On Dec 28, 9:29 pm, rw wrote:
Larry L wrote:
"rw" wrote
When you see two rise forms in sequence it's tempting to cast to where you
extrapolate the fish will be next. This is, I believe, a mistake. Fish
feeding on the surface of stillwater move randomly. I cast directly to the
last rise form. If that doesn't get a take I start searching around it.
On Hebgen, after a few days of heavy hatches, the fish DO become predictable
and you can plot their path and intercept it.
Maybe, but I'm skeptical.
I don't know about you, but I can't see fish under stillwater from a
pontoon boat or a kick boat -- unless I'm right on top of them -- so I
don't know which direction they've headed after a rise.
I have, however, watched trout feeding on the top of stillwater from
heights. It's fascinating (and really fun if you're directing an
otherwise blind caster, and even more fun when you're the caster).
In stillwater, watching from a height, I can't accurately predict where
a fish is going after taking a natural on the surface. Its path is like
slowed-down Brownian motion on a plane. Sometimes they move straight
ahead, and sometimes they veer off at an angle.
In moving water trout clearly have favored routes -- the way they use
large eddy pools, for example. Stillwater is very different, IMO.
From a kickboat, all I see are rises. If one fish is rising, the odds
are good that several are rising. I can't tell which rise matches which
fish, UNLESS the rises are very close to one another. They often are.
Then it's probably the same fish.
That's why I cast directly at a rise form. Its the most likely location
for the fish. At 70', Larry's range, I'd probably miss by a good margin
anyway, but it's nice to aim at something. Even you don't get a take
there's the satisfaction of a good cast.
Obversely, from the fish's point of view, the most likely place to find
a natural while expending the least energy is close to where it found
the last one, and if that doesn't work after awhile then move slowly in
a more-or-less random direction while avoiding bigger fish. :-) If
you're quick enough with your cast the fish won't have moved far and
will be within your casting error.
--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.
When I used to fish still water a lot, aiming at the rise was more or
less the "standard" method for many anglers. But it was never very
effective for me, ( or for them either apparently
)
While I appreciate your point of "having something to aim at", given
the casting error margin at 70 feet, and the error which is inherent
in not knowing which direction the fish is taking out of a 360° degree
possibility, the odds are very high that your fly will land well away
from the fish, indeed, the odds are then only slightly better than if
you just cast somewhere at random, ignoring the rises altogether. This
is also exactly what many still water anglers do, and they catch their
share of fish.( Or so they say!
)
If you can make an accurate guess/timate which direction the fish is
taking, and are accurate enough to place your fly in its projected
path, then the odds are very much higher that it will take. ( Forget
about hook up odds etc on small dry flies at that range for the
moment).
There are basically two scenarios I think. If you guess wrong, then
you are no worse off than if you aimed for the rise anyway, or more or
less anywhere else at random! If you guess right however, the odds on
you getting a take have just jumped massively. You donīt even have to
guess absolutely right either. There is an angle of about 90° in front
of the fish which might be designated its "taking zone". On many
occasions, in relatively calm conditions, if you get your fly in to
that taking zone at a reasonable distance to the fish, you will most
likely get it to take. More or less anywhere outside that angle, and
depending on the distance to the fish, ( its actual cruising speed in
the direction you chose), you might just as well cast at random
anywhere else in the lake.
Also, you basically only have two sensible choices. If the fish is
coming towards you, you will probably line it and spook it anyway, so
that is not a viable choice. If it is moving away from you, then it
may be well out of range before your fly lands. So that is also not a
viable choice. You have just eliminated 180 degrees of choices!
The only two really viable choices to make are those when the fish is
moving ( roughly) from left to right, or from left to right, ( and how
fast). You now have a fifty per cent chance of being right, whatever
you choose, and if you only have a slight indication of which
direction the fish might be moving, you have an even greater chance of
being right. For instance, in a breeze, the fish will invariably be
facing into the wind. If they are "head and tailing" you know the
direction they are pointing, if there are wind lanes, they will be
moving into the wind, if there are scum lines they will be moving
parallel to the scum, and so on. There are quite a few indications.
Using such methods and indications is much more likely to result in a
take than simply casting at the rise.
TL
MC