Cold Weather Angling

As we all know, winter in the northeast isn't the best time to go stream fishing. The water temperature doesn't make for great trout activity, the fish seeming to hug the stream bed where the water doesn't pick up quite so much chill from the air. There aren't the hatches spring, summer, and fall can produce; mostly the only flies to be seen above or on the water are midges. Fishing with tiny imitations can prove productive-provided you can see to tie them onto a leader and can see them on the stream's surface.

I find it impossible to do either but hope you can manage to do so. Unless a mild spell comes along we probably don't even think about using dry flies. Terrestrials have just about all been killed off by frosts, so the choices of types of flies that may get fish are fairly limited.

Nymphs, Woolly Buggers and other streamers can work well, but I think it's necessary to remember that a trout's metabolism slows, sometimes dramatically, when the water cools down a lot. Even a degree or two can make a great difference in trout activity. The fish's body temperature gets very close to that of its environment and it isn't up to doing a lot of fast chasing after a fly. Many times I've found it effective simply to let a streamer, unweighted nymph, or a wet fly drift ahead of me, keeping it just under the surface as it moves downstream, and using a fairly long line. The trout sees the fly before seeing the angler and will often pick it up as it floats along. Sometimes it even works fairly well, when using a weighted nymph or wet fly, just to allow it to get down to the streambed and let it lie there. I've known trout to take the fly under that condition because the picking was so easy. The last method can be made more user-friendly if you use a strike indicator that will let you know more or less exactly what's going on with the trout and your fly. The major problem with a fully sunken fly is what a friend of mine used to call "brown non-swimmers," the leaves that have fallen and haven't completely decomposed. Is there anyone among us who hasn't been fooled momentarily by the fly's catching on a leaf? It's usually slightly more troublesome in the fall than in the later season because the leaves sometimes are still traveling in the current, but they're still a nuisance.

Winter fishing is a lot quieter than what goes on at other times of the year. The songbirds have pretty much gone to warmer climes, and the insects like crickets and hoppers are silent. Even the birds of winter, like the juncos, cardinals, and blue jays, don't sing the way the warmer weather species do. What are heard in winter are more subdued sounds, except for the jays, and they're raucous. What they do best is make a racket. Squirrels are still around, but I seldom see rabbits in the creek meadow and can only suppose they're holed up somewhere to keep warm. The deer continue to wander about, cropping the dry grass and getting what last leaves remain on the woodland shrubs. Theirs are the only tracks I see when it becomes very cold and their hoofprints in the sand at the edges of the stream are hard-edged and look as though they've been cast in concrete. I no longer find any raccoon prints and rather miss seeing the signs of those little "hands."

Much as I'd enjoy spending as much time fishing as I can at other times of the year, I find it best to be cautious about overexposure to the cold. I'm grateful for some of the high-tech fabrics that are around these days and won't go fishing without my fleece leggings and top over polypropylene underwear, plus the Polartec socks under my waders. The newer textiles permit more freedom of movement because they're thinner and lighter than the heavy woolens it once was necessary to wear. If I'm unlucky enough to slip and fall into the stream, fleece helps by being almost nonabsorbent and quick-drying, although nobody wants to tumble into 40-degree water. It helps to have a change of clothes available, but I don't always remember to take one along, much as I know I should. Probably it would also be wisest to wear the neoprene waders that hang in my garage, but I rationalize not being willing to fight my way into and out of those by telling myself that if it's too cold for the breathable pair then it's too cold to be out fishing.

Even if I plan on being out for only a short time I always take the water temperature. That gives me an idea of what fly type and pattern I may find useful as well as what sort of retrieve to employ. Most of the time I come up with "low and slow" regarding the retrieve, but if that doesn't work it means having to try to figure out something else to do. Sometimes I've found that a quick, short jerk of the fly followed by a brief interval of letting it lie still will be what attracts a trout. When the water's much under 45o the trout are seldom any more ambitious than I am when it's cold. If they're going to take a fly, they appear to want it to be within easy reach and to seem to be on its last legs-easy pickings for them. What are in most of the northeastern freestone streams are rainbow trout because they're what the fish management people stock most frequently. They also seem to be marginally more active in the cold than brown trout are, although I've caught browns in water no warmer than 39o.

The lovely brook trout aren't found in many streams these days because of pollution. Streams become too warm and depleted of oxygen to support the brookies and they die off. They're also more voracious than the other two species and are caught out of the streams with greater ease. Actually, they aren't trout at all but are char, which may account for their other differences. I'd be very happy indeed to have a larger population of brookies for which to fish come winter, but I doubt that will ever be, given the pollution factor alone. However, I love the browns and the rainbows, especially the often sullen, picky browns. Sting a rainbow with your fly and it just might come back, even to the same fly, in a cast or two, but sting a brown, particularly a wild brown, and it can be forgotten about for at least several hours But I love them all, browns, rainbows, and brookies, each and every finny one of them!

Good luck to those of us who are reluctant to stay off the streams even in winter. What we'll most likely find out there besides cold hands and feet are fewer anglers (great!!), probably smaller amounts of wildlife of many sorts, little in the way of insect life, and less voracious and lively trout, as well as fewer of them unless there's been a fall stocking to supplement the population. Ah, but sometimes less can be more. What trout remain in the stream can be choice because they're survivors, and that tells me that, somehow or other, life goes on against all odds.

--Margaret B. Clarke--
Winter 2001 Issue