I am currently reading Bob Wyatt’s fabulous book, “Trout Hunting: The Pursuit of Happiness,” and it helps me reconsider the following common rationale behind development of today’s many new fly patterns:
Because of catch-and-release practices and heavy fishing pressure on many famous waters, trout become more and more educated, suspicious, and discriminating. So, old, general, impressionistic flies become no longer as reliable as before because trout come to learn that they are fakes, and hence we need new, more lifelike/exact/specific imitations.
Being a presentationist and impressionist, Bob does not buy the above argument, and I agree with him.
What about your experience? Do you think that good old general patterns are still as good or better than today’s new fly patterns as long as your approach and presentation are careful and right? Or, do you buy the above rationale so that you think Catskill dry flies, for example, are too general and well-known to trout to be your go-to flies?
I appreciate your comments.
[This message has been edited by adso4 (edited 03 September 2005).]
I am with Bob all the way, but then I did proofread the manuscript as well as having many a long discussion with Bob on the subject before and after publication of the book.
Good to hear you find the book a good read. It does not (yet) have the acclaim I think it rates.
You give the trout too much credit. The Adams dry fly, decades after it’s creation in 1927 on the Boardman River in Michigan, is still the number one selling dry fly in America…because it works. Trout have an average lifespan of about 3-to 5-years. Individual trout in a controlled situation might show a reluctance to approach something that has stung them several times. But as a group, the turnover to all different fish in a given body of water in such a short period of time (hatchery or born wild) would, to my way of thinking, preclude any group memory of what flies are dangerous and what flies are not… even if they were smart enough to figure it all out in the first place, which they are not.
Taking it a step further, what about worms? Bait fishers (making up about 75 to 80 percent of the fishing public) have been using worms for bait since the beginning of time and the trout show no reluctance to take them continually, century after century and decade after decade.
How about a region…the Catskills where I fish often? Catskill style flies have been around for over a hundred years…same patterns…sold in the fly shops and fished for decades in that particular region…decade after decade. And they catch hecatombs of trout on those same flies annually. I think it’s a crackpot theory, and I’ll repeat what I said in my first sentence. Trout are just not that smart and cunning…plotting against their arch ememy, the dreaded humans. It’s “us” that perceive that they are, just to make the game more interesting…and give writers romantic plots and notions to write about.
The trout have absolutely no knowledge of our “game.” They don’t “play games”, as in telling other trout how they outwitted the dumb humans. They are in a daily fight for survival. Trout react quickly to any change in their surroundings giving us the perception that they are highly intelligent creatures with unlimited cunning and deceptive abilities. “We” invented the “game” and they don’t even know it.
Trout require two things, food and shelter. That’s it. Any angler that properly presents a fly (old or new) that is near in size and silouette to the food they are feeding on at the time, will be successful 90 percent of the time. “Properly presented” being the key words.
Later,RW
“We fish for pleasure; I for mine, you for yours.” -James Leisenring on fishing the wet fly-
[This message has been edited by Royal Wulff (edited 03 September 2005).]
First of all, thank you for your e-mail about your photos of Mike Lawson’s tying No Hackle Dun (I should have replied to and thanked you earlier), but in fact I saw them as soon as you posted their link here in FAOL bulletin. I check your website at least once a day.
And, I am not surprised to hear that you are with Bob as you took pictures of fly patterns for his book. Judging from his book and two recent articles in Fly Fishing and Fly Tying magazine, I think he is a great writer and a sharp intellectual. Say hello to him.
Lastly, do you have a plan to write your own book (hopefully in English)?
I totally agree with you, but I have seen numerous examples of that kind of justification by world-famous writers for developing new patterns in fly tying videos and articles.
I think it is due to more fishing pressure that the trout are more spooky. Think about all the fish getting overlined day after day. Get to a wild stream and they will rush to a well presented attractor fly.
Personally, I think it comes down to selecting a fly you have confidence in fishing and putting it into the zone the fish is feeding in with a good presentation.
I only tie a couple dozen patterns that cover everything from a midge to a baitfish imitation.
The flyfishing industry, like most others revolves around new design and technology only to continue to pull in yours and mine dollars!
