There comes a point in a man's life where he can no longer suffer the repeated embarrassment and outright disrespect directed at him from another. The decisions made in those situations can define that man, and his life. In choosing properly, even if aided by luck, heroes of history are born and men of average intellect crowned geniuses. On the contrary, the wrong decision can put in motion an uncontrollable series of progressively worse events, with the end being so remote from the beginning, that neither side can remember how things got started, or more importantly, how to get back to normalized relations.
It is with these thoughts weighing heavily on my mind, that today, April 7, 2006, I am issuing a fatwa declaring jihad on trout - in particular, rainbow and brown trout. The plain and simple truth is that I have been wronged by trout, on a consistent basis, for close to 10 years now. It took me a while to realize that this was the case, as, I understand now, I have become very good at covering up failures with aphorisms, spouting things like "Hey, no worries - that's why they call it fishing and not catching" with greater and greater consistency over the years. But, with winter ending and thoughts of the Delaware River starting to sprout in my mind like eager tulip bulbs, something snapped in me this year and forced me to conduct an honest accounting of the situation.
The results of that analysis were not pretty. I haven't caught anything on my 6 weight that I would disrespect by catching on a 2 weight in at least 8 years. And, if you don't count fishing in the Keys, I probably haven't caught anything more than 10 x bigger than the flies used to catch them in just as long. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if most of the fish that I have caught, were actually not trying to eat my flies, but were merely trying to wrestle or play with them - thinking it was a buddy given their comparable sizes. Enough's enough. I'm done taking this lying down. Trout and I are no longer friends, and the sad truth is that we probably haven't even been on speaking terms since the summer of either '95 or '96.
So, what do I intend to do about it, and why, you might ask, do I think that openly declaring a jihad will do anything other than further strain an already floundering relationship? In response to the former, I have come up with the following:
My 10 Step Plan for Catching a Trout Bigger Than a Carrot:
- Change my fly line - It's clearly cursed. Or it smells bad.
- Learn to think more like a trout - There are a number of good books on this, although, to my knowledge, none of them were published by trout so that does cast some doubt on their accuracy.
- Invest more in flies - While I do have a pretty good collection of flies, they don't seem to work. Maybe they got too close to my cursed fly line.
- Be humble in my approach - There's no need to go for the long cast if there are good pockets closer. Although it may seem more exciting to throw 40 yards of line out, mending becomes an issue and trout don't seem to be impressed by casting length.
- Become better at mending line - Trout hate flies that don't get a natural drift. They seem to particularly hate it when my (cursed) flies get a bad drift.
- Fish more often - You can't catch a trout in Manhattan.
- Don't be fooled by false rises - Sometimes, it seems that trout rise again and again, but never take a fly. In these situations, it can only be assumed that these trout are actually miniature dolphins (or another closely evolved species), and are coming to the surface for air.
- Don't be angry if false rises are proven to be mocking - See above. If, it is rather determined that trout are not actually mammals, and the false rises are actually trout mocking my casts, done for no plausible reason other than to taunt me, do not get angry and cause a scene. The offending trout don't deserve that pleasure, and it may damage chances with other trout, further up the river.
- Change flies more frequently - If a fly ain't workin', get it back in the box.
- Don't fear the "dry fly as indicator, nymph or emerger hanging off the hook" set up - Very complicated, and can be annoying in windy conditions, but I think that trout respect the effort.
While nothing in life is certain, I can say that I feel much better going into the 2006 trout season with a solid plan ready for execution. As for whether or not my open declaration of jihad will negatively impact my relationship with trout, only time will tell. That said, I'm not really sure how they would find out anyway. Given the daily page views numbers on my blog and the fact that, to my knowledge, no trout own computers, it seems difficult to believe that any trout would stumble upon this post doing a Google search on "Collmer trout jihad Delaware River". I guess Blackberry's could be a problem. Otherwise, it would have to be through word of mouth, and the big problem there is that, seeing as I've never seen a trout with ears, I don't think they'd be able to hear someone giving them the warning. But then again, that could just be that all of the trout I've caught have been too small to grow ears yet.
Some other items for your list:
1) get into emergers. Those Delaware fish, and most trout everywhere feed mostly under the surface. Even when they look like they're rising they may be skimming an emerging mayfly an inch below.
2) be afraid of dragging your fly only if you're dry-fly fishing to trout that are actually feeding on the surface. BUT, do not be afraid of swinging or dragging your fly when fishing nymphs, emergers, the dropper-technique you mentioned, or dry-fly fishing Caddis. One of the favorite techniques on the Henry's Fork is to cast downstream with an elk hair caddis and let it skate across the surface.
3) Don't forget the wooly buggers and other creatures and streamers
4) Read "Aquatic Entomology"....or other like books that get into the life cycle of stream insects...will make you an expert in getting to any stream and figuring out what the food of the day is, which is often the most important part of figuring out the puzzle. So when you see caddis flying all over the place but you pick up a rock and see some tan mayflies with dark thoraxes (wings forming), you may be the only guy on the river throwing on an emerger pattern to match the mayflies, and may be the only guy catching fish.
5) Don't fish too light of tippet...most often this is not the problem with false rises. And light tippets lose big fish.
6) stomach pumps and seines - cheating? That's up for argument. But they help tell you what's for dinner. When using a seine don't shuffle your feet upstream of it like so many do...that only loosens the same insects you could find by picking up moss and rocks. Try to stand in the faster rapids and pick up the free flowing travelers.
7) Stoneflies in fast water....big ones
Posted by: Snider | Friday, April 07, 2006 at 04:13 PM