Tiny Baetis mayflies are perhaps the most commonly encountered and imitated by anglers on all American trout streams due to their great abundance, widespread distribution, and trout-friendly emergence habits.
Yes, Goddard believes he has proved that when a fish drifts back with the floating object held at a certain angle, it is doing just that. This behavior is most noted in bright light when a critter in the middle of the window would be a black silhouette. Un-pressured fish will hold in the current and as the object hits the Snell, that brief look will trigger the response to take or reject. An educated (pressured) trout will do the "drift back" for a longer inspection in the hope of avoiding "sore mouth." :) The really smart ones will even turn to follow a little to verify further by changing the background or backlight. Those are the really tough bastards! :)LOL Pretty compelling evidence...
Un-pressured fish will hold in the current and as the object hits the Snell, that brief look will trigger the response to take or reject.
An educated (pressured) trout will do the "drift back" for a longer inspection in the hope of avoiding "sore mouth."
The really smart ones will even turn to follow a little to verify further by changing the background or backlight.
I can attribute this behavior to the fish watching for drag in the drift of the fly
I wonder if the “discriminating” trout (educated) keeps the insect within Snell’s Circle as a means to study and verify?
I have a theory, just a theory, that the reason trout drift backward inclined at a 70 degree angle observing the fly, is in order to use polarized light to see the surface fly clearly in fast broken water.
Are we attempting to anthropomorphize our quarry?
Overmywader has done an excellent job of discussing and describing what a trout sees. Not what a trout thinks.
Do trout think?
We've all seen educated trout drift back to inspect our fly. Many times I can attribute this behavior to the fish watching for drag in the drift of the fly. As soon as even a little drag is detected the fish turns away on goes back to it's original holding position. I've caught many really tough fish just by changing my tippet length or size and/or mending or introducing slack into my cast, or even changing my casting position to one more favorable to achieve a drag-free drift.
Are we attempting to anthropomorphize our quarry?
Do trout think?
What do you think is most important?
-Drift (drag free or active)
-Depth (on, in or below)
-Size
-Pattern style
-Color
Where does UV profile fit in?
Just wanted to follow up by saying we don't disagree. The apparent dichotomy is just from working with a different definition of thinking/cognition. Mine was based on the common historical use of the words that was synonymous with sentient reasoning in order to address anthropomorphism. The flip side - do humans ever think like trout?
As A.J. McClane (the finest fishing writer of all time) said of trout fishermen (IIRC) "We pride ourselves on outwitting a creature with a brain the size of a pea... which is not sufficiently evolved to burp."
We can be proud, not in out-thinking a fish, but in deceiving a prey that has an elaborate sensory system tuned at all times to flight. In many ways fly fishing for wary fish is much like defusing a bomb. The likelihood of explosion is greater than the likelihood of success; someone will always tell you to cut the green wire; and each day (astream) is never long enough (even though the internal timer stops at 1 second the moment you see the first rise).
So, does polarized light provide better detail in broken water than un-polarized light? (It does for the fisherman, which is why he wears polarized sunglasses.)
What do you think?
I recall an instance in which I observed two rainbow trout drifting ahead of my fly, preceding it by about 18", at a depth of 10", and tilted at a 70 degree angle. The sun was very bright and the water was broken - making observation based solely on Snell's circle of little use.
Most of us have had a trout hit a fluorescent strike indicator.
. . .
One of them (dubbings) was a dark maroon/purple. I tied a hares ear with that and had such good luck with it that for years my friends and I used nothing else when we fished nymphs. Even bought several more vials of just that color. Since I often was standing around a blacklight with my fishing jacket on it wasn't long til I noticed that the purple hares ear fluoresced. Always wondered if that is why the trout loved the thing.
. . .
But back to fluorescence and fish. A now defunct shop, Cold Spring Angler, used to sell fluorescent orange dubbing to tie an ant pattern. . . . I've had exceptional luck with these ants, sometimes when nothing else would work. Comments above lead me to doubt that any ants fluoresce, though I hope to do some checking in the future, so my guess is that the fish are responding to something odd that just "might" taste good, much the way they probably respond to fluorescent strike indicators. The same might go for Creno's purple hare's ear that fluoresced, and caught so many fish. Anyway, I'll continue to use such dubbings, and perhaps mix up a few others to try, checking with my black light. And let's not forget those hot spots on flies that have become so popular.