Rolling fish

[ghghhghg]

Hi,

I am new here and was wondering if any of you have seen this tipe of behaviour before, which would help me with identification of the fish I was seeing today. I was on the Chateaugay river in southern Quebec fishing from an old saw mill. The water was moving at about 1.5 to 2 ft per sec and between 2 to 8 ft in depth. The foundation of the old sawmill was sitll present as was the dam for increasing water speed (not so much the outside wall foundation) and the funell for the water wheel was still there. On the slow side of the funell there were plenty of bass but gradually on the (inside) fast side of the funell I noticed some fairely large slim fish. At fist I thought they might be carp but they weren't really acting like carp and they were slimmer. There were a few carp swimming around but the fish I am talking about didn't pay them any heed. In my experiece when a carp starts moving other carp will frequenly follow the leader. I suspect these might be rainbouw trout because the river is stocked further up with them and this is probaly an underfished area with ideal conditions. The only thing that had me stumped was this rolling thing these fish were doing. They looked like trout, were hanging out in trout-like spots, they wouldn't go for floating flies (I had no wet flies with me), tried a few leaches and minnows but still noting. I could see the fish spin around in the water showing their big bellies to the world as they were feeding. It was almost a cork screw type of movement.

So I am sorry for the vague discrtipion but have any of you seen this type of behaviour before. I am not sure what they are

Thanks Rick

[Davo]

Rick

If I had to guess I'd say they were trout. Just the other day I spent two hours with my guiding boss fishing to similar activity in a hole on the South Fork of the Snake River. Our fish were taking both emergers and rising all the way to take adults. The hatch was a PMD. We saw them rolling just under the surface quite aggressively. We caught several on dry flies and as we had no emerger patterns we took to using a sunken dry to catch several of the rollers under the surface. In our case they were all Snake River Cutthroat Trout.

Good luck when you go back to target the fish you saw!!!

[tlcrep]

The reason why fish roll: they dont have a middle finger

[ghghhghg]

Hi Davo

Thanks for the quick reply. I also think they are trout and if we are right then I am in for a treat. They are definately the largest ones I have seen around here. I was going to be heading back out there today after work but that has fallen through. So either thursday or saturday will be the day I find out. I will post my results.

Thanks
Rick

[Davo]

Rick

Post some pics too!!

[jose]

They could be shad- what you are describing just happened to me this weekend in the mongaup. They wouldn't take anything I threw at them, and they showed little concern as to my presence. Could you see any color in them? Were you close enough to see any black spots behind their gills? I met a spin caster when I was on the water who fishes that area often, and he said when the shad are there, the trout never show themselves...and they didn't.

[jose]

By the way Rick, trout do that rolling behavior when they are nymphing-showing their bellies and ignoring dries. After that happened to me a few times, I never went fishing without nymphs in my box again.

[MrEsox]

First off I dont think I can help much on the ID of the fish you are talking about. All the trout I have seen look nothing like carp. If fish get into an area (like carp) if one moves due to such a thing like spooking they all will move. However just cause one carp moves dont mean they all will. Second it is not often you see carp and trout in the same area. It all depends on the water temp. Though it is possible that the two will interact with eachother. Now for the rolling part. Many fish roll actually. It is a simple thing. First, rubbing is a good way to scratch a side. We in the know call it flashing. If a fish has something like bacteria or a parisite on their sides, they will often rubb that side on the bottom like scratching. The other reason could be feeding. Often fish looking for food in areas that have a large bottom dwelling bug population will do this action to sture up the bottom to get the bugs up and eat them.