As we begin the second week of trout season, anglers will encounter a much different experience on the streams now compared to the opening weekend.

There will be less fish left in most places, and those that managed to evade the onslaught of the first few days will be much harder to fool. Gone are the hopelessly gullible fish that easily fell prey to even the least skilled anglers during the first hours of the season. But some fish succeeded in getting away by slipping off the hook or were returned to the water after being caught by an angler practicing catch and release. Other fish somehow learned the many humans present along the streambanks were indeed predators and not their benefactors.

On the upside, there will be significantly less anglers on the stream now. A lot of the inexperienced trout chasers who might have caught a quick limit dumb fish on opening morning now might fish most of the day without a bite and have given up.

Like most avid trout fishermen, I enjoy having plenty of space to myself on the stream, but I also feel sad for the folks who never get past the easy pickings of the first day to learn the true basics of the wonderful sport of trout fishing.

One of the first lessons I try to impart to novice trout anglers is don’t be your own worst enemy by scaring away the fish before you make your first cast. As mentioned previously, even stocked trout will develop a fear of humans if given time to acclimate themselves to their new surroundings.

And wild trout are even more sensitive to human intrusion in or near their stream. Wear drab clothing in brown or green tones or even camouflage to match the streamside cover. Eliminate all unnecessary commotion or splashing including sloppy casting. All this will become increasingly important as the season progresses and the water gets lower and clearer.

Learning about the trout themselves and how they live will not only give you a better appreciation for your quarry but also make you a better angler. I’m amazed that some novice anglers don’t know that stream trout always face upstream into the current and generally pick a spot and hold there most of the time. Trout also have an extremely wide field of view that wraps around their body and behind them with a relatively narrow blind spot directly behind them. This situation leads to a basic trout-fishing strategy: whenever possible, fish upstream and therefore approach the fish from behind and in their blind spot to avoid detection.

Another basic strategy that I’ve found effective is to stay out of the water as much as possible. I know this sounds counterintuitive to many anglers. I know we trout fishers live to wade, but how many times have you seen someone standing where they should be fishing?

Remember that sound travels five times as fast in water as it does in the air, and trout have an exceptionally well-developed sense of hearing with a series of special nerve endings along their side known as the lateral line.

Your footsteps grinding on the stream bottom gravel can and will be heard a great distance away. On smaller streams, keep where and when you wade to a minimum if possible, and always wade slowly and carefully.

Inexperienced anglers look at a section of stream and often ask, “How do I know where to fish?” And the simple answer is, “Read the water.” But what exactly is there to “read” about the water? When it comes to trout fishing, reading the water of the stream is more specifically reading the current.

Almost everything relating to a trout’s feeding behavior is influenced by the stream currents. Remember that trout tend to hold in a specific spot facing upstream into the current waiting for food to come to them. The current acts as a huge conveyor belt relentlessly delivering all types of potential food items to the expectant fish.

A current seam, where a band of slower current abuts a faster current, is always a potential hotspot. Often the fish are more comfortable holding in the edge of the softer current while watching the faster flow and sliding over to pick off any morsel that comes by. Learning to read the water is an acquired skill and one that is worth the time it takes to master.

On the first day of the season just about anything that can be put on a hook or have a hook attached to it and then flung into the water probably has a good chance of being grabbed by a stocked trout that happens to be in the area.

That craziness soon subsides, yet some anglers will continue to cast their absurd killer bait or lure on subsequent outings with no success. Now is the time to transition to smaller, more natural baits, lures or flies to catch trout consistently.

As a fly fisherman, I have learned most of the insects that are prevalent in my favorite streams and tend to use appropriate imitations of them as much as possible. Doing so has often revealed to me that hatchery trout readily transition to the natural food sources of a given stream once acclimated there.