"sandy" wrote in message
...

But here's the punchine:
The wouldn't take the hopper after the first drift. But they'd still take
the Black Caddis. But that too they'd only look at once.
On the way back, we hop-scotched the same water we'd fished on the
way up. And never nicked a single fish. We must have wacked
25-30 apiece on the way up.

Do they remember individual flies?.....one chance on a hopper,
and but still ready to eat a Black Caddis? But that too only once?


I had something like that happen fishing crank baits for bass last year. I
know this is a fly group, but I think the idea may cross over.

We had to fish very fast to get them to chase and/or bite. We found a huge
school of small bass stacked up just off a grass bed in 8-10 feet of water.
I caught two right off the bat on a crank, then chasers but no takers. Then
I switched to another crank and caught two more. I did that four times in
that same spot. Then we did the same thing on another school of bass in
another spot on the same lake. It was pretty clear water (for a bass lake).
I think what we were throwing was just not quite right. If we fished it
very fast, and kept showing them something different we kept catching. If
we gave them too much time to look at it they wouldn't hit.

Sometimes fish are picky, but they will hit. I know in other finicky fish
situations site fishing I have managed to catch a lot of fish by
deliberately jerking a bait away from them. After a couple fish you can get
an idea what their inspection / turn back distance is. If we jerked the
bait away from the fish about when they were just a few inches further away
from the bait than that they would zoom forward and nail it before it gets
away. I can tell you when this technique is working it is very consistant.

I know trout aren't the same as bass, but they can be aggressive predators,
and I know the principals apply to other species as well. For instance with
musky they are notorious for following a bait all the way to the boat and
then turning away as you lift it out of the water. A technique I have heard
that excites and gets them to strike is to stick your rod in the water and
drag the bait around in a big fast figure eight. The bait accelerates very
quickly as it whips around the turns of the figure eight and the erratic
movement mimics a desperate bait fish trying to get away.

I may have dirfted off the precise questions you had, but I think you may
have been able to catch more fish by trying some variations of the theme.
In other words changing flies more often. When I run into that situation
crank baiting bass I will tie a duolock clip on braided line so I can change
cranks quickly. I know that is not practical for fly fishing, but I have
sen a very small spring type wire clip that just snaps over the eye of a
bait that might do the trick. More of a hook than a snap really. I am not
sure how much the added weight would throw off your fly, but I have seen
some of these that are very small. You mentioned a foam hopper. That
sounds like a pretty big bait. I doubt the tiny clip I am thinking of would
throw it off much. You would want to rety as often as you normally would,
but in between you could swap flies very quickly for finicky fish or one
fish holes.


--
Bob La Londe

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