Steven,
There are MANY books written about the trout’s ability to survive. This fish with a brain the size of a pea knows how to survive. He knows how and where to reproduce each year. He knows how to feed himself. He generally knows how to avoid the circling birds of prey; etc., etc.
Evolution and nature provide wildlife with instincts and the ability survive. These inherited instincts allow the trout to adjust to conditions and to discern between likely food and not-so-likely food. This is evidenced particularly well during a heavy insect hatch. The trout key on a particular insect, and stage of that insect, and will not usually feed on any other insect which happens to float by… I know some folks throw out the very unusual situations like a trout eating a cigarette butt, etc. However these are very much the exception.
I might suggest the book “Selective Trout” by Carl Richards and Doug Swisher.
That “pea sized brain” doesn’t do anything but keep that fish alive and reproducing. That is all it is used for.
Completely agree! Yeah, trout “learn”. That’s a laugh. I guess if we apply a trait that gives these fish some ‘intelligence’, that gives us an excuse. “We were out-smarted”; “The trout are just too intelligent today” (which is to say that yesterday, when they were caught, they were not): “The trout have ‘learned’ about Catskill dries/hackled flies/hair flies/etc, and they simply won’t hit them”; “There’s a hatch of tricos and they won’t hit anything larger than a 26”; and so many more. What BS! I’m sure many here have seen the same trout caught twice or even more times over a short period.
Questions: If trout can learn, why do they take things that do not look like the real insect and even have big metal curlique thingees hanging below the lower abdomen. If exact imitation is so desired why is it that realistic flies are not used? How about the nymphs patterns that were made by zerox machines years ago? They were ‘exact’ and yet they went the way of the DoDo.
Call it learn…call it skittish…I would say that trout get better at “discerning” a “natural profile”…and more importantly a “natural drift” when fished over daily. They don’t take to being lined, and they spot drag in an instant.
My question is…for how long? I would say that if those same trout were rested for 2-3 months they would resort back to slamming rubber legs and foam with a quickness. You get “flicked” in the ear enough times, you learn to spot it a mile away…but don’t get flicked in the ear for a week?..and the next one takes you by total suprise all over again. And we have a brain to reason with.
Your opinion is worth as much as mine. However, it does not correspond to the vast majority of writers in the field.
As to your comment about Catskill dries. It is not that they have learned to stay away from them. It is that they have learned to be more discerning and, thus, the new designs which look more like the natural food source become more effective than early fly designs which were designed and tied long before we learned as much as we know today about trout behavior; insect stages and their behavior; etc.
I would suggest that you and Steven might steer away from books written by folks like Gary Borger, Swisher, Richards, Harrop, Clarke, Goddard, Caucci and Nastasi and so many more. Reading them might lower your self esteem…
I said nothing about Catskill dries other than there are many styles and patterns that are called Catskill flies. You seem to express dogma about other flies and that’s okay. Your opinion. As far as the list you offered to support your opinion, “Borger, Swisher, Richards, Harrop, Clarke, Goddard, Caucci and Nastasi and so many more”, congratulations. You can name drop. Now, let’s see if you can back up by citing specifically where and in what book those renown authors/fly fishers/tyers believe that exact(close) imitation is the most important aspect of an artificial fly. Oh, by the way, Caucci/Nastasi wrote that the Catskill dry was better on broken water/fast water than their own comparadun; the flies of Swisher and Richards were more ‘impressionistic’ than ‘imitative’; and I can list many who liked the idea of impression over imitation: Gordon, Flick, Steenrod, the Darbees, the Dettes, Cross, Wulff, Brandt, Wright, Marinaro, Fox, Bergman, Hewitt, Christian, VanPut, Helleckson, Leiser/Soloman, Voekler, LaFontaine, Kock, D. Martin, Jorgensen - just to mention a few. So in response to the 2nd sentence in your post - BUNK!
