Winter Fly Fishing Options

[swizz]

A Tale Of Two Rivers

Got out for a couple days of winter flyfishing and thought I'd share some pics with those of you who might have a touch of the cabin fever.
My friend Tim and I flyfished two different rivers and had a blast!

The first river was like every flyfisherman's dream... great weather and beautiful trout that were most cooperative. The insect hatches were right on schedule and our fly boxes were well stocked with the proper ammunition. Some days work out just perfect, and this was one of them.

The second river, on the other hand, was most uncooperative and the temps never got above 10 degrees. The cold temps resulted in an all-day ice flow and allowed little in the way of controlled drifts essential for successful flyfishing. By 2:30 the ice flows had diminished enough to get decent drifts and maybe get a hook-up. I fought two and landed zero... we both left that one a little disappointed but stronger from the experience.
It was a hell of a lot of work that day and we managed to make lemonade out of lemons.

RIVER A

This is my friend rigging-up at our base station on the first river. It's probably about 9am and the sun's a shining. This was precursor to what would be a most excellent day!


Here are some Rainbows that came out to play... (first two are in-the-net shots, kinda trippy)




Outstanding gill plate color on this one




... and a few Browns showed up as well

[kmontoya911]

It is still a research lake.

You have to check in and out, but it is mostly by paper now. I haven't seen someone in the hut for a few years now.

I thought this was the coolest lake when I was a kid because it was the only place I knew of that was artificial flies and lures only. I now know that that is not uncommon, but it still is a special place because of how important it was to me as a kid.

The only camara I have right now is my droid, but my luck, I would have dropped it in the lake.

I plan on getting out some this summer, so I hope to be able to post something up with pics.