strange? trout behavior

I caught a little fingerling on Hazel and it was followed all the way in by
a 10'' brown who dad gone near had the fingerling until the brown saw
me...belatedly..., he wasn't paying a whole lot of attention - his eyes were
on the fingerling.

john
"Wayne Harrison" wrote in message
m...

"snakefiddler" wrote
(snip)

it was pretty cool - one more addition to my collection of memorable
sightings experienced while fishing.

any of ya'll ever seen this before?

your interesting little vignette puts me in mind of one of the most
memorable sights i have ever beheld while astream. the fact that you have
now visited hazel creek may help you appreciate the scenario.
pamlico jim and i had planned to walk up past the second bridge to
begin
our fishing, and as we neared our jumping in spot, we stopped at the
"measuring station" pool, the biggest pool on hazel, to rest for a moment.
the tail is split by an island, and the old, rusting iron pole that
measured
water height for log floating back in the twenties marks the head. i
suppose the pool is thirty or forty yards long and twenty or thirty yards
in
diameter, and over a man's head at its deepest point. the water is, of
course, gin clear.
we stood there on the jeep road, idly staring into the gorgeous water
for maybe a couple minutes, when we were startled by the sudden emergence
from the white water at the pool's head of a trout about a foot long,
streaking downstream on the far side of the pool. right behind him, and i
mean *on his tail* was the largest fish i ever saw in hazel; over two feet
of ****ed off rainbow. the pair turned right, towards the road, at the
pool's tail, and circled back up to the measuring station at warp speed.
when they reached the pool's head, the "little" fish lept out of the big,
white water like a salmon headed to his spawning place, and disappeared
into
the smaller pools upstream.
the entire incident took only seconds from start to finish. neither
jim
nor i had a chance to utter a word until it was over. we caught our
breath
and nearly shouted to each other things like "jesus, did you see that!"
"my
god, the size of that trout!" "he was gonna *eat* that foot long rainbow,
for god's sake!", etc.
at any rate, since that day, each time we pass that pool, we always
stop
for a few minutes and stare into the pool and into the past, hoping to see
that remarkable display re-enacted. i reckon we have been by there more
than fifty times since, but no luck in further fantasies.
hazel is a pretty place, now ain't it, jen...

yfitp
wayno

snakefiddler wrote:
when i looked into the water, i spotted a
brookie, about 8-9 inches long speeding *down stream*.

I spectacle that I have witnessed far too many times. Sometimes when I
look close it seems I can see a middle fin bone extended in my direction
and an amused smirk on those fish lips. I've usually attributed it to a
reaction to my clumsy wading.

Russell

snakefiddler wrote:
when i looked into the water, i spotted a
brookie, about 8-9 inches long speeding *down stream*. [snip]i
followed the fish, and watched him turn into a spot by which i have
often
been frustrated, as it is clearly a great hiding place for trout, and
of
course nearly impossible to cast to.

[snip]
any of ya'll ever seen this before?

I'd bet even if you could cast to the hiding place, unless you bumped
them on the lips with a subsurface fly, I doubt you would hook one.
Many times where they got to eat and where they go to "live" are two
different things.

Studies of the habits of tagged trout in northern Michigan have shown
it's not uncommon for them to range a mile or two a day and return to a
holding lair. I doubt an appalachian trout would or could range this
far but i have seen brown trout go a mile upstream to spawn on one
Georgia stream. As some as suggested it may have been spooked but it is
also possible (and I think more probable) it had gone upstream for a
feeding, or in search of a redd (spawning area)and was then heading
back to its safe zone. An 8-9" brookie in most of the applachian sreams
would be an alpha fish and more prone to get the choice feeding lies
and redd placement.