Sure, it’s dark, cold, and the flickering light of a beckoning YouTube screen might be more appealing than drifting a fly through the only open seam of an iced-up run. While your winter is probably filled with warm nights at the vise, there’s no reason you shouldn’t also be logging time out on the water. Conditions aren’t as pleasant as the height of July, but guess what? The trout are still there. Here are our top tips for winter fly fishing.
1. Target tailwaters
In regions cold enough for ice to form, tailwaters will be your friend in the winter months. Although we love a good freestone (stoneflies, anyone?), these stretches of wild river often completely freeze over in the winter months.
A tailwater is the stretch of river immediately below a dam. Tailwaters often make excellent trout fisheries due to their artificial flows; relatively constant flow rates create optimal conditions for year-round insect activity, creating a 365-day bug buffet. Besides growing monstrous fish, tailwater stretches don’t freeze in the winter. If you’re looking to catch trout in a cold part of the country in the winter, tailwaters are your best option.
2. Sleep in
Don’t worry about setting a morning alarm this time of year. Trout already have slower metabolisms and are willing to expend less energy in the winter; these slow habits are amplified early and late in the day. Focus your efforts on hours when the sun hits the water. 11am – 2pm often offers the best feeding window in the depths of winter. A bit of sunlight and warmth will trigger bug activity and lead to a more consistent bite. I’ve found that warmer, partly-cloudy days are the most productive in the winter months.
3. Downsize
There are two main reasons to downsize your flies in the winter. For one, trout metabolisms slow considerably in the winter months. Like many creatures in the animal kingdom, trout are doing their best to survive the harsh conditions of winter. Generally, larger food sources (big bugs and baitfish) require an aggressive take that expends too much energy. Fish will focus on much small food sources this time of year to conserve precious caloric resources.
Second, small flies are on the menu! In mountain regions with a cold winter, midges are the only insect that completes a full life cycle throughout the entire year. Caddis and stoneflies are still floating around underwater, but the predominant food source will be midges in their various life cycles.
4. Get deep
In the winter, trout are often found holding in deeper water. Again, this has to do with conserving energy. Riffles might offer more oxygenation and food, but they require more energy to stay in place. On particularly warm days, especially as we approach the spring, fish will start moving back up into riffles and pockets during the warmest parts of the day.
5. Target soft water
Again, trout are looking to expend as little energy as possible this time of year. Besides deep water, look for buckets (often no more than the size of an actual 5-gallon bucket) protected by a natural feature like an underwater rock, log, or overhang. “Soft pockets” or areas where the water is moving more slowly, will be located both in front of and right behind these features. Trout will hold in these spots instead of the faster moving seams next door.
6. Perfect your drift
This is a great bit of advice no matter the season, but is especially important in winter. Consider this: trout spend most of their life staring at an endless conveyor belt of food. Some days, burgers are on the menu, other days it’s pizza. When you drift a nymph through a run, you’re hoping to either match the day’s menu, or at least give fish a convincing alternative to one of their other favorite foods. If a fish has seen 286 burgers pass by and then sees a burger that’s upside down with lettuce falling out of it, it’s probably going to pass on the weird burger and keep an eye out for the next option. The weird looking burger is your fly if you get a bad drift. It just won’t look quite as good as the natural presentations around it.
Again, this is especially important when targeting fish with slower metabolisms. Winter fish are already eating less and moving less to eat the food they do consume; they likely aren’t gonna take a bite out of your unappetizing poorly drifted bug.
7. Be thorough
Yet again, this tip goes back to the core principal of winter trout fishing: fish will not move far! If you’re confident there are fish present in your target casting zone, be patient and thoroughly cover all feeding lanes (and depths). Your #22 zebras will quite literally need to hit a fish directly head-on for them to take the bait and bite. Luckily, because fish are looking for the same type of water in the winter, they often school up a bit more than other times of year. So if you hook a fish in a certain zone, you’ll likely find a few more takers.
8. Protect your digits
Anyone who has fished in the cold (especially when it starts getting further and further below freezing) know that the limiting factor is finger mobility. Once you dunk your hands in 30-something degree water and expose them to sub freezing air, your time on the water is numbered. You can try wearing fleece fishing gloves, which are great until they inevitably get wet (which they should if you’re catching fish – see below). Many guides and winter anglers swear by nitrile or latex gloves. They are thin enough to maintain dexterity but keep your skin from being exposed to water.
9. Remember to keep ‘em wet
The catch-and-release battle cry to keep ‘em wet is mostly brought up during the dog days of August hoot owls and spiking water temps. However, taking fish out of the water in extreme cold can also be just as damaging. Keep them in the net and try not to wave them around in dry, icy air.
10. Take these tips with a grain of salt
Every fishery is wildly different and a set of 10 general tips can't possible apply to all situations. These tend to be helpful for harsher winter environments where the temperature is consistently well below freezing. The best advice? Just get out there. Winter is an excellent time for solitude but also an awesome time for catching beautiful trout. Give it a try and you may very well get hooked.