Hi Chaps,

Despite having seen the weather of all 4 seasons in the space of about 3 hours, I decided to head out for an evening on my local still water (£6 evening ticket).

There were intermittent bursts of surface activity throughout the evening amidst the rain, cloud and blazing sun. I had a look at the surface and decided to try a very small f-fly.

With my polarised sunglasses on, I could see through the glare and observed multiple trout coming straight up towards the fly, stopping, inspecting, and then turning away.

1) Is this a classic case of the trout being spooked by my leader (despite it being under the surface)?

2) Or could it simply be that the trout are selective as to their food?

In 2 and 1/2 hours, I didn't manage to land one trout, however, for the first time in my life, I unintentionally landed the carp below after it took a fancy to my f-fly:



With only one year's fishing experience under my belt, the carp put up a fight like I have never experienced before and swam off like a machine after I returned it to the water.

Despite the weather and lack of trout action, it was an evening well spent

Matt

Could well be, or fly not sitting correctly in or on the water. So why did the carp take it and not the trout? A fishing mystery. Well done and glad you enjoyed the sport.

It's a problem with either the leader, fly wrong pattern, or wrong size, or wrong presentation in the water. Clearly the fish were interested but dismissed your fly for one of the reasons above.

BK

or wrong color , lack of legs ,lack of movement

Last second refusals are usually down to tippet issues - flash, coils, grease etc. The effects are exacerbated in calm conditions.

That said, I've never been a fan of the F Fly myself. I'm a profile obsessive when it comes to dries and the F seems to me to just be, well, a bit of a blob on the surface with little impression of appendages, life or movement. I would doubt that this would be the reasons for your refusals though, or the trout wouldn't have inspected in the first place - I'd go for the tippet issues.

__________________
The sun pushed dark spokes of melt and sparkle
Across the fields of hoar. And the river steamed -
Flint-olive.


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