I have watched a person who spent $100 or less on a flyfishing rod and reel, crude flies, a tapered leader with plain jane monofilament as tippet material and crude flies take his share of trout on fabled tailwaters on more than one occasion.
Everything else to me is based on pride of ownership or having the new latest and greatest.
There are some truly remarkable and valuable innovations in our sport but there are very few that rate as “must have” in order to capture your on bit of sweet success while astream.
Writers write all kinds of things that are really “stretching it”, especially fishing writers. They do it to make a better read, an interesting story line, or just to have a different point of view. I know, I’m one. But that wasn’t your original premise. You wanted to know if anyone thought old flies had lost their effectivness to new flies coming out because the trout were too used to the old flies. I say nonsense.
I never said I didn’t think new flies were better or more successful than older flies or vice-versa. They are no better or no worse. They’re all equally as good in the right place, in the hands of a competent fly fisher. It’s merely a matter of what you prefer to play “the game” with…tradition, innovation, etc., etc. Nothing more, nothing less. I think that folks who believe that trout are given more credit for intelligence than they deserve would take that point of view.
Later, RW
“We fish for pleasure; I for mine, you for yours.” -James Leisenring on fishing the wet fly-
[This message has been edited by Royal Wulff (edited 03 September 2005).]
It depends on were an how you fish. People that fish small Brooktrout streams can get away with most patterns at one time or another.
If you fish waters that are hard hit then a pattern can make a big difference. The Spring Creeks in my area get pounded to death and if you aren’t on your toes and changing things around alot you are not going to catch to many fish period. Most of the shops in this area use to all carry the same fly patterns. Now if you go in and look at each one you will find some of the same patterns but a lot of different patterns that each shop has tied for them by local tiers.
Patterns make a big difference in how many fish you take on strems that are fished hard. So does color.
Just to show. I fish in Maine a few years back and there were a number of people fishing the same area I was fishing. All were fishing local patterns that were supposed to work well on that stream. Not knowing any better I put on a size #16 Elk Hair Caddis and a small caddis emerger that works well here on our spring creeks. I took 4 fish in the first 6 casts and a total of 11 fish in about 40 mintues. I saw one other fish taken in that time. The people fishing with me asked what I was using and I gave each of them one of the paterns i had used. I also gave a few to other people I didn’t know. I told theme all how to use them and most of them took fish with that pattern. I had one fellow that was of the old school that didn’t want to use anything but a streamer and that was fine to. My point is that different pattern’s will work if you try them in different aras of this country and also on your local streams. I always pick up a few new patterns if I am in a new area to use as samlpes and to try in my home waters. Sometimes they work well and some times they fail but all in all it is worth the effert. Ron
Very similar to what we found during the set of “Catskill style dry fly” threads, opinions can be very pronounced but the underlying evidence mostly absent.
You have given an example to support your position on selectivity, but frankly for each of those experiences suggesting ‘proof’ in one direction, there are an equal number of experiences suggesting quite the opposite.
In essence the big problem is that the experiment is not repeatable. We cannot turn back the clock, make the same exact cast to the same fish, but with another pattern.
A more realistic, and dare I say more founded, approach is to examine clinically what a trout’s brain may be capable of, and what it cannot be capable of. Selectivity in the terms and scope of what you describe is very hard (read: impossible?) to make plausible based on the research done on trout brains and ‘skill set’.
You may want to check out Bob’s book and see if he can go some way into making you rethink present ‘certainties’. Even if you walk away strengthened in your present view, you will have read some thought provocing and certainly entertaining prose penned down by a very down to earth angler.
This is about fly fishing on rivers/streams.
The only thing that’s positively true, all of the time, is this(and I wish I knew whom to attribute it):
‘You can never step into the same water twice.’
You will never find the water flow, level, temperature and clarity; air temperature; insect activity; cloud cover; wind and direction; barometer; river/streambed; and insect activities exactly the same in combination. Therefore, since conditions will never be the same, no scientific test that is absolute can be performed. So we are left to make ‘best guesses’. Sure, the more we know and as our individual experiences increase, we are more apt to have better guesses. However, that does not eliminate the guessing and the success of others who have less experience.
