Years ago, I was canoeing down the West Branch of the Delaware with a fishing buddy when we came upon an angler casting in the Farm Pool. We asked if he wanted us to paddle behind him, but he just huffed and took a step back toward the bank. So, we took that as a sign to hug the far bank, which we did, only to be yelled at with a series of expletives for messing up the run.
We didn’t say anything back, but looking over our shoulders, we realized the guy had a cast that couldn’t reach the ocean from the beach. In other words, a canoe floating downstream should have been the least of his worries.
Do the fish even care?
And that actually holds true in many places. I see people get worked up about boat traffic like dories, canoes and kayaks paddling downstream, even tubers cooling off on a hot summer day, and the truth of the matter is that the fish often don’t care about any of that, at least not as much as some anglers assume they do.
I learned this while doing a series of “Going Deep in the Name of Trout Research” stories for Field & Stream magazine. I’d put on scuba gear and go hang out in the bottom of a river run with the trout (sometimes for 45 minutes or so), and believe it or not, I could get within arm’s reach of the fish and watch them do their thing as if I weren’t even there.
How was that possible? My best guess is that they had never seen a 6-foot-long, bubble-blowing, neoprene blob in the river before. I didn’t look like any “natural” predator, so they didn’t know how to process my presence nor react.
I can tell you what did freak them out:
- quickly moving shadows from above (think a circling bird casting shadows… or the dozens of false casts you’re making over the run).
- Sound waves (like my tank clanking into a rock) were a close second. Think about that if your wading boots have studs.
Slow-moving boat shadows would send the fish scurrying for a bit, but do you know how long it would take the average trout to return to nearly the exact same spot and resume eating as if nothing happened?
About 30 seconds. I’m not kidding.
Heck, on some rivers like the Bighorn or the A section of the Green, I’d imagine the fish are so used to seeing so many drift boats floating by; they might start to wig out if they didn’t see the big shadows overhead.
Of course, an armada of kicking and splashing tubers are going to mess up the fishing. On many rivers, there are designated “tubing” sections, and “fishing” sections during the hot summer months. And frankly, when the river is warm enough for people to comfortably splash around in it, that’s a pretty good sign that you should be fishing a lake anyway.
Ease into a happy rhythm on the river
The lesson is this: That random kayak that floats by you when the hatch is on, is absolutely not worth getting worked up over.
Take a deep breath and wait a minute. If the fish are eating dries, wait for a couple heads to pop, and let everyone ease into a happy rhythm.
Because the series of anger-adrenaline-fueled false casts you might make over the run are going to spook the fish many times more than any boat lazily floating by ever will.