How do fish have time to be picky

[Fish For Life 0]

How do fish have time to be picky when it comes to feeding? Sitting down on the bottom, twigs, grass and other debris flying by there noses with the odd insect here and there. Only a split second between seeing whatever is floating there way and it being gone. How do they have time to be picky? How can they tell the difference between a size 16 and 14 pheasant tail nymphs, a brown or grey hares ear, a griffith's gnat with or without a tail, and so on. How do they have time to process whether they want to eat it or not. Its not all the time but when a trout is targeting a certain size or color they will often though nothing else. But how can they see the oncoming insect, inspect it for the right size color and shape, and trigger a response to eat it before it floats by. The case even more so in swifter floating or more turbulent currents. They do it and they do it very well, it just seams pretty mind blowing. I dont know what to say, it just baffles me. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

[Dave G. 0]

You're thinking like a human, trying to reason something out when it's just instinctive. Like we swerve our car to miss the kid who ran out in the street but not the bug we see that will splat on the windshield. You don't have to think about it, it just happens or not..

 

Plus we are looking down on the water, they are looking in the water. We might see 100 caddis floating on the water and they see 10,000 pupa in the water that haven't yet broken the surface.. etc. And the 10,000 are easy prey midges.

[Crackaig 0]

Often they do not have. It has to be an instant decision. However, there are times when a fish will rise to a dry fly and hand in the current looking at the fly for yards of drift before either taking or turning away. This is explained at some length in Vincent Marinaro's book "In the Rings of the Rise". I have experienced this several times on glides. It is a struggle to maintain the drift until the fish takes. The fish can have 20 seconds or more of inspection time.

 

There is another example of fish taking time over the decision to take; one which combines both the quick decision, and the long inspection. Often fishing a team of three flies on the lochs here the fish will come to the top fly, which is very bushy and pulled through the surface. they will follow this fly but not take it. When they turn they will then grab the middle or point fly. If you change the top fly, as it isn't producing takes, you will stop getting any takes. That is a case where one fly is given scrutiny, and rejected. I suspect grabbing the other fly is a case of the fly is being drawn across the centre of the fish's field of view, and they grab it instinctively. Like the induced take method of Frank Sawyer's.

 

Cheers,

C.

[Poopdeck 0]

If they were really that good at it they would never take a fly since a fly only just barely resembles the insect it mimics. If they were that good at it why would they ever eat a night crawler impaled on a giant snelled hook. In fact I would say they are actually very bad at identifying food in a split second or even whole seconds.

[Dave G. 0]

Ever fish a pool, there are rising fish, you maybe caught a couple and now no takers for the last 20 minutes ? They won't look at your fly. Go sit by the shore but obviously enough that someone else doesn't come into the pool on you. Wait maybe 15 minutes, then try again. The next fly that hits the water gets a fish. And if someone else does get in the pool on you, he gets the fish. It's fishing after all.

 

I've caught several really nice salmon in a caddis hatch over the years, just waiting on a later light and deliberately not fishing caddis over the biggest rising fish in the pool that I can reach ( ever notice they are at the limit of your casting range too). Those bigger fish show themselves just enough times in the evening for you to know they are there ( mentally mark the spot), not prolific risers.Then when I feel it's right, tie on the biggest, buggiest Royal Wulff I have and bam, that fish takes it. Right smack in the caddis hatch. I keep some 10's and even an 8 sometimes for this purpose and fish in a size 16 caddis hatch. It's a really nice catch when it happens, if it happens.

 

Or fish an eddy with a Stimulator and create your own hatch. Set up a drift on a length of line, drop, drift, let it drift toss it up stream , put it down, let it drift, pick it up put it down, drift, lift, put down,, repeat, repeat, repeat. Suddenly wham, I knew there was a fish behind that rock !!

[mikechell 0]

Piscine vision. Approximately 4 times better than ours under water. They see much more than we do, possibly even in a broader spectrum of light.

However, it's been mentioned above that they obviously aren't THAT good at it, or we'd never catch a single fish.

 

It's conditioning. Young fish will try everything. What makes them decide it's edible is anybodies guess, but those things that are edible, reinforce the recognition. Those items that look a certain way, are edible, period. When they get a large hatch, and the same item is "food" every time, then the continual reinforcement builds until that is the only item that is "food". This is when you have to match the hatch as accurately as possible.

But, say a fish has been eating grasshoppers for two weeks prior to the hatch. Since the hatch reinforcement is short term, the fish may still take a hopper pattern. Some will, some won't. Just depends on how deep the conditioning has gone.

 

On the other hand, if you catch a fish on the "item" it's feeding on, and that item bites back, tires it out and threatens it's survival, then the negative reinforcement "puts it off feeding" for a while. The more times it's caught and released, the more patterns it has negative reinforcement on and the fewer patterns will fool it.

It's the same, no matter the species. Catch and release produces pickier fish, conditioned to not hit things that will 'bite back".

[Cold 0]

There's certainly something to be said for the school of thought that rightly points out that the fish can't be that smart, when they'll pass up a natural and devour a cigarette butt...however, it's only the inexperienced angle who hasn't come upon a situation with ridiculously picky fish.

