Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 19 August 2015
During the past week I went coarse fly fishing again. Carp were my main target. What really made me think was seeing some of them rising to my fly and then stopping less than an inch below my fly and finally (after SEVERAL seconds) refusing to take it. It seemed to me like they were realizing the WRONG smell signature on my fly!
In order to make it harder for the carp to SEE my fly being wrong I also fished right into dusk. Still several carp were acting pretty similar (and refusing different flies). It seemed pretty obvious to me carp often use their sense of smell to identify or better to separate their food from none-food stuff.
Understanding this left me with an old question of mine: How do I get a neutral smelling fly? The answer still is the same like I offered it here. We will never have any neutral smelling fly. The only question is what senses the species of fish we are after is using in order to take or not to take our fly.
With trout it’s easy. They often go by SEEING their food and then RUNNING straight into it. With pike it’s often the same.
But today we fly fishermen are fly fishing for (I think) at least 200 different species of fish – maybe more!? I know that I have caught more than 100 different ones myself.
I am wondering if using a flavored fly wouldn’t be a pretty logical step in the evolution when fly fishing for those species who use their smell in order to check out food becomes more and more popular?
Definitely the Norwegians are putting a lot of research in matching the smell signature – yes, for those anglers using artificial lures.
Last week I again refused starting to experiment with flavours. As a result? I managed to fool no more than 2 carps during 7days fishing for them!
Hope you had some exciting fly fishing as well!
All my best
Bernd