Trout Feeding Habits

Generally trout, if feeding, have a one track mind—they relish one course at a time. When nymph feeding they indulge until somewhat gorged (providing food is ample) then take to the fly on the surface. Expecting trout to come to your floating fly when they’re concentrating on underwater feeding is the equivalent of you eating a meal and taking a forkful of meat in one mouthful then a forkful of pie a la mode. You may do it but it isn’t common practice. Trout, in feeding, seem to feed in unison the length of the stream then, as if on signal, they switch at almost the same instant to another diet or quit entirely for a time.
There has been much written of late years with relation to the angler’s personal odor—that fish downstream can discern the presence of a human who has immersed his hands in the water and the trout react accordingly. Honestly I have not yet thoroughly tested out this observation but I am going to and I invite the reader to do the same then we’ll both know for ourselves. Although I’ve never tried any of the liquid “fish lures” that are supposed to act magnetically in attracting the fish to your hardware lure, bait or fly when treated with the concoction, I’ve had a theory which I’m going to experiment with at a suitable opportunity.

That is, that the oils and unguents or what have you which are offered us with attractive promises to catch more fish are merely descenters of the human odor. I could be as wrong as rain at a picnic but there might be something to it. I certainly cannot feel that some artificial additives, such as these preparations, are at all sporting except as desperation measures if they do what they say; but if they are merely eliminators of deterrent that Might be on our fingers I say use them. Let’s find out.
Rainbow trout and brook trout are more prone to venture out in the open water on bright days than are the browns or the cutthroats. Browns, for example, like to have the ready protection of a bank, a rock, a log, weed clump or an overhanging bush. The brown, too, is no one’s fool. He’s as suspicious as a federal tax collector, as scary as a sentinal crow and as temperamental as a successful fishing guide. When the brown trout quits biting he really quits.

Rainbows like to locate in the current ahead of rocks or obstructions. Browns and Cutthroat are found on the downstream area of obstructions and Brooks are likely to be found in either location.
Sizable trout will put up just so long in a pocket or hole that is unceasingly fished over and leave it to locate in a more private spot where their siestas will not be interrupted so frequently.
Another practice, in trout characteristics, is the reality in which a good spot, usually under tree roots or overhung bank, will hold a good fish month after month, sometimes year after year. When one resident is removed or leaves another replaces him within hours. Usually they are excellent channels that wash food right to their chin.