Published Nov 10. 2012 - 11 years ago
Updated or edited Aug 8. 2015

does size matter?

Hi evrybody,
what a question. Here the flyfishinng background to it (for the rest, I think Martin is trying to maintain a G rating).
Trout season is over in my river, I was anyhow in the area, pike is still open, so I packed a heavy rod (and some spinning gear) and tried my luck.
The only fish besides a couple of takes that were for sure no pike, was a 35 cm brown trout on a Matuka streamer on a 3/0 salmon hook, probably 10m to 15 cm long (4 to 6 inches for those who think imperial), which was obviously released :) . Normally I fish streamers size 8 and have sometimes the impression that the fish are reluctant. I have caught trout on such large irons before, bur never given it much thought,
What would be your view/experience on this? Early spawning aggresiveness. An idea on what trout can handle as feed? I know the rule of thumb that northern pike take fish up to a third of thier body length.
TL and dry socks
Florian

Martin Joergensen's picture

Florian,...

Florian,

Although I have caught big trout on very small flies, I have also had some smaller fish on huge flies. I remember one from back when I did a lot of float tubing, and trolled a cod fly tied on a 2/0 hook behind the tube as I was paddling towards the shore. The fly was a good 20 cm (or about 8 inches) and the fish probably 35 or 14 inches or so. The fish could barely open its mouth wide enough to gape over the hook, but still struck with vigor! It was pretty deeply hooked by the large hook.
Maybe it didn't want to eat the "quarry", but just scare it. Judging from the hook set, it looked like it wanted to swallow everything, though.

The same fly caught me the biggest fish I ever got from the tube. Same technique, same vigor, but this fish was more like 90 centimeters or 35 inches. A slim winter fish, but still a decent catch.

I rarely fish with flies that large, but my experience from fishing my normal fly sizes (up to 4-5 centimeters or a couple of inches) is that fingerlings in the 10-20 centimeter or 4-8 inch range will willingly strike at these flies and ever so often get hooked.

Greedy little fish
[img:735d551b96]http://10stille.dk/pictures/10stille/20040417/lille.jpg[/img:735d551b96]

This one was caught spin fishing. The lure is about one third to half the size of the fish, but of course slimmer (seen in the background)
[img:735d551b96]http://10stille.dk/pictures/10stille/20040712/smolt.jpg[/img:735d551b96]

Martin

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