>Fished the Narrows today for a while after Charlie & friends left. Wish I
>could tell him I caught a few after they left, but I didn't. I did see
>quite a few 10 to 16 inch Coho jumping, but never even got a strike. Does
>anyone have any ideas on what they are jumping for? A few looked they were
>coming up for bugs on the water. I was tempted to try a dry fly as the
>water was like glass in areas.
Bill,
I call them Happy Jumpers. Those freewheeling jumping antics are not
feeding riseforms. There are two riseforms that we flycasters from the
beach should concern ourselves with. One is the purposeful porpoising we
see now as fish are lazily taking euphasids and amphipods just under the
surface. The other is slashing swirls and the incredibly fast chasing of
bait. The leaping silvers are characterized by forward motion rather than
straight up cartwheeling. When they are on candlefish, the best dry fly is
a popper or cripple, as I call them. But this won't be for a while. Right
now it is time to put shrimpies in the water with an occassional small
baitfish. The only thing these jumpers tell you is that there are fish
around. When I see them, I quickly put a couple casts with my euphasid
imitation within the general area. Usually, they are part of school of
fish. So, as a general rule, this is the time to fish the water around the
jumpers, not specifically targeting the jumper. Who knows, you may hook the
jumper anyway. I am sticking with just under the surface shrimp fished with
a wet fly swing with small twitches. I change to small baitfish when I want
a faster retreive.
Hope this helps,
Leland.
