Strange happenings at the pond today…

[3blade]

Went out for a well deserved afternoon by myself with fly rod in hand. Wind was cranking so I brought the 8wt. Headed to a local stocked pond. 4:30 or so the air show started with a solid 18 inch rainbow jumping 4’ out of the water, 80 yards off shore, in what I know to be 30 FOW. Ok, cool. Then it happened again. And again. As the evening progressed, the action moved closer to shore ending up at the edge of the weeds 25 ft from me. The strange thing was these were all big fish, and all of them were launching well clear of the water.

I threw a wider variety of flies in the last few hours than I have in years. Buggers, nymphs, chronomids, wet flies, emergers, back swimmers and drys. On one of the last casts of the evening I had a flash below a size 16 EHC. One lousy refusal in 3.5 hours. After that, it shut off.

What on earth is going on? My thoughts were either they are chasing something rising from the deep that I hadn’t matched (despite using a proven emerger pattern I’ve successfully used in exactly this situation before) or they are chasing those monster dragon flies up in the air. Or maybe minnows…?

Anyone seen this before and managed to capitalize? What’s the pattern?