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A lot of what I learned about warm water fishing occurred in the mid to late 1980s. It was a time when live bait "Lindy" rigging was relatively new on the scene and Ron and Al Lindner at In-Fisherman Magazine were telling us all about their revolutionary fish catching formula - F+L+P=Success.

Looking back on it now, it doesn't seem quite as revolutionary and awe inspiring as it did nearly twenty years ago. After all, if you target a particular species of fish (F), figure out where they are located in a given body of water (L) and present a desired bait to those fish effectively (P), things should, presumably, work to your advantage.

Personally, I'm still a huge fan and loyal proponent of that old In-Fisherman formula. It strips down the concept of fish catching to its core fundamentals, and the simple lesson it teaches can be neatly applied to any fish species. I like easy solutions to problems, so anything that looks that suspiciously like an algebraic equation better not include more than three or four symbols. My head might explode otherwise.

It dawned on me a few years ago that clients that hire me to teach them all about fly-fishing for trout would benefit greatly from applying this old lake formula to stream tactics. I like to stand with clients on the bank of a stream and point to a riffle or plunge pool that undoubtedly harbors trout while I lay the old Lindner formula for success on them. A large measure of their foggy confusion regarding this sport visibly lifts when I explain that the trout are right in front of us, sometimes just a few feet from where we are standing. I go on to explain that because of that fact, we've already taken care of the F+L part of the equation, leaving only the P in presentation to worry about. At that point, I'll open my nymph box and point to any one of a few dozen small fly patterns that resemble sub-aquatic invertebrates and say, "Take your pick. If it looks buggy and you properly drift it by a fish in that run, he'll open his mouth and sample it. When that happens, go ahead and set the hook and I'll work the landing net."

So far, I've had only one individual over the past number of seasons fail to catch a trout, so I must be on the right track.

There is no doubt that, over the years, the sport of trout fishing has been unnecessarily and unfairly shrouded in mystery. It has also been over-analyzed to death. Trout are fish, and fish put things in their mouth that they know or perceive to be food for a variety of reasons, and it isn't always because they're hungry. Simply stated, they eat because the energy they consume must be greater than the energy they expend to chase down food.

That being said, it all goes back to presentation and the fact that fish are "hard-wired" to chase fleeing prey, and in the case of trout, watching for a well-drifted nymph or dry fly. Yes, fish are, above all else, opportunistic feeders, and I never forget that fact when I'm fishing a good river or stream that contains a healthy number of trout per mile within its waters.

It would do all of us anglers good to remind ourselves from time to time that fish are, well . . . fish. And when I arrive at an unfamiliar lake or river, recalling that old In-Fisherman formula of yesteryear sometimes does me a world of good. Just as the formula implies, an angler cannot consistently enjoy success unless he or she figures out -- or satisfies -- the three linear symbols on the left-hand side of the equation: know what you're after, find out where it is and feed it.

Pretty simple, eh? Like I said, I like simple. Simple works for me.

So the next time you hit the water, try to keep that old formula for success in mind. I bet it'll work well for you, too.

Dan Brown's weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankie's Bait and Marine, in Chisago City, and St. Croix Outdoors, in St. Croix Falls, Wis.

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