Fishing the Yorkshire Nidd this week I experienced a mass rise which shot through my theories of selective feeding. I associate selective trout with southern chalk streams where fly life is abundant and trout can dine out on their chosen menu. I "half expect" wild trout in Northern rivers to be grateful for whatever food floats down to them, particularly this early in the season.
Fishing a slow tail end of a pool in the late afternoon the rising trout were obviously taking something just below the surface and dorsal fins were to be seen everywhere. Having thrown just about every suspender nymph and dry fly in my box at them I managed a couple of takes on a size 20 JT olive but I suspect the trout were acting more out of sympathy than hunger.
The rise went on for about an hour and as there was no single identifiable fly on the water or in the air I could only guess that the preferred food was the "anglers curse" Caenis.
Has anybody had a similar experience and is my "guess" anywhere near the mark?
Before this rise when the fish were rising occasionaly I was taking rising trout consistently on small dry olives and F-fly but once the mass rise began my efforts proved fruitless.

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All good things come by grace, grace comes by art and art does not come easy.
Norman Maclean

withdrawn etc

They are far more selective than you think DB.
Happens to me a lot on the Eden, usually later in the season, an hour or so before dusk, I can be stood in a pool, which is alive with fish within feet of me.
I too put it down to caenis, sometimes the only way to get a take is to put a sedge type fly on and skate it, quite often they take it.
Very frustrating stuff though I agree.
S.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

I suffered something similar in limerick yesterday evening. Trout were hard work all afternoon on dries but i managed some in faster water on my peacock herl emerger. Eventually, i caught my best of the day ( about a half pound ) on a size 20 Griffiths. I had seen tiny black things coming down river and the trout were kissing these down leisurely in the slow moving water. I will be tying some smaller black stuff soon though, even if they are hardly visible on the water.

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Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.

maybe it not the fly