Water Works: Loss Aversion

by Bob Luck
After a couple of years of drought, we finally had some big rain events this year in the Metro area.  No 50-year floods, but there were a couple of 3-4" gully washers that overflowed the banks, toppled trees and reconfigured the streams.  Whenever I meet somebody on a stream after one of these events, the talk turns to what we lost: a pool that nearly always had rising trout is now a featureless run; a narrow, boulder-filled run that was perfect for nymphing is now a wide, shallow riffle; a riffle that teemed with fish during the caddis hatch is now clogged with sand.  Objectively, a flood will typically create just as many good new fishing spots as it destroys, but we anglers don't see it that way.

In 1979, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published a paper about irrational human behavior that later earned Kahneman a Nobel Prize in Economics.  One of the key findings was loss aversion:  Experiments suggest people are typically about twice as sensitive to losses as to gains.  When it comes to the loss of a favorite fishing hole, that is a wild underestimate.  Which is pretty good evidence that trout anglers are more irrational than the average human.  
I have been consciously telling myself this season to appreciate the new hotspots that have been created to replace the old ones that washed out, and have had some success.  On a section of the Rush that I fish frequently, a great pool for the Trico hatch was wiped out, but I discovered that a new run had been created farther downstream that is perfect for nymphing.  I took my friend Chris Walker there last week.  Unfortunately, the sun was bright, the water was clear, and the fish were uncooperative, so we gave up and decided to try Lost Creek.  "I know a deep run there where my daughter caught half a dozen fish over 12" up against a submerged tree", I told him.  We started downstream from the run, and I cast a Stop and Go into a small pool that hadn't been there the last time I fished there with my daughter.  I managed to stay out of sight, stick the landing, and was rewarded with a 13" brown--the biggest fish either of us had caught that day.  "OK, the fish are biting on Lost Creek.  I'll let you fish the run", I told Chris.  When we approached it, the first thing I noticed was that the submerged tree had been washed away.  The second thing was that the run was now shallow, fast and featureless.  Chris made a few perfunctory casts, and got nothing.  He is a forgiving person, so I don't think he will be looking for a new fishing parter next season, but I won't blame him if he does.