when I do : git pull BranchName

it tells me everything is up to date but I know that is not true. When I do:

git pull origin BranchName

then I get the files I was expecting.

Is there an easy way to answer this or do I need to provide more details.

PS One thing I did do just to understant themechanics of git is give the branch name in my cloned repo a different name than on the remote repo. I did however put the right name in the config file like so:
[branch "myUDPspinoff"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/UDPspinoff

this worked before on another repo but not this one. And when I put everything in the same name thenI did not need to use origin anymore.