Gees, what a bunch of knuckleheads.
Posts get deleted, I can see a bunch of you angrily clicking your mouses at me, it's a pitty.
What happened to: Re: How Does Foruming Improve Your Outlook? http://clarksclassicflyrodforum.yuku.com/reply/155608#reply-155608
I'm glad you guys got rid of the shoe advertisements though.
Anyway, what do you guys know about a stealthy trout approach?
I posted this at grassart, curious what this collection thinks.
Recently, my tenkara outings have me thinking, "what
do the trout see?"
I've always had this in mind, my approach to a casting spot, the clothes I wear, my movements on the stream, the terminal tackle, the books on my shelf.
Speaking of books on my shelf, I have a couple that exact this information, what the trout see.
page 79
In view of its profound importance to the angler, it is surprising to us that the great mass of angling literature has ignored the question of fish vision, and the factors which influence it.
The first author to touch upon the subject, briefly, was Alfred Ronalds in The Fly-Fisher's Entomology, published in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since then only a handful of writers have looked at fish vision in any detail. The most notable of these have been Dr. Francis Ward in Animal Life Under Water (1919) - a book that was far ahead of its time; J.W. Dunne in Sunshine and the Dry Fly (1924) - an interesting and unusual work; Col. E.W. Harding in The Fly-Fisher and the Trout's Point of View (1931) - much the most thorough study of the subject published up to that point; and E.R. Hewitt in A Trout and Salmon Fisherman for Seventy-five Years (1948). More recently a beautiful book published in the United States by Vincent Marinaro - In the Ring of the Rise - has discussed aspects of the subject; and Through the Fish's Eye by Mark Sosin and John Clark, also published in the United States, likewise should be mentioned.
But when one has said that, one has said most of it. It is also important to note that even those books that have discussed the subject - including some of those mentioned above - have incorporated either basic misunderstandings that have led their authors to some incorrect conclusions, or else have been based upon a level of scientific knowledge which has since been superseded again leading their authors to some incorrect conclusions (or, at least, to conclusions which appear to be incorrect today: one thing no one can yet say is how the brain of a fish interprets the messages transmitted from the eyes).
Light, the "Window" and the "Mirror"
Any discussion of what the trout can see - and of the relevance of this to angling technique - can only sensibly begin with an examination of the means by which the trout sees anything.
Such a discussion will focus on light (without which nothing could be seen by anything); and the capacities of the fish's eye itself. The former will take us into the world of the "window" and the "mirror"; and the latter, given today's knowledge of the structure and physics of the eye, will give us an appreciation of what the trout is capable of seeing in the world.
page 39
To catch a fish, you must first catch its eye. Sound and smell may cause an initial response, but when most gamefish make their final attack on your offering they are guided solely by eyesight. Understanding the importance of eyesight in fish behavior, and how a fish actually sees underwater, can help an angler in many ways.
How Fish Adjust to Light
The typical fish eye is remarkably akin to the human eye. The similarity may seem surprising when you consider that man lives in an environment of air while a fish lives in water, but the principles of eyesight are much the same throughout the animal kingdom.
Thanks for mentioning Proust's madeleine---so
surprised I tripped over une
