches are dense, as with the BWO hatches on the San Juan, there are enough of these canted duns for the fish to feed just on these. I know that this type of super selective behavior exists, and it is not surprising to me that some fish will refuse a parachute and take a comparadun or vice versa.

Silver,
Thanks for posting. Appreciate your clarification of the subject. LaFontaine, I believe, was a practitioner who well understood the concept.

For example, in one of his books, he says: "It's the first strong visual characteristic, the one triggering the trout's decision to take a natural or an imitation, that is critical. This feature varies even with different stages of the same insect, such as a mayfly, and the matching fly must have it."

Many great fishers, including Gary Borger, promote the "exaggerated trigger". For example, if trout are selectively taking a certain adult, floating dun, they would argue fishing a matching pattern with oversized wings Might be fruitful due to the fact that the wings are the first characteristic coming into the trout's window of vision.....and they are looking for the distinctive wings.

From LaFontaine's "Dry Flies - New Angles":


http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2c9c84b8.jpg

Here are two other points in the discussion of "triggers."

A trigger that has not been mentioned under behavior is the "acoustic footprint/signature" of the fly. Sight is not the only sense that predator fish use to locate their prey. The trout's lateral line is extremely sensitive to changes in pressure waves. This is an anatomical adaptation that allows a trout to find a location in the stream with the least flow resistance so it can shelter itself from the current. This same lateral line is used by the fish to locate prey. Flies that displace water when retrieved send out acoustic pressure waves that attract predatory trout. The blades of a Mepps spinner does the same thing by sending pressure waves that indicate that the spinner is a live organism.

Just as motion can suggest that something is alive, so do acoustic pressure waves. Just as the acoustic pressure waves of a wading fisherman can cause a fish to flee without even seeing the angler, so can the pressure waves of struggling minnow or fly attract a predatory fish to investigate. This is how fish detect flies in discolored water of at night. A trigger need not be visual!

http://www.garyborger.com/2009/12/09...tic-footprint/

A streamer fly that has a bulky "collar" of material at the head is specifically designed to create an "acoustic trigger". A Gary Borger Collared Leech is specifically designed to create and acoustic trigger.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...laredLeech.jpg


There also can be what Gary Borger calls "super triggers," referred to by Byron in his post. These are enhanced properties of the fly over the natural that go beyond just meeting the search criteria. They are specifically designed to attract fish by enhancing the property of the natural.

What do I mean by "enhancing" the search criteria? An example is the reddish/orange spinner fished at dusk. At dusk the ambient light is the red/orange glow of the sun at sunset. Even spinners that are not naturally red or orange look red/orange in the golden light of sunset. A sherry colored spinner will catch more fish at sunset than the natural color of the spinner because of the enhanced reddish orange color of the artificial.

Gary Borger told me of a discussion he had with John Goddard of The Trout and The Fly, A New Approach, which has an extensive discussion on trout vision, pp 59 - 105. John had wondered why the Sherry Spinner which has a reddish orange tint would catch more fish than flies of the natural color. The puzzle was solved when John went under water and looked at the naturals which had a reddish glow due to the reddish light at sunset. The flat spinner wings on the water had an orange glow.

The red/orange light at sunset and dusk causes the naturals at this time of day to take on an orange reddish tint. Flies of this color fished at or near dusk will catch more fish than flies that are identical the color of the naturals. An orange spinner fished at sunset will "match the hatch" no matter what the color of the natural.

Matching the hatch is a concept based on selective feeding. Selectivity is a survival mechanism that trout have developed to gain the most food with the least effort because they feed efficiently and do not waste energy trying items that are "not food". They simply cannot help themselves.

Normally color is a minor search criteria, but when feeding on spinners with translucent wings, the sherry color of sunset causes the flat spinner wings to glow that distinct color.

The concept of accentuating a key feature of the natural that attracts the the fish's attention to the artificial vs the natural is called a "super trigger". The sherry spinner wings are a super trigger. It causes the artificial to stand out amongst the naturals and the fish seem to preferentially choose the artificial from amongst the naturals.

When faced with a perplexing situation, a sampling net can give you the solution.

