Fly Fisherman! Are You Smarter Than A Trout?

I stumbled across a really well written, tongue-in-cheek fly fishing blog post earlier today. One you simply have to read. Now I suppose you have to be a fly fisherman to appreciate it, because it deals with an age old difference of opinion between fish biologists and fly fishermen: are trout really all beauty and no brains?

Fly Fisherman v Fish Biologist

We know where the fish biologists stand. I’m sure they have their reasons, but as this is my blog post I’ll only be telling my side of the story.

The Fly Fisherman’s Perspective

As a fly fisherman, I believe that our wild rainbow trout have it all. This is my personal experience. I mean – you spot the mother of all trout, execute the gentlest of casts, present the fly perfectly, no drag and then…nothing. Zip. Nada. Zero. The trout disdainfully looks at you from beneath the gin clear waters and offers you nothing more than a cold shoulder / fin.

If trout were really that dumb, they’d be easy to catch. You’d present a DDD and the fish would go: “Oh, goody. Lunch!”, charge to the surface and hey, presto, you’ve made your first catch of the day.

In real life this is not how it goes.

The Deception Game

In real life, we stealthily stalk the wild trout. We gently cast and present the entomologically appropriate representation of whatever it is that they are feeding on at the moment in the correct way. We do all this to seduce them into thinking that we aren’t there and that the artistically composed feathery bit floating on the surface is actually a big fat juicy mayfly.

In real life we don’t dumb down to become a better fly fisherman. We smart up. And we’d better! The wild Rainbow Trout in the Karringmelkspruit didn’t get to be quite as big as they are by being gullible.

There is no doubt that the average fish biologist will be able to find holes in my theory. But hey, unless they come and wet their lines in our Karringmelkspruit to show me just how dumb our wild rainbow trout really are, this fly fisherman is going to stick to her story.

For more information, visit our Activities Page. You may also want to read this review on fly fishing at Lammergeier Highlands Reserve by the ultimate fly fisherman, Tom Sutcliffe.