How each of us defines fishing success varies. For some, the number of fish caught is the primary consideration, while others are more focused on big fish. There is also a subset of fly fishers for whom novelty or challenge are particularly important. It’s quite likely that each of these markers of success is going to resonate, to varying degrees, with folks who have been fly fishing for a few years.
In each of these scenarios, at least one fish has to take the fly, even if that fish is not actually landed. But as almost everyone knows, there are days when getting even a single bite seems like an insurmountable difficulty. On days like that, you have a couple of options. You can just enjoy being on the water, or you can tune in to the ecosystem and try to solve the puzzle.
Monkey Mind
Much of the time, we don’t need to spend a lot of brain power figuring out how to catch fish. We tie on a fly that usually works, fish it in the usual places, and the fish usually oblige. But there are times when this simple approach comes up short. Often enough, a change of flies or technique will get you in the groove. If that fails, it’s easy to accept it’s just “one of those days,” and that’s when your mind inevitably starts to wander. It’s quite possible you’ll spend many minutes or even hours in this disconnected state, oblivious to the fact you have tuned out. Not surprisingly, this doesn’t improve your chances of connecting with a fish.
Mind wandering is defined as self-generated thoughts unrelated to a task or the surrounding environment. Buddhists call this “monkey mind,” which is an easy-to-remember metaphor. A Harvard study involving five thousand people indicated that on average, we spend 47 percent of our time in monkey mind mode. Clearly, anything that consumes almost half our time must have significant evolutionary value. However, it isn’t compatible with tasks that require a high degree of attention and being in tune with the surrounding environment, two factors that are often key to fly-fishing success. When the fishing gets tough, we can either give in to the monkey, or we can find a way to control it.
The concept of mindfulness is unlikely to be new to many readers. An article in the Harvard Business Review defines it this way: “Two skills define a mindful mind: focus and awareness. More explicitly, focus is the ability to concentrate on what you’re doing in the moment, while awareness is the ability to recognize and release unnecessary distractions as they arise.” The link between mindfulness and fly fishing has been explored by a number of writers. Most of these pieces explain how being mindful while fly fishing lowers stress and helps bring about a sense of tranquility. This isn’t a bunch of spiritual woo woo; plenty of scientific studies have shown measurable benefits. However, as the definition above indicates, there is another way that mindfulness and fly fishing go together. Instead of managing random thoughts so they enter and exit your mind without judgment, you specifically focus your mind on fishing. Any time your mind wanders (and it will), you redirect it back to fishing.
The hyperstimulation-based business model of social media and cable news networks can make it especially difficult for many people to silence the monkey. But don’t despair. Even if your media diet has resulted in a pathologically short attention span, mindfulness will still make you better at focusing on fishing. Ironically, there are plenty of apps and online videos that can help you develop this ability, and they are well worth exploring. Or if you would like more hands-on help, just type “mindfulness teachers” into your search engine of choice, and you’ll likely find instructors in your area.
If all this sounds like too much work, relax and just try to concentrate on one particular aspect of the fishing. Your mind will almost certainly go wandering off, and it may take several minutes to notice it has gone AWOL. When you become aware your thoughts are elsewhere, just smile and refocus. Some days, this will be easier than others, but over time, you’ll get better at managing the monkey.
Optimal Foraging Theory
So now that you have figured out how to focus your attention better, what do you focus on? Since fly fishing is about serving fake food to what we hope are hungry fish, figuring out what is likely to be on the fishs’ menu and how to match that food is an obvious place to start. There’s plenty of information about this in California Fly Fisher, in other magazines and books, and online. It will get you to the point where many of the formerly insurmountable problems become solvable.
But not all of them. Thankfully, biologists have a theory that can help us catch fish when the going gets really tough. Optimal foraging theory helps explain how a fish (or any other animal) will behave when it is searching for food or actively feeding. Basically, it states that fish will feed on an item of food such as a nymph, dun, or baitfish if it provides more calories than is required to capture, ingest, and digest it.
However, this simple calories-gained versus calories-used equation is complicated by factors such as competition, risk of predation, and time taken to obtain or digest the prey. Fish have evolved numerous behaviors to address these factors, enabling them to live in an environment where limited food and the threat of predation are the norm. It can be difficult for most of us to comprehend just how finely balanced life is for a truly wild animal. Imagine for a moment how different our lives would be if we had no tools and could use only our bare hands, ate everything raw, and were ourselves hunted by animals that were larger, faster, and sometimes smarter than us.
Knowing if when and how these factors are influencing feeding behavior can be the key to success on really tough days. This is why a focused mind is so important. Your chances of solving this puzzle are significantly reduced if your mind is wandering. Here are a few examples of how combining mindfulness and optimal foraging theory can help you catch fish.
Drift Feeding
No doubt you have heard that trout save energy by holding behind or in front of rocks and logs (refuge) because these obstructions slow the current, and the fish don’t have to swim as hard to stay in place. The fish move into the current to grab food and then return to their refuge. This is why nymph fishers often use heavily weighted flies. They want to ensure they are close to the bottom, with its rocks and slower currents.
However, research has shown that this refuge feeding strategy saves energy only when food is present at typical levels. When food is plentiful, such as during a hatch, staying in the current is actually more efficient for fish. In clear waters such as the Fall River or Hat Creek, you may notice this when fish “magically” appear in the current as a hatch gets going. The next time you are fishing and an insect hatch starts, you might want to ensure your fly stays up in the current instead of running close to the bottom.