An easy and cheap sampling net is a 5 gallon paint strainer. Put the strainer over your landing net and you can use it to seine the water. Sometimes, I even wade right into the feeding lane. It puts down the fish, but when you are not catching the fish anyway, it can give you some possible reasons.

First published by Gink and Gasoline

http://www.ginkandgasoline.com/fly-f...of-home-depot/

http://www.ginkandgasoline.com/wp-co...1/DSC_8477.jpg

Silver,
A lot of what you discussed above is covered very well in Gary Borger's fine book: "Designing Trout Flies". I would very highly recommend that book to anyone tying or choosing flies. Borger provides the "why" for effective trout patterns.

So, rather then read all the posted pablum, today I watched for the upteenth time a Lee Wulff dvd and listened to what he had to say about trout, how they behave, selectivity and survival. Then I watched 2 dvd's that showed the underwater action of trout, how they behave, what they eat, where they swim in the water column, and other things that trout do. I might suggest that instead of regurgitating what others have written and accepting it as dogma, it might be worthwhile to see something for yourself.

Oh. I think it's great to sell the idea of 'triggers'.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Allan

So, rather then read all the posted pablum [snip ramblings]

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So if you are going to ignore the discussion, why did you start it? Unable to assimilate viewpoints or information that disagrees with your world view or were you just disappointed the thread did not confirm you own beliefs? Ah, the Internet...

No, I enjoy reading the opinions of others that are based on something. However, I did not feel like reading an essay of undetermined origins. If someone wants to say they think that something like a certain footprint is a 'trigger', or something else is, that's fine. But if someone wants to say that something is a trigger because so and so says it is, that's B.S. I've read many books where the author says that his/her fly pattern is great because such and such is a trigger. Yet, sometimes when I ask fly fishers if they've used so and so's flies, the answer is 'Nope. They ain't worth squat'. Or something to that effect. I've seen a name bandied about these threads and posts as an authoritative expert. Well, back when, and for 3 years straight, I saw that person hawk 3 different brands of fly hooks. Each year he/she raved about the brand of hook he/she was hawking. Of course maybe there was $$$ tied to the supporting advertisement.

At any rate, and talking about dry flies right now, I believe there's something about every fly that causes a trout to take it or not. In fact, one trout may let a fly go and the next trout along the current may ingest it. What didn't trigger one but triggered the other? We'll never know because trout don't talk.

Amen Allan.

I have to agree with Allan. That was a tremendous amount of reading (for a post) just to get an opinion.

Personally, I would put more confidence in the findings/research of renown, generally well-respected authors like Gary Borger, Eric Leiser, Craig Matthews, Goddard & Clarke, Rene Harrop, Gary LaFontaine, etc, etc.
They have spent lifetimes studying all things trout and how to catch them.
I've found that you can learn a great deal from such great teachers. Thanks SilverCreek for summarizing some of the common precepts of such authors.

I think we often over-think when it comes to fly fishing. We often give both the trout more credit then they deserve as well as the fisherman and his/her patterns. But given that acknowledgment, you can neither disregard one fisherman's opinions or thoughts as pablum any more than you can place a well-known name in the industry above that of the average guy putting feather and thread to hook.

A true story....in I believe 1995 or 1996 I was camping and fishing overnight at Rocky Ford Spring Creek in Washington St. On the 2nd morning I woke up to a crew of high-end trucks, camera crews, Orvis shirts and Gary Loomis hats. I recognized a few of them from shows and such. Talking to one of the camera guys as I brushed my teeth out of my canteen cup as I watched them get ready, he explained they were testing a new GL Spring Creek rod and filming "technical midge fishing". I fished upstream of them in the main pool most of the morning as I watched them put on casting demos for shots and catch I think maybe 2-3 smallish fish all morning. I caught 5-6 fish on a #18 Hairs ear twitched in. While a guy upstream of me caught at least a dozen fish, but 3 monster fish on a black and purple wooly bugger. Impressive fish. Talking with him later they were Walmart flies and a $50 rod/reel setup. straight out of bubble wrap packaging. He was in his 50's and had been fly fishing most of his adult life. He instructed me, "purple and black works here," with a wink. I agreed with him and thanked him for the help. That one guy gave me more usable information for that water than that whole crew of pros could have mustered put together.

But that's the fun in all of this craziness we call flyfishing.