yesterday after landing a couple of nice summers out of the money hole, my buddy and i decide to move on downriver...a large old growth cedar is blown down on the rivers edge above a pool and after some bushwacking and mission impossible type manuevers, make my way out over the water over the hole..i'm looking into the pool, trying to stay concealed from any fish that MAY be in there..then i see one...no make that 2..no, there's four!! i crept to a spot on the log where i could flip my float and jig with minimal detection...first cast i see my shrimp tail sail right towards them but about a foot and ahalf over them...slide the dink float up, flip it again...just about put the fishes eye out yet still no take...i work these fish for 15 minutes before i finally tell my buddy to come look and give him a shot at them..20 minutes later , no bites, spooked the hell out of them, some have moved on but more have moved in...just then the sun broke out from behind the clouds allowing me to see perfectly...all of those fish were huge suckers!!! i felt like an idiot and called it a day

LOL - that's funny. Happened to me on the Methow a few years back. I was all pumped, told my buds about what I was looking at and then went down to fish them, only to find the same thing.

i do that occasionally on the deschutes over here. i'll see a 3 foot long fish on the bottom, nearly piss myself and try to get it to take my spinner


and then it will move a little and i'll see it's bright orange belly

Been there done that end up still doing it too

I hate it when that happens!!

It happens to the best of us

I've done it but dont tell anybody about it.

I'll better that.............spotting a rock on the bottom, sneaking up on it ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN it is a fish and proceed to cast to it for 1/2 an hour. In broken water, I've been as close as 10 feet before and still been fooled. Gave my partner a good laugh until he did the same thing.