This type of feeding behavior isn’t limited to fresh water. Halibut normally lie on the sand and grab any baitfish that swims close by, which is why you’ll usually do best with a fly that runs close to the bottom. However, when anchovies or squid form large schools, halibut will leave the sand and actively pursue them like stripers and rockfish. When this happens, a fly that runs too deep won’t just be ignored, it will be invisible. Halibut have both eyes on top of their head and can see only upward.
Cripples
One way fish can minimize the amount of energy they use to obtain food is to eat injured prey. Sailfish do this when they are working a school of bait, and it is quite a spectacle. Instead of chasing individual fish, the sailfish slashes at the school with its bill. This injures one or more fish, which can then be mopped up with less effort.
But sailfish aren’t the only fish that eat cripples. Large stillwater trout that are working schools of baitfish such as smelt or threadfin shad will also show a preference for injured prey. One thing that can tip you off to this type of feeding is when you see a school of bait in the water (or on your finder), and there are occasional large boils on or just below the surface. If the water is clear, you may notice trout swimming at a rather relaxed pace. Look closely, and you’ll probably observe the occasional twitching baitfish that is slowly floating up toward the surface. This easy-to-secure prey is what the trout are focused on.
Under these circumstances, fishing a streamer with the typical stripping retrieve may not get much action. Trout aren’t going to waste energy chasing your fake baitfish when they can leisurely consume cripples. One approach that works on these fish is to use a sinking line and cast just enough line to drop the streamer into or below the school of bait. Once the line has reached depth and is directly below your rod tip, slowly inch the fly back toward the surface. The takes will often be quite subtle, since the trout know the prey is too weak to get away. But that gentle take can quickly turn into a fully bent rod and screaming reel. You can hook some seriously large fish using this technique.
Mouth Size
Studies on cutthroat trout and sticklebacks have shown that these fish (and likely many other species) derive the most energy from prey that is about half the width of their mouth. Larger items required more manipulation to orient them for swallowing. This uses more energy, increases the chance that another fish will steal the food, and because the fish is preoccupied, it also increases the possibility that the fish itself will become prey. Meanwhile, smaller prey requires the fish to capture more food items, thereby expending more energy for the same number of calories.
This suggests that if there is no obvious hatch, you may be more successful prospecting with a fly that is about half as wide as the typical fish’s mouth. Perhaps this is why Woolly Buggers that are about half an inch wide are so effective with trout. The only time when consuming prey larger than half the mouth width was found to be more efficient was when the fish had an empty stomach. This might explain why large streamers are often the most successful in the early morning hours, before the fish have started to fill their stomachs.
A study that looked at brown trout provides a nice example of how mouth size influences feeding strategies. The researchers found that larger brown trout consumed bigger floating terrestrials, while their smaller brethren fed on smaller subsurface items. The small fish either had mouths that were too small to secure the terrestrials or would have had to expend more energy processing them prior to ingestion. This would seem to suggest that if you are intent on catching larger fish, you may want to fish a grasshopper imitation solo, instead of using a hopper-dropper combo.
Time Minimization
One axiom of optimal foraging theory is that organisms that spend less time feeding to reach satiety will have more time available to metabolize the food and grow. Spend enough time observing trout in clear streams, and you’ll occasionally see them engaged in “speed feeding.” The fish will be actively feeding throughout the water column, instead of at one level. This can also happen in productive lakes when a smorgasbord of mayflies, chironomids, and caddisflies are all hatching.
Under these circumstances, the fish will be very active, and you could be in for a short, but very productive bite. This nonselective feeding means you often don’t need to make super accurate casts or have exactly the right pattern. This is when it can pay to cover as much water as possible with nondescript or even attractor style flies.
Whatever you do, don’t let the monkey distract you. Once the fish have reached satiety, the bite will shut down, and virtually nothing will get them back on the feed until they have fully digested the meal. A prime example of this are surf stripers. When they are attacking a school of anchovies, the action can last as little as 15 minutes. When these frenetic bites stop, they do so very suddenly. The surface of the water can go from mayhem to millpond in less time than it takes to tie on a fly.
Sneaky Feeders
European researchers have calculated that young Atlantic salmon in streams achieve higher foraging efficiency by quickly invading and then retreating from a section of the stream dominated by a larger brown trout. This feeding technique isn’t restricted to salmon. No doubt you have had smaller trout dash in and grab your fly before the big trout you were hoping to catch had a chance to take it. The resulting commotion usually causes the big fish to bolt for cover or sink out of sight, and it might not resume feeding for a long time.
If you have spotted a large fish, spend a few minutes very carefully watching for sneakers. If you see some, try to determine if they feed in a specific area or follow a specific route. Don’t hurry this investigation — you’ll probably only get one chance at the big fish that they’re sneaking food from. If the sneakers are using a specific area or path, try to position yourself so your fly is presented in a manner that will reach the big fish first. This might require moving to an upstream or downstream location or even crossing to the other bank, if doing so is practicable.
There are bound to be many other situations where a mindful focus and a basic understanding of optimal foraging theory will help improve your fishing success. Quite apart from making you a better angler, they also provide a deeper level of connection with the fish and their environs, which means you are more likely to return home happier and more relaxed.
Of course, Lee Wulff understood this. “It is you and clean, flowing water,” he wrote in Trout on a Fly (Lyons Press 1986). “It is you, inquisitive, in a wild world that is older than man, seeking greater understanding and finding not only an endless interest but a tranquility that comes, most of the time, to all nature’s wild creatures.”
