Hi,

I was lake fishing one day and the water was crystal clear. I could cast out and see the fly for pretty much the whole retrieve. I was using a hairwing streamer, the Hammlim Minnow, which is listed in the archives for the FOTW. Anyway, I was interested in watching how the fly responded to different retrieves when a brown came out of the weeds and followed it, slowly catching up. I struck too soon the first time, but 20 minutes later, the same (?) fish returned, started following the fly again, and this time I waited a bit. The take was from behind, and once it grabbed the fly it quickly turned and headed the other way back to the weeds.

On another occasion fishing a hole in the Waiteti stream (a slow moving river; very cannal like) when I was fishing a Copper Dorothy, (a New Zealand matuka streamer), my wife could see a rainbow following it and watched the take, again grabbing from behind the streamer. In the same hole, I had a few fish follow streamers as I stripped them (wouldn't follow a slow one), and appeared to be closing in to strike from behind although I would run out of room before the take and once I slowed down the strip, they got bored and would break off pursuit.

Anyway, from these limited observations, it appears to me that both browns and rainbows will, at least some of the time, follow a streamer and strike it from behind. As for "taking short", I figured that probably reflected more the hook not setting, so the fish didn't nip the tail, but the hook didn't nip the fish either.

- Jeff