To some, winter fishing is “off the table”.
It all comes down to how bad you want to feel the tug of a mighty brown trout hunting for that winter meal. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of anglers would rather be chasing tails on white sand beaches somewhere close to the equator, but chasing some cold water fish with close friends, warm fires, dutch oven meals, and cold beers ain’t half bad either.
We crawled out of our tents to about 4 inches of fresh snow. You could hear the Chuckar making some noise close by. My first thought “Oh no…frozen waders and boots”. This would, normally, put us down, but the thought of 24 inches of buttery brown come quickly to mind. I light a quick fire and get some coffee going. Any angler knows the importance of that cup of hot coffee is on a cold, snowy morning. We have a quick bite, couple of cups of coffee whilst admiring the beauty of the landscape, and we set off.
The hunt for the big boys can be a challenging task, even in the warmer months. We start off with two techniques we love to fish in the winter. I prefer to throw the streamer, as opposed to nymphing. My partner readies the nymph rig on his rod and I attach a new streamer that I have ZERO confidence in. I’m sure I’m not alone in not being real keen on fishing new stuff when I’m dealing with limited time. However, this was our plan.
We decided to concentrate on deeper water with plenty of current. Focusing on deeper pools and fishing a slow retreive can be quite effective. Presenting the streamer with a dead drift or swinging through the current seems to be my most consistent method, in the colder months. On most days, the nymph rig will outperform the winter streamer, but this day was a tad different (see picture above)……stay warm and happy holidays.
