I host a weekly podcast, and in some of the latest episodes, I talked about 5 of my most memorable fish. These catches had a couple of issues in widespread, however probably the most outstanding thread that linked them was when I caught them. 4 of the 5 ended up in my web within the useless of winter.
That’s not a coincidence.
Rivers drop considerably throughout winter, which forces the fish into the deepest components of the river. They’ll “pod up” and, when you’ve discovered the place the fish are hanging out, you’ll be able to catch fairly a couple of from the identical gap earlier than the remainder of them clever up. Since large trout are likely to occupy the most effective feeding lies, I believe chances are high increased to catch your greatest fish in winter than some other time of yr.
So, if you happen to’ve been focusing on a actually large fish, however weren’t positive easy methods to make that occur, fishing in winter is your first step.
Nolan Dahlberg, over at Flylords, has 5 different steps that will help you goal large winter brown trout, particularly. He talks about specializing in the deepest, slowest runs, however I recognize that he additionally speaks to utilizing smaller flies, too.
“In terms of winter fishing, smaller is sort of all the time higher,” he writes. “Small pure patterns like midges, small pheasant tails, and even micro eggs needs to be in each winter angler field. This time of yr, bug exercise is at a minimal, and the bugs which can be round are, you guessed it, small.”
Just a few weeks in the past I used to be on the water with my buddy Alex. He caught his personal-best rainbow trout—a 25 1/4-inch fish—on a dimension 18 midge sample. Small flies usually work wonders this time of yr.
You possibly can study extra about focusing on large winter browns, and browse the remainder of Dahlberg’s story, here.
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