The New Spring

It's been almost a month since my last post and I've got some serious catching up to do.  I've been so busy since I've been back at school.  I've barely had a few minutes to go out and fish never mind write a blog post.  No matter how much home work I have, I always find a chunk of time to go throw a fly around.  I've been focusing on two rivers lately.  One of these rivers is known for holding big rainbows, but the other is completely top secret and I've never heard anyone talk about it.  If I was able to figure out that there would be big fish in a certain river, than anyone can.  Finding them is half the fun anyways!  This post is going to be picture heavy so brace yourselves.  Going through all these pictures has made it even more clear to me how awesome winter fly fishing can be.  This is the time of year that you can really get a chance at some big trout.  To start off here's a few that my buddies Alex and Ross and I caught while I was still on winter break at home.

My mind was completely blown when both Alex and Ross caught a wild brook trout that day.  One, because it was the middle of January and I've never seen anyone catch a winter brookie.  Two, because I couldn't believe that we found some in this particular river.  It flows out of a small lake from a top release dam, so the water gets very warm in the summer.  I'm not sure how the brook trout could have a sustaining population in a river like this but apparently it's occurring.  It's also possible that the brookies migrated into the main stem river from smaller tributaries to winter over.  Most of these fish were caught on woolly buggers.

No it's time for the big boys.  Here's a few bows caught by myself and Alex since we've been back at school.  We've both beaten our old personal bests multiple times for rainbow trout this winter.

The culprit of these big rainbows has been the slumpbuster.  I've been tying them from strips of an old gray rabbit pelt that I had laying around for some reason.  They're really not a hard pattern to tie if you've got some cone heads, rabbit or squirrel pelt, and some tinsel lying around.  I think I'm going to attempt at an articulated slumpbuster this week.  

Alex kept the fish in the bottom picture and when we gutted it, a three inch helgramite literally crawled out of its stomach!  Keep that in mind folks.  If these fish are going to move out of their way to eat something in such cold water, it's got to be worth it for them.  I've been using size 6 and 8 streamers all winter and they've been extremely successful.  I've watched a few fish this winter charge up from the depths to crush a big streamer right at my feet.

Winter is the new spring guys.  Get out there and enjoy one of these not so cold days!  I am excited for spring though!