A lesson
This spring, the bluegills have been much more hestant to take my flies. I have often seen them rise up to the fly, almost touch it and then swim quickly away. I thought it was the smell, so I washed my hands, tried bacon grease, and a couple of other things to no avail. Saturday I was fishing a pond where the water is clear enough to see what the fish are doing. It was the same problem, a light touch and no hook. Finally as one bluegill was turning away from a mountain dew fly, I gave it two quick jerks. The fish turned and grabbed it so deeply I could not get it back out. A short time later I was stripping in a foam spider and I saw a fish following it. Again a couple of quick jerks and I had the meanest full size green sunfish I have ever caught. It seems I have been so busy getting the perfect fly, be it popper, spider, leech, whatever that I was neglecting the other part of fly fishing, making the fly appear as something alive. I am working on my retrieve philosophy before I get back to the water. I need to get a retreive that more closely resembles live food. I guess that sometimes, a slow retreive is not the correct one. When the Bluegills are chasing and feeding on small fry, the fly had better act like it is scared to attract a bite. I just have not figured out how to make the fly jump forward just when a fish swims up to it. Most of the time I cannot see them.
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