March 11, 2011 Report

En route to a non-fishing engagement, I came upon a trout stream around 1030 AM on Friday. A stream that maybe 5-6 years ago I fished with some regularity. Now, given new homebase, I do not drive to this stream because it's the wrong locale. That is, I like other water better. Further south and east I mean.

Immediately saw fish rising and midges in the snow. I showed the risers some dry flies and emergers but couldn't get them to take. Crutched out and went to nymphs and logged maybe 10-12 fish over the first hour or so. Then with some fish to hand I went back to the midge dries with a little more determination. I sat on some fish and got the presentation down and caught them. The first was a bit of joy for sure. The fourth or fifth one was a great take by a fish that bumped into the low teens.

From that point on, I kept a dry fly out there and put it on every piece of decent looking water. Crappy casts and presentations due to numerous variables (primarily strong wind and lack of sufficient skill) were the norm, but when it came together fish were caught. Maybe a dozen on #18 dry flies. The most intriguing take was by a fish that had not been rising, holding near an old bridge piling. Looked like a beauty. Connection failed though, and he was not to be fooled again.

Noted the black stones in the snow too. Fish very definitely stopped rising at 2 PM.

This fish was caught nymphing, but I had to snap some photos because I was enchanted by those prominent spots. What a beauty.





First fish that ate the midge dry:

Best fish that ate the midge dry:

I'd be happy rising fish like this all day...

Productive water - both cushions on the sides of the rifle, and the tailout:

Any #18 traditional hackled fly was playable, if presented decently:


Could be that I'm not recalling the past ~10 winters correctly; could be that over the course of them I didn't fish dries in the winter enough (likely)... but it seems to me that winter 2011 has shown a pretty impressive willingness to give up good hatches and thus plenty of trout to dry flies.