Fly Selection Tips for the Opportunistic Trout
Photo Credit: Mark Jessop
Trout aren’t so different from people in that if given the opportunity they are more than happy to lazily hang around and feed their faces! In the world of trout, the name of the game is eating more calories than they are burning, and when their menu consisting primarily of tiny midge larva and scrawny mayfly nymphs, when the opportunity arises for a trout to belly up to the bug buffet or grab an extra juicy invertebrate, they will eagerly take a bite at it! What I’m describing here is one of the core principles that drives trout feeding behavior, and that is trout are opportunistic feeders. Opportunistic feeding is defined as when trout are presented with the opportunity to easily acquire a high calorie morsal of food or get a lot or food, the green lights go off in their little fishy brains and they jump at the chance before the opportunity passes them by. Understanding this primal motivation presents the fly fisher with three distinct opportunities to take advantage with some next level fly pattern selection that in turn will mean more and bigger fish in their nets!
Match to the Most Abundant Food – Meet the Trout at the Buffet
If you go to a BBQ and there are fifty hotdogs sizzling away on the grill, per BBQ etiquette, as long as the grill is packed with hotdogs you are welcome to come back for seconds, thirds, and even a fourth serving if you can stuff it in! Trout are savvy investors and, in the energy demanding environment of the river, trout will actively track and target where the most abundant food source that offers the greatest concentration of calories. If you use a seine to sample the invertebrates in the water you can very quickly determine which hatch and patterns are the days equivalent of hotdogs at the BBQ. When you pull your seine out of the water and it is loaded with mayfly nymphs and only the random caddis larva or stonefly nymph, tie on 2-3 mayfly nymph pattern to join the trout where they are undoubtedly doing most of their feeding. If adult caddisflies are swarming the river in plague-like clouds, don’t just stop at one elk hair caddis, but tie on three and meet the trout as they gorge themselves at the bug buffet!
Tie on an Attractor Pattern – Stand Out from the Herd
The opportunistic trout isn’t only interested in the most abundant food, but like other alpha predators such as the wolf or lion, their attention and aggression are inevitably drawn to prey they perceive as vulnerable and therefore an easy meal. If we were to watch a pack of wolve stalk a herd of elk, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that elk are on the menu, but my question to you is which elk will the wolves take down? As we watch the hunt unfold if one elk is seen limping outside of the herd, the wolves won’t hesitate to pounce, and they should be able to take down the wounded animal with significantly less effort than targeting a healthy, fully mobile one. Trout are no different than these wolves and are always on the look out for an outlier that appears wounded, vulnerable, or separated from the “herd” of the current hatch. By choosing an attractor fly pattern tied with a little extra flash, some brightly colored thread or floss, or a shiny metal beadhead and wire wrap, we are essentially giving our fly “a limp” separating it from the herd of healthy invertebrates and the trout can’t help themselves but to hone in and go for the easy bite!
Fish Oversized Flies – Like a Twinkie for Trout
After countless days of only tiny bugs on the menu, when a grasshopper or stonefly the size of a T-bone steak splashes down, the trout will often race each other for the first bite! The trout’s attraction to BIG BUGS extends beyond the season, region, and elevation, often ignoring where these big bugs actually live. Whether it is a size 10 dry stonefly hitting a high mountain lake or a mop fly swinging through the depths of a sleepy tailwater, trout are tempted to their core to cash in on these calorie rich offerings before another fish does.
So, the next time you go to the water, take advantage of the opportunistic feeding behavior of trout and appeal to their greed for easy calories! Do this first by matching to the most abundant foods, second by fishing an attractor fly to imitate an easy meal, and finally by offering a BIG BUG that might just prove to tempting for the fish to let drift by.
