What was happening on the Bear River last night?
I went out to the Bear after work last night and worked a pool where I caught a nice little spotted brown trout on Saturday. After trying the same nymph that caught the other fish and working the same area I couldn't get any response so I moved down stream to the ironically named "for sure" hole.
I call it the "For Sure" hole because I know fish will rise there and I've hooked several but never landed them. Last night I caught a rainbow on a white mayfly and had him almost in hand. I actually touched the trout when he shook off the hook.
Oh well, I was going to release him any way.
But then here's when it got weird.
The fish were rising a LOT. There were probably 3 or 4 of them rising in specific areas. I kept working that same white mayfly to them but they wouldn't take it. I couldn't see what they were actually eating becaue it was starting to get really dark. HOWEVER there were dozens of dragonflies all over the place. They would fly down and touch the water. Some times I'd hear a splash thinking it was a fish but it was a dragon fly splashing down.
It looked like there was some connection between whatever the dragon flies were doing (dropping eggs?) and the rising of the fish. Could this be true or is this a case of "correlation does not equal causation"?
If there was a connection then what fly would I use to mimic whatever the dragon flies were doing and whatever the trout were eating? Something was exciting the fish but I couldn't see what it was. It was too dark to see if mayflies were rising out of the water although I did see an occasional white mayfly on the water. But it wasn't a serious hatch.
As it got darker the dragon flies were replaced by the bats. There were a LOT of bats out and that makes me think that there were bugs hatching OR that they were also eating whatever the dragon flies were doing.
What the heck were the trout and bats eating and how would I mimic that?
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by DruLeeParsec
