Friday, June 13, 2014

PAY ATTENTION

Not you, that's for me. Here's the story.

I had a little time this morning so I drove up to the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River at Cat Creek Road. You all know the place.

I decided to head upstream first, instead of fishing the pool below the pool under the bridge like I usually do.

I picked a place here and fished Tenkara and a place there and fished with my fly rod. I wasn't planning to wader up, but glad I did because there were some places where I wouldn't have been able to get to with all the green plants growing all over the place, but by wading through them and into the creek, I was able to fish most of the good spots.

This pool was one of the first places I threw a dry. 
 
Pool
I was quite pleased that there was a good amount of water in the creek and at 51.4 degrees, perfect trout water. The second place was this stretch with a little moving water at the top and slow the rest of the way. All in all about 30 feet long. I fished this one with my fly rod. Tenkara won't stretch quite that far.

Short stretch
After many misses, I brought this one to hand. Not big, but a healthy specimen.

First fish of the day
So let me get into the title of this post. I would like to know and I don't know if anyone out there knows the answer, how is it that when you have a good dead drift going and your attention wavers for a fraction of a second, that is when the fish hits your fly.

Now I've taken into consideration that today is Friday the 13th and it's also a full moon. By the way, for you Geezers out there this will be the last full moon on a Friday the 13th you'll ever see, so make sure you take a look tonight. The next one comes in 2049.

With all that against me, I still missed a minimum of 8 and possible more hits coming when I was distracted whether it was a bug, or an itch somewhere, or whatever. I missed a bunch because I was out of practice too or maybe just slow.

What I want to know is: How do they know?

This is a nice little pool that produced several misses. At least I'm honest and don't tell you I catch every fish that hits the fly.


Nice little pool
On the way back to the pools under the bridge, I tried a couple other flies. One I don't know the name of, but it's rust colored with a white parachute (I suppose I could research it, but it's not all that important) and a couple of different color stimulators, but they wouldn't touch anything except the Sloan's Paralyzer. Green seemed to be their go to color.

Back under the bridge, I brought this little gem to hand. It's the first fish out of that pool in all the times I've fished there. Had drive-by's, but none ever to hand. The pool below that pool had several drive-by's, but here again I was just too slow. Must be old age.   

First fish out of the pool below the bridge.
Again I ask the question: How do they know? Must be one of the great mysteries of Nature.

5 comments:

  1. I've always thought that fish were hyper sensitive to what must sound like a giant walking along the shore. Or they can feel the vibrations or they have a scout hiding behind the bushes with walkie talkies to signal the others. Or maybe they are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

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  2. Mark, great post. I've about come to the conclusion that the best way to catch fish is to look away, slowly count one one thousand, and then set the hook. Oh, and I'm pretty sure there is a scout fish that is assigned to spy on fishermen for the rest of the fish. "He's not looking guys, hurry up and eat!"

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  3. Looks like a fun trip, irregardless of missed fish. Whatever the reasoning is for what happens during that "moment" in time, rest assured it has followed this OL' Geezer around for years. Hope we figure it out in this lifetime!

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  4. Mark, That's my kind of fishing.
    That first rainbow is priceless.

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  5. I caught my first fish on a fly there! you should have been there, mark! oh wait, you were! as for your question, this is true! I imagine there is something a little more effortless in your drift when you're not paying attention or sometimes you let it go out a little farther and it does something natural that you wouldn't do if you were paying attention to it. That's just my guess. Or maybe it's because they don't like eye contact? lol

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