I went out and caught a few bows last week, but I probably had 3-4 times the number of fish that I caught chase a fly (I was stripping wooly buggers and streamers slightly ahead of the current), and just before taking it (I would often even see them open their mouth), they would turn away.
I was using a 4x tippet in very clear water.
Would I be better served to go to a smaller tippet or to use flourocarbon tippet (or both)? I’m concerned I’d have trouble getting a fly to turn over right if I went to the very small tippet.
Any suggestions? I’m new to fishing for rainbows in high-pressure areas. All the fly fishing I’ve done before has either been for fish that haven’t seen many flies before, or in current so fast that the line’s harder to see.
Those fish were aggressive or they wouldn’t have chased anything. If that bait was able to get them to chase, something just didn’t trigger the strike. I would try to change up the retrieve. In other words your stripping pattern. Pull, pull, pause - pull, pull, pull, pause - pull pause. And change up the length of the strips. Short strips, then longer strips. Different lengths of pauses as well. You could try another fly if you didn’t get them to go, but with agressive fish like that instead of taking the time to change flies, recast with a different presentation many times will give them something that will trigger them.
Sure I would change flies if that didn’t do it in short order.