I've been thinkin (which some say is never a good idea for me) and the thought I thunk is this: We often hear of the "wiley old brown" or the elusive rainbow. Why are they so hard to catch when, for instance, a cat fish can be pulled out pretty much at will? Usin flies rather than live bait has a slot to do with it but ceterus paribus trout are still harder to catch. Why is this? My thought is that the dumber a fish is the harder is is to catch. Now you take a glob of chicken guts ripened on a fence post in a fruit jar and a cat immediately recognizes that as food. And if he ate a chunk of bacon a week ago and sees another he will remember that its as good as life gets. Some poor guy working on an advanced degree in fisheries biology took on the task of counting the number of food items a brown trout had to see before it recognized it as food. Three hundred may flies or what ever had to float by this dumsumbitch before he was stimulated to feed. (That's high tone for figured out those were rib eye equivelents t'were a floatin over head.) We've all seen a mayfly float over a trout only to be ignored then seen it come alive when a lot of mayflies floated by. Why didn't he eat the first one? Because he's dumber than a box of rocks. Now, ah've read hat trout are opportunistic feeders. Ah do believe that means they feed when the opportunity presents itself. Not so. Otherwise there'd be a whole hell of a lot more whockin big trout swimmin around. So the next time you are feeling frustrated because the trout won't take your fly, don't think he has to be outsmarted-you're already doing that by offering a perfectly food source that it's to bedrock dumb to recognize. Rather recognize that you may have to cast that same fly to it' feeding lane three hundred times before some random synapse sparks and thinks, "Oh,, that could be food". Have fun and tight lines
Trout are not intelligent. They are instead more wary about danger and more selective about what they eat relative to most other fish.
I don't know bout trout, but many a carp has proven more intelligent than me. No matter how focused and in the game I am, I always seem to do one critical thing wrong and get the snub.
I think trout are more intelligent than most people here. Your always trying to fool a trout to hit the feathers you throw out there. Most fish like a juicy bug over them feathers.
i had a cat in my tank all last year and 3/4 of your assertions about how they behave relative to food are totally inconsistent with what i observed. maybe you just know more about trout, and are going off of a widely-accepted stereotype about catfish?
A cat fish can tell something is food by the smell. A trout has to distinguish lots of floating or drifting stuff that is not food from the floating or drifting stuff that is food. Food or not food, that is the question. Especially in a river where they lose energy going into the current to take something that may not be food after all. I think thats why they get selective. Once they figure out something IS food, they stick to recognizing that pattern. Thats my "take" on the matter. Jay
Fish are stupid. They just react under different circumstances to danger, to food, and to nature's other calls. They're stupidity doesn't make them anything less than what they already are; beautiful, incredible, special . . . . .
Which is easier, arguing with an intelligent guy, or a moron? Iff'n they was easy to catch, we'd all be golfers.
dflett68 it is obvious that we are talking about two different kinds of fish. Your fish was apparently was what could be called an urbane sophisticate tank dwelling catfish that had a human servant deliver victuals as needed. The good ole red neck country cat I'm talkin 'bout lived in a muddy creek where he was turtle food if he stayed too deep and hawk or coon food if he got too shallow. Needless to say he was a bit nervous. Your fish possibly had water clear enough to see his surroundings. Hell he was probably an Opra fan livin inside like he did. My fish on the other lived in an environment so muddy he couldn't see the cow shit some ole heifer dropped on him while she was gittin a drink. And if he was gonna eat he had to recognize food any way he could and grab it while it was available and that meant memory and memory is an indicator of intelligence. Or at least more intelligence than a trout has. TB I just saw your post and it got me to wondering if it's the intelligent guy or the moron with is ass in the air over what appears to be a bke in your foto?
So trout are stupid - hmmm how many of you have fished the railroad ranch on the henry's fork of the snake? how about the green below flaming gorge, silver creek Idaho? you can go find stupid trout or you can go find educated ones to pursue. most free stone trout have to feed when ever they see food and can be very stupid or to stay alive a lot less cautious. now go to a smooth surface spring river like the metolius and see how your high floating humpy or favorite stone fly works. most free stone river fisherman fail at spring creek fishing because they never had to learn what it takes to match hatches or become a quiet wader and many other aspects of the spring creek game. we on the west coast mostly fish for the free feeding freestone river trout so I could see why we would think trout are stupid. heck if trout are stupid steelhead are complete Idiots. why go target the skawala hatch or the salmon fly or famous green drake hatch? because if it wasn't easy fishing you would fail? because you want numbers of big fish and this is the easiest time to do that? As far as seeing 300 flies in a hatch before keying in on it being stupid - well after 300 they know 3000 will be coming by and they get in the best position to use the least energy to feed on the exact size and color and shape to preserve energy and not take a fly from a stupid fisherman that can not match the hatch. maybe sometimes the fisherman is a lot less smart about fishing then the trout are so they just say trout are stupid - it wont even take my fly even though it looks like food. How many flies have to float over a steelhead before they key in on a hatch and rise to feed on the food source? well I've only seen one show where this happened helicopter fishing in BC where steel actually rose and keyed in on a green drake hatch one of the only places in the world from what I know. oh wait we are comparing them to cat-fish - my bad!
Trout are exactly smart enough to survive in their various aquatic environments. It's been said that trout have a brain the size of a pea, yet routinely outsmart the anglers who pursue them. Trout have what is sometimes called a reptilian brain. Its supports the autonomous body functions like heart beat and breathing. The largest lobes support their very keen sense of smell, and olfactory lobes support their well developed sense of sight. They have very little reasoning ability and learn to recognize food by trial and error. This is probably why they can be taken repeatedly on artificial flies and lures. Their limited brain also contains an archtypal or instinctive aversion to potential danger or predators. They have no interest in reading WFF or the NY Times. Sg
Thats my boy (when he was 4 or 5) learning to ride his bike. He was doing good when I snapped the picture but because of the delay in a digital camera between when you snap the picture and when it takes it, I ended up with this picture of him in mid air doing summersaults.
trout learn, so that is some degree of intelligence. At least some trout, once they have been hooked by a certain lure, won't touch it again (that day anyways). I was trying to catch a group of trout in an inlet to a mountain lake in Colorado, and once I hooked one of them (he got off) the rest wouldn't touch that fly no matter how many time I floated it over them. Either they learned from seeing the other one get hooked (intelligence) or there was some sort of chemical signal (instinctual). I'm not sure which.
....except, how many of us have experienced not only the same thing, but at times the opposite too, where we were able to pull multiple fish out of the same hole one after another? Of course trout are smart, they travel in schools, and they can multiply.
I think fishing pressure plays a huge part in the "smartness" of trout. There are freestone rivers with selective trout, and I would wager that if you shut down the fishing at the famous spring creeks for a couple years the fishing when they reopened would be considered far easier. When I lived in Colorado there is a freestone tailwater that has selective trout due to heavy angler pressure and thirty miles away I can hike 5-8 miles and find larger fish acting stupid in the same type of river (freestone). I've always believed that trout are naturally unselective, and the pressure we put on them makes them selective. Water types play a role, but not as much as angling pressure.
Having caught fish with multiple flies in their mouth (in good enough shape to add to the fly box mind you), I would say your right about the lack of reasoning and ability to learn. But then places like RRR Henry's Fork, Silver Creek, etc., where they seem to developed more refined cuisine, makes me wonder...
I only seem able to catch the dumb ones. The smart ones never go for my flies. I hate it when they flip me off.