Oft said, “That’s why they call it fishing and not catching”.
Allan
[This message has been edited by tyeflies (edited 03 September 2005).]
Hope you don’t mind, I was curious about that phrase and an internet search reveals that it is mostly attributed to Heraclitus. There are different variations around.
That makes sense becuase Heraclitus seems to have written and is quoted a lot about change in human experience. The “stream” in that quote may have referred to the stream of human experiences having nothing to do with water. Or only incidentally with water.
I present my offering to the trout for his inspection. If the fly passes muster and is accepted. I am honoured by that trout.
Should the fly be rejected by the next trout I present it to.There will be no Wailing and Gnashing of teeth. BUT! I will wonder where I went wrong.
I do believe it is the uncertainty of fly fishing which makes it so attractive to many.I am also pretty sure that the number of fly patterns out there Old or New help to give fly fishing that all embracing feel of a Magic Carpet Ride. Jax
I’m a much better Fly fisher when talking fishing, than when I’m Actually Fly fishing!
The late Leon Chandler and I had a great many in-depth and at-length discussions about casting and fishing, and found that we were in agreement on many basic theories, one of which was that the 3 most important things in FF’ing are, in order,; Presentation, Presentation, and Presentation.
If people would like a lesson on just how wary trout get when being exposed to thousands of anglers a season, and hundreds of thousands of flies, they should come down to fish the San Juan River. I’ve seen trout on the Juan refuse a NATURAL mayfly! So much for trying to match the hatch.
There are times when trout become accustomed to certain things. Think about Pavlov’s dog. They may have a brain the size of a peanut, but I think they still outsmart 90% of fly fishers.
Jude
Late to bed,
Early to Rise,
Guide all day,
Tie more flies! www.customflys.com
Methinks you are doing a fine job in painting yourself into a corner
If people would like a lesson on just how wary trout get when being exposed to thousands of anglers a season, and hundreds of thousands of flies, they should come down to fish the San Juan River. I’ve seen trout on the Juan refuse a NATURAL mayfly! So much for trying to match the hatch.
Your natural mayfly example illustrates nicely that many, many refusals are likely the result of unnatural movement or behaviour of the fly, not ‘selectivity’ on the pattern itself…?
We are now entering the realm of positve and negative triggers, a field I have more affinity with
Han’s nither you or I can prove what we are saying.
I tell mine from experence of many years and days each year when guiding on many different streams and rivers in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana and many other states that I have fish over the years.
You may very.
I also know that you, at anytime, can chuck any fly at a fish and they may take it. But I would be willing to bet fishing with the right pattern and the right color of pattern will take more fish than if you throw just any fly most of the time.
I have discussed this with many other guides in my area and other areas over the years and it would seem we all have about the same opinion. I do not know if you consider the opinion of many of the best guides in the country as evedience but that is what I am going on. We talk a lot about things like this in the winter up here while drinking coffee on cold days at the local fly shop. Heck we use to have these talks at dinner time in the summer after guiding all day. Ron
Yeah, but dancer, there have been many times when I have caught a fish on the SJ and then caught it again a while later, sometimes on the same pattern. My ex, my brother-in-law, and I caught one four times in one day several years ago. I’ve seen those fish eat indicators, cigarette butts, twigs, balls of river snot, you name it.
I never suggested chucking just any fly is the best approach. I get along fine with most, even all, of what you stated in your last post
This thread, as I understand it, is about whether trout, as a species, are able to become “educated”. I have a hard time coming to terms with that concept.
I believe any wild animal posesses survival instincts, and trout in heavily fished waters for certain grow up to become more wary of their environment, and the dangers it faces.
I quote from the starting post:
Because of catch-and-release practices and heavy fishing pressure on many famous waters, trout become more and more educated, suspicious, and discriminating. So, old, general, impressionistic flies become no longer as reliable as before because trout come to learn that they are fakes, and hence we need new, more lifelike/exact/specific imitations.
I have not heard you make a case for “more lifelike/exact/specific imitations” and I doubt you will?
