When fishing, how many of you guys actually spoon your fish to see what their feeding on and try to match what they have taken.

I myself don't own a marrow spoon - perhaps I should as there are times when they are feeding on the "invisable fly" and assuming I had caught one, really should spoon to check.

I'm just grateful to catch that "first fish" to begin with! But, yes, I do then spoon them.

My season ticket is for catch and release only so I never get a chance. If I fish somewhere different for the day and take a fish it is the very first thing I do. Fascinating, not just for the moment of fishing but for the knowledge it adds to your fly tying efforts later.

I've never really got my head around this. You've just caught a fish so you dig it's gut contents out to find out what fly you needed to catch it.

Has anyone ever used a marrow spoon on a marrow?



Andy

__________________
[url]http://devonrivers.proboards85.com/index.cgi[/url]

Why not check its stomach! Do you use the entails as well?

If you have killed the fish you are obviously going to eat it, so you will encounter it's stomach contents anyway when you gut it. Even if you are not going to use the knowledge to 'match the hatch', as you say you already now have a proven successful pattern, it is just going to add so much insight into the natural history of your quarry. Nothing as fascinating as finding the little aquatic creatures that also share the trouts world, often still quite alive. Why would you not.

What in your experience have you found?

__________________
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

You jest surely?


At one time bone-marrow wasn't wasted. The marrow spoons wielded by butchers, chefs and housekeepers.




A white saucer or clear petri dish is more important to seperate out the resultant chironomid masses, or perhaps, duns and nymphs.
Snails are often found and beetles at certain times of the year.

Gosh, where to start. There is nothing quite as exciting as a half digested stickleback.

Have found snails, shrimps, hog lice, caddis cases, bloodworms, buzzers, beetles and all sorts on the spoon. I have even gutted fish and found full grown frogs.

The best part is if the little critters are still alive as you get to see their proper colours and appearance. Particularly applies to buzzers that seem to have various tones and shades within the one colour and often a contrasting and particular colour to the enclosed wings. Amber sort of tint on olive coloured ones and a definite pink/coral colour on black ones.

Was that a test?

Stop calling me Shirley


Well I used to and very interesting it was too but I'm not sure it ever caught me more fish, I guess I've grown out of it now
I once "rescued" an enormous dragonfly nymph from a dead trout's gut, the bloody thing bit me!


Andy

__________________
[url]http://devonrivers.proboards85.com/index.cgi[/url]