 

You've got to keep in mind that while a fish may only have a split second to make the food/not food decision, it's a decision they make thousands of times every day, and really...what else do they have to do all day? Not only are they born with good instincts, but they've also got a lot of practice.

 

So with that being said, my general philosophy on the subject is that the fish knows a common food, but they still don't want to miss out on new and unfamiliar food just because it's not what they're used to, and the closer it is to something that already looks like food, and the less of that real food that's available, the more they'll be inclined to give it a shot. So where "hungry fish due to not much food", "looks like possible food", and "doesn't look like 'not food'" all intersect, you get a bite.

 

Take away (or reduce) any of the three factors, and the other two need a boost to compensate. Lots of food available in a fertile spring creek? You better have a really close imitation to what they're used to eating with a perfect drift and no weird flashes or colors. Have to use a heavy tippet due to the size of the fish? Hit the faster water, where they're not going to get as good a look, and the general buggy impression will get the bite, but they won't have time to notice the monofilament rope you've tied to one end.

[Bimini15 0]

Why do we keep talking about fish, all fish, to be all smart or all dumb? Clearly in the same stream there must be some trout smarter than others. Just like there must be some with better eye sight than others, etc, etc... Same everywhere else, unless all fish are clones.

Not all can be the fittest...

[Cold 0]

In broad terms, though, they all are the fittest.

 

Those with subpar vision, instincts that don't drive them to eat the right foods, anticipate predators, etc. get weeded out.

 

Sure there may be some minor differences, but in practical application, I'd say those differences in most cases are statistically insignificant.

Now species to species is a different can of worms, but within a species, I think it's a very safe assumption that all wild members in a given ecosystem have effectively the same set of sensory capability.

[Poopdeck 0]

Wow, 45 years of fishing is inexperienced. Guess I'll have to do more trout fishing and read more magazines to get that experience I'm lacking. No I think it's just a case of trout only fly fishing enthusiasts who like to think of themselves as being an elevated class of anglers. Has anybody ever heard the term finicky tossed about by any other type of angler even though this term can apply to every species out there? Does any other type of angler talk constantly about how difficult it is to catch fish? About having to have the perfect bait/lure/fly in the perfect size tossed perfectly to the perfect place determined by a perfect reading of the water.

 

Personally when trout fishing gets difficult in the summer I stop fishing for them. Not because of the difficulty but rather because of the increased harm and increased mortality rate of a trout caught in low warm clear water which are the summertime stream conditions in my neck of the woods in Pa. Now there are small cool streams reasonably nearby where I can go catch buckets of hungry tiny Brook trout that attack anything thrown their way. The same type streams my father took me to 45 years ago to teach me fishing. Anymore I switch to river bass and saltwater during the hot weather. The fish are bigger, stronger and just as cooperative or finicky as the next.

[jd1983 0]

Cold - Individuals within a population do not have the same sensory capabilities across the board. That's part of why some survive and some don't.

[JSzymczyk 0]

Has anybody ever heard the term finicky tossed about by any other type of angler even though this term can apply to every species out there? Does any other type of angler talk constantly about how difficult it is to catch fish? About having to have the perfect bait/lure/fly in the perfect size tossed perfectly to the perfect place determined by a perfect reading of the water.

 

 

yes, by BASCAR tournament douchebags.

[Cold 0]

Cold - Individuals within a population do not have the same sensory capabilities across the board. That's part of why some survive and some don't.

Which is why they don't survive.

 

Did you even read the post?

[Dave G. 0]

I've been fishing for 60 years for various kinds of fish from fresh to salt water and well, I explained a few weeks back my experience with trout in New England anyway. I find trout to be very hatch keyed ( hatch being what they are feeding on , not always insects I might add) and line shy compared with many warm water fish. It's just how it is here, it has nothing to do with pride. I'm not talking about fish that just got dumped in the pond off the truck or little streams full of Parr but well acclimated adult fish stocks who have keyed to their prey. In many areas people never fish for those lol ! And of course you can catch a few lucky fish other ways too but you will do much better by matching the hatch and not using 10lb test mono that you can use on bass.. I'd welcome anyone to come here and show how they do it differently and more successfully. These are my home waters and I'm always open to new ways of doing things, I wouldn't go to yours and tell you how to fish though. That would be pretty stupid on my part.

[NohackleHS 0]

It's been my experience that there are at least three factors that determine how selective trout can be: the speed of the current, the clarity of the water and the abundance of the food supply. Fish in rapidly moving streams don't have time to examine their food source so they have to make split second decisions on whether to take an insect. Fish in high mountain streams which have a short growing season and sparse insect hatches are typically not very selective; they can't be since they have to take advantage of any available food source just to survive.

 

At the other extreme are fish in spring creeks. Typically spring creeks are clear, slow moving and have prolific insect hatches. In the slowest sections of spring creeks the fish have a lot of time to examine their prey. Some very selective fish not only examine an insect while it's floating to them, they examine it as it floats above them. When they decide to eat the insect, the insect is slightly past them so the angle of their body when they take the fly is tilted slightly downstream. When you see fish feeding in this manner you know that they are being very selective.