Never Underestimate the Basics
Circumstances often define the method by which we target fish during specific situations and times of the year. Fishing for lake trout in the dog days of summer? Jig in deep, cool water. Targeting striped bass schoolies in spring? Bucktail estuaries and river mouths. Poaching carp from your local effluent (cough cough Max cough cough)? Use grocery store corn. These tactics exist for a reason - they often work. Situational fishing is what separates a good fisherman from a great fisherman. The angler who matches what the fish are most likely to be eating has an advantage over the one who throws Ol’ Faithful every time and is not quick to make adjustments. However, during my recent trout fishing outing earlier this week, I found out that sometimes you can be so focused on matching the forage that you start to get tunnel vision, resulting in diminishing returns. Let’s walk through it.
I was fishing a new stream for the first time and hiked in a considerable way to ensure I was fishing less pressured waters. This stream is also one of the less popular destinations for anglers during peak hatch season so you can find some space on water alone. The stream has a class A wild brown trout population but also receives stocked rainbows from the state. I arrived in the evening with hopes of encountering a hatch and presenting these less-pressured fish with dry flies to gulp down. Once I selected a spot, to my surprise and excitement, I found myself amid a beautiful hatch that I had completely to myself. The bugs appeared to be Tricos, to which I did not have an exact match in my box, but I had enough mayfly imitations that I figured I would make do with what I had. Frequent splashes indicated that the bite was on, and I quickly tied on my first presentation and began drifting runs.
It took me a while to hook my first fish of the day.
Boy, did I get frustrated quickly. I was putting fly after fly in front of surfacing fish without any success. I tried every style of mayfly that I had in as many different sizes as my gear allowed for, to no avail. I even spent more time than I’m willing to admit trying to catch one of the Tricos so I could study the size and color and find the absolute best imitation I had. Still no luck. I switched to nymphing, flipping rocks to match the underwater nymphal forage and running a combination of different colors, weights, styles, and sizes. Bupkis. At this point, about 4 hours had elapsed and I was hopelessly frustrated. I knew Tricos could drive selective trout feeding, but I had no idea it would be this extreme. But I couldn’t stop trying, as every surfacing fish stung me with more hope. That’s when I began to wonder if I was focusing too much on matching the forage and getting into a rut of trying the same thing over and over again while getting the same results. I decided to make an interesting change.
Wild brown trout.
I hiked back to my car to grab my spinning rod. I always keep extra rods in my car for situations like this, and I was hitting that particular desperation point in which I was willing to try anything. I tied on an Aglia #1 Mepps spinner and hiked back to my spot as fast as I could. I knew that there were plenty of fish around, I just couldn’t get them to strike. I though maybe ripping a spinner past them would illicit a predatory response, getting them to strike regardless of what they were primarily feeding on. At first glance, this doesn’t seem so strange - spinners are great trout lures, and can surely be describe as the most basic method for anyone to start catching trout. The oddity of this situation was that I was throwing a Mepps in the midst of a prominent hatch and was surrounded by rising trout. If someone had stumbled upon me without any previous context, they would surely chuckle to themselves and say “Hah! What a rube. I bet he’ll start reeling backward too”. I launched my spinner into the current and began steadily and quickly retrieving the lure. I hooked up the first cast. Then again on the fifth cast. Sixth cast. Ninth cast. I started consistently pulling in trout on the Mepps, despite what the situation should have dictated. Additionally, I was catching both rainbows and wild browns, indicating that this tactic was not just working for stocked fish. What at the time seemed to be a rudimentary selection ended up being the key to my success that day. It was a fun reminder that while situational fishing is critical to the sport, sometimes you just can’t underestimate the basics.
