Killer Shrimp Time

This is normally pin-fry season, when reservoir trout are hard to catch because they home in on whole schools of tiny fry at once, just as they do when feeding on Daphnia. They just charge around with their moths wide open and lunge at any accumulation of food, often against a clump of weed.

Sure enough, on a near perfect, warm, overcast evening, a queue of anglers lined the dam expecting action. None of us caught a fish.

I tried another location the following week but had to shelter for an hour while lightning struck the power pylons nearby. Carbon-fibre rods are a bit of a liability in a thunderstorm.

Fishing in heavy rain is almost never productive, but as soon as it stopped, caddis flies and daddy longlegs started to hatch and a few fish showed noisily. Killer shrimps started to swim about in the shallows and were chased by hundreds of small perch. This was surely to be a night to remember!

Dead Killer shrimps off my waders.

Killer shrimp imitations are almost always effective when the shrimps are active, but, as Mick Jagger  says,  I could get no satisfaction.

The season is weeks ahead of where it should be, so I thought I would try a small red and silver perch-fry imitation. I hooked a fish immediately and it raced off through a weed bed, jumped and came off. This happened three times and then the trout disappeared, but the perch went for my fly nearly every cast and I caught quite a few, all about 1/4 lb.

I witnessed two other anglers who lost fish like this. When this happens to you, the first thing you do is check your fly to see if the hook is damaged. Having discounted this, why are fish getting off the hook? If there is a lot of fly behind the hook, such as in some damsel nymphs and most fish imitations. anglers talk about the fish "coming short". In other words, they nibble the tail and let go. Again, this is not the problem here.

I think it has to do with my first paragraph. These fish are not catching single prey but dashing around with open mouths until they have a "gob-full". That's why the hook does not get a firm hold.

Although these two sessions were challenging, they were extremely rewarding for me. Isn't that why we fish?