Don't Believe Everything You Read

A while back I was reading John Mordock's book, Capturing Rogue Trout: Strategies of a Third Generation Fly Fishermen.  In one part he states that he has heard a myth that you should throw streamers during a hatch, and stated that this does not work.  When I read this, I thought, "well sure, why would you throw streamers during a hatch."

Yesterday I was on the St. Joe River trying to catch some early spring cutthroats.  Since it was April, the water was high and moving very swiftly.  It was difficult to find a good spot to get to the river that had fishy looking water.  I finally found a small jettie of boulders that created a nice back eddy on an outside corner.  I notice a few flies in the air that appeared to be March Brown Mayflies.  By the time I put on my waders and laced up my rod, the air began to fill with a swarm of flies.  Fish in the back eddy began working the surface and my excitement level began to rise.  I had many options in my fly box to match this hatch.  I began casting into the eddy and caught a nice cuttie on about the third cast. Then the hatch really took off. There was about 2 or 3 natural flies per square foot on the water.  Unfortunately with that many bugs on the water, it became difficult to get a fish to take my imitation.  I got several false strikes but no takers.  I tried several size and color variations but the result was the same, with that big of a menu, the fish did not even give the artificial fly much of a look.

With my frustration mounting, I remembered this myth that Mordock said didn't work.  I had nothing to lose as I could not get the fish to take my dry flies.  So I put the spool with the sink tip line on my Hardy Perfect, tied on a #10 bead head olive wooly bugger, and pitched it out into the current.  I let the streamer swing through the current into the back eddy and WHAM!  First cast, a nice 17" westslope cutthroat.

This was the one that hit on the first cast with the streamer

 I caught 5 more in the next 30 minutes.  I probably would have never thought to take that approach during such an impressive hatch had I not read the author stating that this does not work.

This is only one case where this approach worked, so I am not suggesting that it will always work, but I am suggesting that fishing is not a cut and dried affair.  Just because someone says "that won't work", or "you must do this" doesn't make it a fact.  Sometimes when something that should be working isn't, try a completely different approach, you might be pleasantly surprised.