Do we fish behind someone else?

How to tell if you fish behind another angler?

This might not be an issue in areas with a large fish population, but in public waters in Switzerland it is. In particular, on public Sundays as it happens during Easter, you can be sure there are many anglers at the water. Unless the weather is awful and the rivers are blown out.

Although there was such a free day last Easter Monday, André and I urgently needed to go fishing. Therefore, we drove to a creek in the Jura mountains. The water we chose, was neither known for its massive fish nor remarkable population, it was something else.

It was the surrounding that captured our imagination and drew us into its spell.

Despite previous fishing session in this twigwater being rather unsuccessful in terms of fish, André managed to catch an astonishing large fish.

After lunch, we witnessed the first dry fly session of the year, which I – as master caster – messed up and professionally spooked all fish.

We then waded around the next bend, where I suddenly smelled – weed.

André laughed at me and teased me that I was mistaking the abundant wild garlic for weed.

But after the next corner, we saw that it was not the wild garlic.

Further upstream, I managed to deceive another trout to eat my dry fly in a pool where there was no sign of surface action. This was interesting, until the trout came off the hook.

Do we fish behind someone else?

We then dislocated to another creek and we did not see, leave alone catch, anything. It was not until André fished a rather unpromising stretch of water that he landed one tiny trout.

What was wrong?

André thought that the higher water levels might push the fish to different spots. But I knew from the beginning that we fished behind someone else.

First, the stretch is known by several people and usually we catch fish in the promising looking holes. But this time there was not even a bite.

The only right thing to do was to thoroughly fish the inconspicuously looking stretches and trust in your kind of fishing.

However, this time there were no more fish to convince.

Perhaps the local fishing club celebrated the yearly fish-eating feast.