11-10-2012, 06:00 PM
I don't think your experience is strange. It seems like sometimes certain age classes of trout hold in some pools together. The teenager gangs! They might even be in just a small section of the pool.
Then too there is the carrying capacity of the water. Some waters don't hold enough food or habitat to support many if any large fish. Those 8 inchers may stay 8 inches and never grow bigger. If there is a good connection to a larger stream or lake, the bigger fish will migrate out, but it is great when they come back even bigger as spawners!
If there is plenty of easy food, or a lot of fishing pressure, or maybe even that the fish have seen you, you might be missing some larger "wiser" fish that are there. They may hang deeper and may just be spooked when the smaller greedy fish get hooked. You might try changing some tactics such as time of day, section of the pool to fish first, and commando stealth.
Also some years may have been better for spawning or survival of the fingerlings, so you get really strong year classes. Also consider if they are planters or not.
No matter the size, fishing small streams is a lot of fun.
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Then too there is the carrying capacity of the water. Some waters don't hold enough food or habitat to support many if any large fish. Those 8 inchers may stay 8 inches and never grow bigger. If there is a good connection to a larger stream or lake, the bigger fish will migrate out, but it is great when they come back even bigger as spawners!
If there is plenty of easy food, or a lot of fishing pressure, or maybe even that the fish have seen you, you might be missing some larger "wiser" fish that are there. They may hang deeper and may just be spooked when the smaller greedy fish get hooked. You might try changing some tactics such as time of day, section of the pool to fish first, and commando stealth.
Also some years may have been better for spawning or survival of the fingerlings, so you get really strong year classes. Also consider if they are planters or not.
No matter the size, fishing small streams is a lot of fun.
[signature]