Redemption for the "Failure Fish"

Redemption for the "Failure Fish"

The lowly fallfish has been disappointing trout anglers for decades. Photo by Jim Leedon/Hatch Magazine Although there have been big changes over the last 20 years in how fly fishers view “trash fish,” there are still plenty of species for whom we feel little romance. In Hatch Magazine, Steven Sautner asks why we feel this way: Among anglers, fallfish almost universally disappoint. Their biggest offense is rising like trout and tricking you into…

Redemption for the 'failure fish'

Let’s say you get your hands on Kip’s time machine from Napoleon Dynamite. You insert the proper number of crystals but instead of going back to the halcyon year of ’82, you choose to travel 500 years back in time to the banks of the Delaware River for some casts. The river would undoubtedly churn with fish — stripers, shad, river herring, bowfin, mighty Atlantic sturgeon. In a slow glide, a pod of risers casually sips hatching insects. You appr…