Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Advice from Welsh Fly Fishers

This morning I was reading through several trout fishing articles and came across one that caught my attention. It was published on a Welsh web site. The author recounts his boyhood stories of watching trout feed on insects and the lessons he learned from it.

Like most kids, this young lad was very curious and conducted a few of his own experiments on the local trout. One of them consisted of throwing matchsticks into the water and watching trout take them into their mouth and spit them back out. This observation proved to the boy that trout will try anything, but necessarily eat it. He surmised the trout probably spit the matchsticks out because of their hard and course texture.

It's a proven fact that trout do have senses. They can smell and taste. Whether it was taste or the hard wood that caused these trout to spit out the matchsticks, nobody knows. But it is an interesting observation and one worth considering if you want to learn to think like a trout.

As a result of this boyhood experience, the author goes on to say that trout will spit out artificial flies that are constructed of hard wire and strong fibers.

I have yet to attempt to tie my own flies - but it is a skill I'm interested in learning. Whether or not there is any truth to this statement, I don't know. I'd love to hear other people's experiences and observations regarding this issue.

But either way, I figured it was one of those good "food for thought" kind of statements, and one folks should consider when tying their own flies. If you'd like to read the full article, click here.

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