Wind knots and tailing loops

 Jim N. -  Page 240 of the paperback version of   "A Season on the Delaware" was the bio page which contained everything you ever wanted to know about Angler 119.  It seems that page 239 which contained high resolution color photos of Angler 119's favorite flies is also missing from the published addition. A bipartisan panel has been commissioned to look into the matter.

Jack M. - You asked how I go about deciding which fly to use when there are multiple flies hatching.  I've touched on the subject briefly before but with only one question to answer perhaps more detail is in order.

When I was a kid and got to stay at Ruth and Roy Ryan's camp on the West Canada Creek with my parents, Roy would tie on an Adams at the dining room table before going fishing and announce "If they don't like it, they can shit in the creek".  That was back in the day of the 10 fish limit and most all of the fish in the West Canada were newly stocked hatchery fish.

Things have changed! The popularity of catch and release fishing allows fish that are caught many many times each year to grow into trophy sized trout. During the process they become very discerning about what they eat. I've often said that a fish never misses your fly, he just refuses to eat it for any number of reasons which I might enumerate  at some future date.

Because the fish inspect all flies closely, the patterns you fish, play an important roll in determining  whether a fish, ignores your fly or comes up for a closer look and finally, whether he eats or refuses it.  When I'm fishing my vest is crammed with any and all flies that may be hatching at the time. 

Trout that have not been fished to have clear favorites that anglers of the "They bite they die, they die they fry" era of trout fishing could rely on. Not any more.  The March Brown and the Iso have been marginalized.  Within the first few days of either hatch (and the hatches of most large mayflies) a large percentage of the fish have been caught on them. Trout have the capacity (be it instinctual or learned) to remember the experience and avoid further interaction with the offending fly.  

The evening I was fishing in the "I've got rhythm" blog entry I saw a fish rise and was quite sure he had chased an iso nymph. I tied on an iso and he ate it. I then fished with the iso until the fifth refusal.  My biggest expense aside from gasoline in day to day fishing is tippet.  Between casting knots and fly changes I go through lots of it. The "I've got rhythm" night is a good example. There was sun on the water but quite a few bugs were hatching and laying eggs. I started out with an olive which got ignored, so did a blue sedge and a sulfur (summer sulfurs were hatching and I only had the spring sulfurs with me). There were only a few fish rising and the fish that ate the iso was the first fish I rose. The place I was fishing is heavily fished and I didn't expect the iso to be productive as the fish have no doubt seen lots of them. Left it on more or less to prove a point to myself.

When the sun went behind the hill the fish started feeding on top. I've written briefly about seeing your fly under poor light conditions.  Maybe it bears repeating. When the sun goes down and you face westward the water surface takes on a mirror like sheen. In that direction you can clearly see dark colored flies (olives and isos). Looking away from the sun the water appears very dark. When fishing towards the dark colored water a light colored fly (think sulfur, Cahill)  can be readily seen. In the dim light seeing your fly seems to be more important than the actual size or pattern.

With the light fading I found fish rising on the dark water and put on one of the larger spring sulfurs that were ignored earlier. It worked just fine. At the end of the night I walked up to the tailout of the pool upstream, I was facing west and put on a medium size olive which was eaten - - - by a nine inch trout.