490 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



A fish is easily deceived, for he is not very observant. His eyesight 

 is poor and he recognizes things chiefly through their movements. 

 For instance, when an angler uses a fly, the fish is supposedly 

 deceived by three factors, — form, pattern, and movement. In the 

 matter of form and pattern the fish's vision is too weak and near- 

 sighted to recognize the bait for what it is. He is vised to certain 

 distorted images which impress him more through motion than by 

 any other factor, and he captures or tries to capture such a moving 

 object. But it is also the unfamiliar, the unusual, which tempts 

 fish, perhaps more than the customary objects. How else can one 

 explain the presence of blocks of wood, of straws, twigs, leaves and 

 the like, in fishes' stomachs? On more than a dozen occasions I have 

 found blocks of wood in trout stomachs. In at least half the cases 

 there was not the remotest resemblance in the shape of the block 

 to any type of surface bait. An irregular cube has no resemblance 

 to any insect, while an oblong bit might well have the approximate 

 outline of a stone-fly or a grasshopper. But it was probably the 

 strangeness, the unusualness of the block of wood which attracted 

 and tempted the trout. The most interesting feature of these 

 instances was that in only one case were the blocks of wood taken by 

 a hungry fish ; that is, only once were the blocks of wood the sole 

 stomach content. In all other instances, blocks and sticks were 

 gulped by fairly well-fed fish. One might say that they were taken 

 as a sort of salad or dessert, indicating that their novelty tempted 

 the fish. 



The foregoing has its practical application. When fish are well 

 fed they may rise to bait, but less to grasp it than to look it over. 

 Every fisherman has seen some coveted fish rise thus, examine the 

 bait, roll over lazily, and return to his retreat. However, if the 

 bait be unusual, a fish may be led to bite if he is convinced that the 

 lure ofifered is some particularly juicy morsel which should be a 

 fitting wind-up to his meal. The more the bait ofifered resembles 

 some moving surface bait, the more likely is the trout to strike at it. 



As emphasized before, a fish is near-sighted, and even close up 

 his vision is poor ; he sees objects more or less distorted. On top 

 of all this he is not particularly intelligent, but rather stupid. It 

 takes him a long while to learn a simple fact, and hence he is easily 

 deceived. If the fly because of its resemblance to a regular food 

 item does not attract, try the unusual. This should be particularly 

 effective when the fish has fed. or is partly satiated. 



