Never underestimate the instincts (or intelligence) of a wild trout. It can completely upset the studied theories of the most experienced of us. Without conscience, the trout is capricious, fickle, inconstant, fitful, crotchety, fanciful, eccentric,
whimsical, variable, irritating, frustrating and as changeable
as the mind of our loved ones, the feminine gender. He does the unexpected under normal conditions and sometimes the expected when we least expect it.
The innate impulse of the trout is first of all self-preservation. He wants food, yes, and although there are definite periods throughout the day when he is much more active in feeding than in others he will eat most any time providing he feels safe while so doing.
One must consider that every second of a trout’s existence, from the time the egg is first ejected from the female until
his last gasp, he is surrounded by enemies, natural and other-
wise. Animals, birds and snakes prey upon him and to his larger comrades, even members of his own family, he is a tasty main course. To him, strange or moving shadows are sirens screaming a warning. Unnatural noises that vibrate to him are forewarnings of possible doom. Alien conditions of the water, unusual light circumstances—all are predictions of a potential liability to his comfort or being. And I haven’t mentioned man, his most formidable antagonist.
Do you wonder why fear, in its widest sense, is the strongest intuitive force possessed by the trout? His life is figuratively crowded with signs reading “Beware,” “Caution,” “Look-out.” His memory is all but non-existent, however his alarm system is as sensitive as a razor’s edge.
“He was playing with my fly,” sagely stated an angler. “He’d dive over it, maybe bunt it with his nose and then try to flick it with his tail. Probably wasn’t hungry.”
There are sound natural reasons for the fish acting as he did and he wasn’t playing. Life is too serious an affair for him to waste his limited energy frolicking. As for not being hungry, I’ve observed fish that were so gorged with food that they couldn’t take another morsel, then they proceeded to greedily take that morsel and look for more. Why the trout acted as he did is anyone’s guess. We can advance suppositions and we can theorize but we’re not sure and won’t be until we can think like the fish or be infused with like instincts.
Most anglers, in their saner moments, are more intelligent normally than trout, and using that intelligence in a rational manner, many times, they can fool the fish into believing that the lure offered is edible and free from harmful after effects. The tid-bit trespassing the trout’s domain becomes prey and there being no discernible circumstances to arouse his suspicion, and too much energy will not have to be expended, he proceeds to appease his constant craving for food.
Natural conditions of the stream such as wading animals rarely concern the trout. Nature’s elements such as storms, lightning, thunder, hail and snow not only are of little consequence but generally trout are more active then, from the fisherman’s viewpoint, than during other less turbulent periods. When an angler expresses an opinion that is contrary to the above it is probably occasioned, not from experimental findings, but from his personal discomfort and his desire to get under something.
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