Again, your entitled to your opinion and I’m not saying it’s wrong. It is what it is - Your Opinion but don’t try to pass it off as the Holy Scripture.
I’m through on this. Believe what you want, but this is what you said earlier:
““The trout have ‘learned’ about Catskill dries/hackled flies/hair flies/etc, and they simply won’t hit them”; “There’s a hatch of tricos and they won’t hit anything larger than a 26”; and so many more. What BS!”
I THINK it may have been written as a sarcastic comment. Sort of seemed that way…
But just above you wrote:
“I said nothing about Catskill dries other than there are many styles and patterns that are called Catskill flies”
Yes, is between 65 & 70 today but a bit windy. Last week we made it up to a high Mtn lake we could not get to because of snow, 4’ deep blocking the FS road back on May 18th. Was a very good outing!! I managed to bring over 60 cutts to hand in my toon. Mostly between 10 & 12 inches but did get 2 over 14". Healthy and full of fight. I only fished two different flies. First 20 fish were on a Yellow Sally (my version) then I switched to a red Humpy, goufus bug. I only switched because the darn fish would not give me any rest at all. (poor baby heh?) They tore my humpy to shreds and after 40 + fish I cut it off and retired the mess. All in all it was a pleasant change for us. I do not know how many fish Kenny caught but he was playing with small flies, 28 & 30. Subsurface and every time I glanced at him he was fighting a fish. He does normally out fish me and I am sure he had more to hand than I did. He was fishing a little 2 wt. he likes. Oh ya, I was fishing a Sir D, bamboo I made myself from scratch a few years ago. Fun rod to fish and catch with. We have had goofy weather this year but are now seeing better conditions and lots of healthy fish. Neither of us saw any stockers so it looks like we are having good reproduction.
Just think, Denny, if you had been fishing some new designs with a fast action graphite rod you might have caught “over 60” plus one fishies !!
My guess is that those guys liked those old flies you were using so well that they were getting in line for seconds and thirds. You probably really only caught between 20 and 30 different fish ??
For the sake of civility, before going further into the discussion, let’s for the sake of argument assume that we have all read the standards including books like Selective Trout or a Modern Dry Fly Code.
Selectivity has been used as an argument for the stupidity of trout. Once keying in on one food source, the selective trout forgets about others…unlike a bass.
Trout have inherited instincts e.g. “understanding” the need for greater caloric intake than expended to get food. But that is very different from learning, Catskills bad…Hairwing Duns good.
Trout on a hard fished river may become more discerning (by some definition) over time in that they will only take more realistic patterns. The question is why?
Seems to me there are three possible answers.
Trout learn. I simply don’t buy this explanation.
Trout grow more skittish, because there are more feet in the water messing around where they live. As such, they only feel safer taking certain food forms.
As stream become more crowded (I’m thinking of that picture with 5 people right next to each other), there are less “taking” fish per angler. Back in the day, you might have been able to take them on anything, but it’s always going to be easier if there are 6,000 fish in a section per angler instead of 1,250 per angler, or less (if one thinks about pollution, stream degradation, whirling disease etc., etc.) To get one, you may have to go more realistic, but that doesn’t mean the fish learned.
If Catskills still work as well as they ever did on Eastern streams, it may be argued that those streams have been hard fished for decades at least (the pools are named for heaven’s sake!). Maybe more realistic ties would do better, but there’s no reason to expect traditional ties to do worse as the number of taking fish per angler would not have changed (all else equal).
As a professional fly tyer and Signature Designer for Rainys and Feathercraft, I tie many different Styles of Patterns. The classics work equally as well on heavily fished streams . I tie fishable realistics as well. Each pattern has its’ place on any given day, and any given water.
