Fish are not smart. They don’t get educated. They don’t think. They can’t reason or feel emotion. You are intellectually superior to a rainbow trout (brains shown to scale). True, this: once you stop treating fish like an intelligent adversary, you’ll start catching more of them.
The McMillan quote is one of my favorites.
currentseams.com 
…then how come I saw a rainbow trout reading “Currentseams”???!!!
(read in Ed Sullivan imitation voice) Right here on our stage, Frank telling jokes… 🙂
“Tonight on our sheeoowww…”
Used to love Ed…
Your post is actually not very comforting. There is some solace in being humiliated by a creature that can think. But, to be thoroughly defeated by a peabrain is a perhaps healthy blow to anyone’s ego.
Courage, Alex. You weren’t defeated by a peabrain. You just didn’t figure out what they were eating, or how they were eating it, or your presentation was off. Persistence (and intelligence) shall prevail! 🙂
[…] are not intelligent. There is no such thing as an educated striped bass. Fish cannot reason. They are programmed for survival, and these primal forces have nothing to do with fly fishing or […]