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JarrodRuggles

what in the world could they be hitting???

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Some stocked trout where I fish randomly jump clear out of the water..some also just hitting the top. It doesn't matter how long I spend on a fly to toss it out there....it gets rejected. Never have I caught one on a dry. I catch trout on dries all the time at other places. I have searched and searched till my eyes popped out. What could this be, do they just jump out of the water for the heck of it or are they eating somethin?

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QUOTE (fishyfranky @ Feb 21 2005, 09:49 PM)
They're hitting emergers, the scientific name is: Foodicus Pelletii

smile.gif If so Take a small hook and spin some purple deerhair and trim to shape and size. Hatchery fish are used to being overcrowded and are feed at certian times, they will kill and eat each other in wild frenzys so leaping is a defense and an excitement thing, as well as food. Try a "pellet' fly find out what colour pellet they were fed and use foam or deer hair to immitate the species foodicus. let me know if it works.

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eggs work sometimes but the fish are always jumping and hitting the top. I was just trying to improve sucess rates but now I know that they arent eating. Thanks

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One thing that might work is a foam post emerger. They are tied here in New Mexico on a size 24 - 28. I tried to find one on the net without any luck but it's a small midge emerger with a half inch of 7X tippet tied to a small foam post. The fly actually sits 1/2 inch below the film suspended by the bit of foam and it produces when other flies don't.

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try a submerged caddis emerger. I have found trout jumping like that, chasing the caddis as it is stuck in the surface film trying to emerge.

 

john

 

 

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In Ernest G. Schweibert Jr.'s book "Matching the Hatch", he goes through all the different types of rises, he writes:

 

"the jump rise is to flying insects, those that have just hatched from the water, or those that have just touched the surface to deposit their eggs. Trout working in this manner are hard to catch, for it us difficult to simulate flight wih an artificial fly. On the famous Lauterach, in southern Germany, there is a hatch and mating of large mayflies each season. They emerge or mate in clouds of naturals, and the season when they are present over the water is called the Sprungzeit. In the german, this means the "leaping time". The best way I have found to take these leaping browns was to drop the fly quickly ovr the rise after the fish had taken the natural. The trout usually leaped again for the settling dry fly or met it as it touched the waer. This sly tecnique as passed on by the old river keeper who fished with me on stream, and I have used it since with much succes on american waters."

 

Hope that's helpful biggrin.gif

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QUOTE (JarrodRuggles @ Feb 21 2005, 07:54 PM)
Some stocked trout where I fish randomly jump clear out of the water..some also just hitting the top.  It doesn't matter how long I spend on a fly to toss it out there....it gets rejected.  Never have I caught one on a dry.  I catch trout on dries all the time at other places.  I have searched and searched till my eyes popped out.  What could this be,  do they just jump out of the water for the heck of it or are they eating somethin?

Jarrod-

 

The trout may be jumping in an attempt to rid themselves of parasites acquired in the over-crowded environment of hatchery life. When that's happening, it's probably best to ignore them, and fish as you would if you were seeing no surface activity. However, I must admit that can be really difficult to do.

 

Another possibility (as was suggested earlier) is they are chasing emerging caddis, which (unlike mayflies) can burst through the water's surface and immediately take flight. When this happens, it wasn't necessarily the fish's intent to get airborne, but rather, just the end result of the rapid assent it had to make in order to grab the emerging caddis before it disappeared.

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TRY a wet fly if it works and you catch on use a stomach pump careful and see with they are hitting on .

Like Taxson said they are jumping to get rid of parasites .

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I've seen many newly stocked trout do that with absolutely no signs of hatching insects. Perhaps they are just enjoying being out of the confines of the hatchery and stocking truck.

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Where are you fishing at Jarrod when you see this? It happens on the Little Red quite a bit where I fish at. There have been some hatches starting that could cause what I'm seeing I guess.

 

 

Mike

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