Three Main Trout Senses Trout have amazing powers of smell. For humans, trying to understand smell underwater is rather difficult since we can't do it. However, trout have no difficulty smelling underwater, so it is worth an anglers time to make sure that they aren't introducing foreign smells into a trout stream (which can warn a trout to a lurking danger such as a fisherman.) When fly fishing for trout, do your best to avoid any artificial smells that are completely foreign to a trout stream. Avoiding these smells, though, of often easier said than done, as the sources of these smells can come from many sources. Fly line cleaners, fly floatants, epoxies and glue can all contribute alien smells to a trout stream. Other things such as aftershave, deodorant and even the smell of your clothing can all tip off a trout that an angler is near.

Do Fish See in Color The fly fisherman also must remember that color behaves differently in water that it does when seen in the air. Water is denser, and the colors are diffused quicker. Cloudy days where there is less overall light will offer less visibility, and colors will disappear quicker in the depths of the water. And the clarity of water obviously greatly effects this as well. This is important in fly selection because certain colors travel farther in low light than others. Red is the first color to disappear, usually at about 15 feet in clear water, followed by orange and then yellow. Blues and greens are visible to the fish as long as there is light. Yet silver and white will be brighter. So while the Mickey Finn is obviously a great choice as an attractor fly, it would not be as good a choice in murky water or if fished deep. A better attractor might be a white Woolly Bugger or White Marabou Muddler.

A Different Kind Of Catch Catching Them The dark, jade water is balmy and warm. In my right hand is a high-powered spear gun. Its mechanism is set in beautifully worked teak. Around 5ft long, it is clumsy on land but once in the water it balances perfectly. A long sharpened spear is powered by thick rubber bands. The trigger of the gun will release a spear that could pin a grown man to the wall. As we alight to the side of a dun-colored reef with knobbled outcrops and fire coral, teeming with fish, the hunt for our supper begins. We are several miles from Key West in the Florida straits, diving from the Discoverer Ketty Lund, a wooden-hulled scientific research vessel on a trip around the Keys. Her captain is Eric Smith, a muscular, salt-encrusted sea skipper and diver with a boyish gap between his front teeth who has piloted his boat and marine scientists around the Atlantic for years. On the long trips down from places like Labrador, Canada, to his home in the Keys, he will jump over the side and go spear fishing for grouper, snapper and tuna to feed himself and his crew. As we descend deeper into the cool depths, he is showing me how to hunt under water.

Deep Jigging
One of my favorite ways to fish is with a jig - a big jig - in deep water. We call it deep jigging. In water from 100 to 200....