Trout: You Can See Them, Honest

This week we got an email from a MidCurrent visitor who claimed to have been fishing for trout since 1963, since which time he had never seen a trout in the water. In fact, he went so far as to call us novices for claiming anyone could do so. The email brought a smile to my face, because it reminded me of the first time a guide pointed out the gill-flare of a feeding trout to me. It’s the sort of thing no one believes you can see — until you actually see it.
Kirk Deeter over on Fly Talk lists five ways to spot more trout, including one of my favorites, which applies in principle not only to seeing trout, but to seeing fish in saltwater as well: “Learn to recognize what is NOT a trout. If you teach yourself what wagging weeds and sticks on the bottom and so forth look like, you hone in on finding the trout through the process of eliminating distractions.”