Y'know, I used to fly fish for terminal fish a lot - thought I was pretty good at it too - could always catch fish when bait tossers, and even snaggers, went home skunked, until one day a couple years ago, during extrememly low water on the Satsop, I was fishing a hole that had chum stacked in it in a way that I could see them all as I was presenting the fly to them. All the "bites" I got were from the leader running through their teeth. I use a long one too on a Spey type rod. The little up eye long shank hook I used almost always hooked them well into the mouth - usually in the tounge or the corner towards me - so I always thought they were biting until I saw what was really happening. That hook would ride right into their mouth, disappear, and catch on the way out - then fish on. Real easy to see with the chartruse leech I was using. I pretty much quit fly fishing for terminal fish after that - at least now when I use bait on a short leader I know the fish get hooked because they want to eat it.

As you can tell, my philosophy is that the fish are supposed to bite. The sport for me is in getting them to. You guys that want to use the "single strand gillnet" (I like that one!), that's fine with me - but don't call it sport fishing.