winter fishing

Bighorn River, Wyoming 

Long time no update. I was out of the game for a few weeks with a shoulder injury, which happened to be good timing as temperatures were well below freezing. We just returned from Arizona visiting family and then we're headed to Oregon for Christmas to visit more family. Unfortunately fishing isn't on our list of things to do, so we've been hitting it pretty hard the last few days. And fishing has been pretty good, so why should we fish anywhere else?

 Lots of nice fat rainbows on steamers and nymphs. And the fish are definitely stacked in the slow deep water as water temps are very cold. The browns are off the redds but ya might get a few fish to eat the egg. I would focus more on midge larva and pupa and sow bugs or worms for point flies and 9ft leaders.

For streamers we've been using 300 grain sink tip lines and tungsten headed flies to get down deeeeep with slow retrieves combing the troughs and deeper pits. White has been our best color. And we are still seeing a handful of baetis on any given day and plenty of adult midge on the surface, but not very many fish rising. This should change in the coming weeks as the days get longer.

Happy Holidays and we hope to fish with you this year.