Certainly I concentrate on designing go-to patterns that catch fish (not fishermen…and women). I try to stay cutting edge in materials, and adding factors that are Stike Triggers in Fish. Rene, and Kelly have the same attitude when they design their patterns. Yes, there are places where the Trout become very educated (in example The South Platte Dream Stream and The San Juan River). While I am constantly having to come up with new patterns, I have had many times where I have seen only a size 26 Pheasant Tail work on such streams (the Classic PT). There have been times where Educated Trout in heavily fished streams and lakes refused the best and most realistic Go-To’s (wow…even Czech Nymphing), and I pulled out a Classic Bergman, Jennings, or DeFeo, and nailed them (along with a few other Fly Fishermen…and Women). Go figure !!! That is what keeps Pro Fly Tyers like me humble. Over the many years (even since I was a little kid), I have found the greatest Fly Fishermen, Women, and Fly Tyers (those I even count as legends) very humble and certainly not on ego trips. I still even love nicely tied classic Catskills and Bergmans in an old Wheatly Box, and still catch Trout (even big ones) on heavily fished waters. I ask you, how is it that Tenkara Masters can catch fish with simple tied Flies ? It is all about presentation, and being humble enough to know that after all these years, and on every trip, there is still something that the water, and these fish can teach you (otherwise I would get bored, quit Fly Fishing and Fly Tying).
I tie my own menagerie of complex mayfly patterns. But mostly just to keep from getting bored. I don’t claim (at least not in the Mayfly realm) they entice more strikes. I just like to tie them. During the PMD hatch on a Paradise Valley Spring creek or when fishing over the half-schizophrenic caught too many times rainbows on the Henry’s Fork, my experience is I can do just as well–or almost as well–with Catskill patterns as with the latest and greatest Rene Harrup patterns. Or with my own best in the universe mayflies. I prefer to fish with experimental patterns because it’s more fun than deja-vuing what I did 50 years ago all over again. But any measurable difference in the daily strikes to refusals ratio is minimal. At best.
I really do believe and stand by the above paragraph, at least in the midday mayfly/rainbow context. There are cutting edge new streamers, wigglers, leeches and nymphs that really do make a fish catching difference. But not so much (I don’t think) in the dry fly mayfly context. The dryfly mayfly context only happens for a few weeks every year anyway. If you live in the rocky mountains and if you try to fish every month of the year, itty bitty mayfly dryflies become a bit like after dinner desert on Christmas or Thanksgiving…as good as it gets in some ways. And almost irrelevant in other ways. On the Paradise Valley spring creeks, if you target the mid-summer mid-day mayfly hatches, you will catch mostly rainbows. Sure. You’ll get a few cutthroats and browns too. But it’s mostly rainbows during hatch time. But if you come back at 7:00pm and stay 'til dark. It’s mostly browns. And how you catch them gets complicated. Rainbows move around and follow the bugs. Browns hide out and lurk. And watch. And look for a fast and furious belly full. Big browns will eat a mayfly every now and then. But not all that often. The brown trout are the East LA gang bangers of the watery realm.
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Byron:
My tapers and texturers finished on Friday. Got two coats of paint on the walls today: one coat primer and one coat color. One more color coat tomorrow. Then the hardwood floor guys come in on July 5th. All is SUPPOSED to be done July 11th. Then and only then I can unpack my office and fly tying room. And then (again) attempt to make a DVD copy of Byron Lempke. And if I’m STILL in a generous mood, send you a copy right away. Otherwise it might take a few more days than that. :=))
I can go you one up on that. Earlier this, while fishing a two fly, I hooked and landed a decent brown on the top dropper. As I released him into the water, he immediately took my point fly and hooked himself again (IIRC, they were identical soft hackles).
I’m not sure who was dumber, though, the brown or me, since I was still holding onto the top dropper, and he managed to drive it into my thumb up to the bend. I had to land and unhook the fish (for the second time) before I could unhook myself.
A few years back, my son and I were fishing the same pool. He lost a fly to a good rainbow; it took me less than 5 minutes to catch the same fish and return him his fly. I really don’t think fish learn a whole lot about hooks.
And we have a brain to reason with.