My Mistress' Gaze Rob Pretorius (With images by Tim Rolston) Do you ever gaze longingly into your true loves eyes? I know I do, but over time I have come to realise she does not see me the same way as I see her. Now, for some, this might be a problem but for me it just comes down to nature and, more specifically, biology. The one true love I’m speaking of is of course trout. I work with trout all day at Giants Cup Hatchery, obsess over making flies by night and in my spare time I try connect with them via spiderweb thin monofilament. So, yes, I truly love these fish and I am going to try to help you find your match in this watery dating world by the only way we know how - deception, otherwise known as flyfishing. How do trout see our flies? This is something all flyfisher people and especially fly tiers should be concerned about. Interestingly, most fisher people and fly tiers that I’ve interacted with have not given it all that much thought. I will admit, I only really looked a bit deeper into the biology of the trout eye when cramming for an aquaculture exam. After the exam was over I got back to the important things in life, namely flyfishing and fly tying. I tinkered with my fly patterns, applying my new found eyeball biology knowledge and guess what? I started to catch more fish. I am going to attempt to share this knowledge, without completely nerding out on you. Trout have an elliptical shaped orbit, that allows them to have a focal point in front of them as well as on their sides simultaneously. If you look at the photograph of a sexy rainbow trout eye you will see this clearly. I www.saflyfishingmag.co.za
9
always wondered why the pupil was not spherical like ours and at first I thought it might just be that the fish that I was looking at was a bit “special” but, no, it’s just the way nature designed these beautiful sleek creatures. It actually makes sense, if you think about it. They can key in on food items in front of them by using their sharp field of vision while still having fantastic peripheral vision to look out for predators and any food item that might need closer inspection with their forward-facing binocular vision. There is a notch in the forward edge of a trout pupil that helps them see over the bridge of their nose.
