“So what are they biting on?”
If I had 10 cents for every time someone has asked that question I would be a very rich man.
Knowing what the fish are biting on can certainly give you an upper hand when it comes to actually catching fish.
The trick is to figure it out by yourself if you can, and there are a number of ways of finding out.
Before you even head out onto the water, take a look around you. Look among the reeds and foliage along the shoreline. See what insects are moving around in the riparian zone. Look for insect shucks or cases floating on the surface of the water. Spent cases of insects can give you some indication of what insects have recently been emerging. And although there may be no hatch coming off at the moment, there will likely still be activity below the surface. Select the nymphal or pupal stage of the same insect that was most recently emerging and fish it at different depths with retrieval speeds. Also look for areas where birds that are feeding on the surface of the water. If birds are feeding above, fish are likely be feeding below.
When there is no activity on the surface, and you have no idea of what the fish have been feeding on, try using a ‘search pattern’ such as a shrimp or leech. My personal search pattern of choice is a caddis pupae. Remember, it is important to fish your search pattern at different depths before switching over to another pattern. Eventually you will (hopefully) hit on the right pattern.
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Once you have had success and caught your first fish of the day, use a stomach pump to take a sample of what’s in the fish’s belly. The type of stomach pump used in angling sort of resembles a turkey baster with a plastic tube and a flexible hollow rubber bulb at one end. To attain a sample, you first wet the whole thing by submerging it into the water, then press the bulb to create a vacuum, allowing a small amount of water to be sucked back into the bulb. Holding the fish just on the surface of the water, you then gently insert the tube into the fish’s mouth far enough to go in the stomach and release the pressure on the bulb, thus sucking in some of the stomach content. Gentle remove the tube from the fish’s mouth, squirt into a glass vial and release the fish back into the water. You can now identify what the fish has been most recently feeding on and make an informed decision on which fly pattern to use, what colour and what size. If you are going to keep your fish to eat, it is always better to it immediately and keep it on ice to preserve the flesh. Before discarding the entrails, you might want to quickly study the stomach content.
Now if you are the sort of angler who is diligent about gathering information as to when and where specific insect hatches come off, where there are shoals, underwater islands and weed beds, what sub-aquatic insects inhabit specific lakes, as well as records of size and species of fish caught, lures and fly patterns that have worked in the past at different times of the season, and you are inclined to write it all down in a fishing journal, such information can pay huge dividends. Fishing journals can be a precise and concise as you want to make them.
Then again, you can also simply go into the local fishing tackle store where you happen to be fishing and ask the owner/staff what works on a specific lake or in that area generally. They are usually more than willing to suggest certain lures and sell you local fly patterns. On the other hand, ask a fellow angler out on the water and you will also get answers - the problem is there’s probably only a 50-50 chance of getting a completely truthful answer.
Like I said, the trick is to figure it out by yourself if you can. By having made certain observations and inquiries of your own, and armed with a stomach pump and some facts recorded in a fishing journal, you are quite likely well on your way to having a successful day out on the water. What more can you ask?