|
If you pick your days and streams carefully, and set your expectations, winter fly fishing can be enjoyable. And it can be a miserable fruitless experience if you choose the wrong days.
It's not September, and you're not going to have many dry fly opportunities. Midge hatches provide occasional topwater action, and on warm days you might see a hatch of blue-winged olives. But nymphs and streamers will pick up most of the trout. Tailwater fisheries and spring creeks are the prime--but not exclusive--winter choices. It's the "whitefish season," which means you can't keep trout. But I suspect that most Westfly users aren't doing that anyway.
By the end of February, we will see more blue-winged olive hatches if the days are bit warmer. Golden stonefly and salmonfly nymphs will become more active in late February, and some of them will slip into the current and be ingested by a waiting trout. Whitefish will still be spawning, and trout will pick up drifting roe.
So there's something other than tiny midge larvae and giant streamers to look forward to.
The flies that should be in your box are:
- Midge imitations. Brassie, CDC Bubble Brassie, or Copper John to imitate the larvae; Sprout Midge or Griffiths Gnat if trout are taking adults on the top. Carry these in sizes 18 and 20. The larval patterns are the most effective; dead-drift them right on the bottom.
- Roe imitations. Pale peach, pink, and orange are the best colors. Dead-drift them on the bottom.
- Baitfish imitations. Matukas, Egg Sucking Leeches, Muddlers, Clouser Minnows, etc. Usually these work best when fished from a boat because you can cast to the bank, but the boat is not essential. A sink-tip line is an aid because you need to get the fly near the bottom. Cast, let the fly sink, and retrieve slowly. This is not exciting fishing, and you'll be lucky to pick up a fish or two a day. But each fish could a brown trout that tops five pounds.
- Standard Nymphs. A popular winter tactic is to cast a size 8-10 Prince with a Brassie, Copper John, or Pheasant Tail on a trailing leader tied to the Prince's hook bend.
- Stonefly Nymphs. These can be effective in January, but they are especially useful from mid-February on. Carry Rubber Legs, Kaufmanns Stoneflies, etc., in size 6-10. Black, tan, dark brown are good color choices on rivers with salmonfly, golden stonefly, or Skwala populations.
The winter-fishing tips from the last report still apply:
- Think about hitting the water when a warming trend comes along
- Always take extra clothes in case of a dunking.
- Check the regs for every fishery. Most streams have a "whitefish/catch-and-release" season for the winter. That means you can keep whitefish but not trout.
- Most fish will be found near the edges and in deeper pools, backeddies, slow runs, and pools below riffles.
|
Super 
Major 
Minor 
Slight 
None
