Fringe trout behavior

[TurbineBlade]

I made a couple of observations over the past couple of weekends that I thought I'd run by more experienced trout folks on here.  

One, is I was "prospecting" with a terrestrial dry and not getting any takers.  Thinking that I'd add a dropper to possibly get more takes from fish which were reluctant to commit to the surface (water was a little stained too), I tied the usual beadhead a couple of feet blow the dry and tried that.  Drifting again through the same lane I suddenly have fish foolishly, falling over themselves going to the surface to take the dry fly (not the nymph).  (?)

Anyway, it's counterintuitive but interesting.  The only thing I can figure is that they are triggered by the nymph, but see the dry while moving toward it and get more excited, and then decide to go to the surface when they wouldn't do it before.  

The second, is that I need to really, really better my streamer game for trout.  I enjoy fishing dries, and duo rigs, wets, etc. but seldom take any time to fish streamers (aside from stockers, which I don't really count here).  Ironically, I pretty much only fish streamers for warm water.  

Yesterday we had several nice pools to ourselves and again had slightly stained water, and I'd only hooked one small brown on a nymph.  Nothing else was taking, and only a few sparse rises were going on (looked like nymph "boils" a few inches below).   I tied on a huge leech for lack of better idea, and in a few pools had huge "flashes" from nice trout and a couple of chases, but no bites.  It's always better to get hit of course, but getting interest in sections where you aren't getting anything is still interesting.  

Is the streamer game a lot of activity and fewer actual hits most times?  I know there are folks who enjoy streamer fishing enough to actually arrive at a stream and think "I'm going to fish streamers first, and then try something else" which is bizarre to me.  It really shouldn't be though, because I can see how streamers elicit some reactions from nice trout that other techniques do not.  Also, for a person with 1-2 hours of time to fish streams where he formerly had 7-8 hours, I can see streamer fishing being ideal ;).  

Beth spotted a massive rainbow and I could barely pry her away from the place, hunger be damned.  He wouldn't take though.  

Gene

[Danny Barrett]

Depending the river, i wont even pack anything but big meat and sinking lines or tips for a full day adventure.  I have had days of 0 fish and had wished i had some smaller nymphs to at least get 1 fish in, but the fewer fish I dig up on streamers are usually worth the weight.

Thanks,

Dan Barrett

dannyt...@gmail.com

(540)-222-8064

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[Yambag Nelson]

When I fish streamers I usually fish them very fast so I end up with a if what you described. Moved fish , missed fish, fish that try and grab but miss ect. Sometimes you get a good book in them but I would say it is not uncommon to move five fish for everyone I hook. There Ave been plenty of times where I have fished a dry blnd through a pool will no sign of fish only to put a streamer on and have tons of action.

Regarding the first question, I have never hung a nymph off of a terrestrial other than a hopper, but sunken ants can be deadly.

[Bob Richey]

I've noticed that sometimes a small dropper under my dry helps the drift of the dry fly, resulting in more takes; it seems to cut down on microdrag from the leader.

[Josh Cohn]

grab a sink tip, fish downstream and swing that fly

[Andrew Sarcinello]

Interesting post. I usually just fish a single fly so can't say I've had that happen, but I think Bob's answer makes the most sense.

For streamers, I think your hook up percentage goes way up if you are fishing low light conditions. Depending on the time of year and weather this period of good streamer bite can be from sunrise to as late as 8-10 am or starts between 15 minutes to an hour before sunset. Good fishing between those time frames only happens in high water in my experience.

Also depends on the species of trout. Larger wild browns and brookies seem to follow the above and rainbows never seem to be very good at eating streamers, you might get a few here and there but rainbows are notorious for swiping at streamers without actually finding the hook, especially fresh stockies. At least that has been my experience. YMMV

[Andrew Sarcinello]

^edit to above, I think streamer fishing works best when the fish are actively looking for larger prey. They tend to do this during low light. In the evening a good hatch can make streamers pretty much useless though

[TurbineBlade]

I appreciate the thoughts here! I think once I can turn some of these follows into hook-ups, I'll figure out what works, etc.  On bigger water, I'd like to incorporate my teeny lines.  Those suckers are easy to shoot/strip all day in warm water, so trout wouldn't be any different. 

Probably not this weekend though -- yuck.

Gene

On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 1:17:12 PM UTC-4, Andrew Sarcinello wrote:

[Bob Richey]

Another thing that occurred to me is that it could be that the nymph is pulling the fly down into the file a little bit and that's where the fish liked their food.

On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 7:20:15 AM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote: