Drop-In Trout

As Nathaniel walked along a  rock wall beside a big plunge pool, he looked down into the swirling eddy on the edge of the pool. He immediately saw trout holding beneath all the floating debris, and the more he peered into  the hole, the more trout he saw. Never one to walk past a waiting fish, Nathaniel slipped a Watsit Grub into a gap in the debris, dropped it almost to the bottom and began jiggling it lightly. Immediately one of the trout attacked, and he set the hook and pulled up the fish.

"That was fun!" he said about the visual game, and then he dropped his grub back down. It wasn't long before he pulled out another trout and his friends came to join him on the wall. I'm not sure how many fish they ended up catching from straight below before the trout got wise, but I know it quite a few and that all three boys had a big time. The biggest challenge was getting the grub between the floating bark and branches and keeping it close to the bottom without the debris catching the line and pulling it back up. If they could work a lure among the trout, the fish would bite, and it was obvious when to set the hook because everything happened in clear sight.

The boys were fishing in a youth-only stream, where I wasn't allowed to fish, so I didn't get to try the game, but the drop-in trout fishing sure was fun to watch.