Often in the winter, while trout fishing, you will come across a stream with several inches of snow. Then when you see Little Black Stoneflies sitting on the snow banks along the stream you get excited. This got my attention recently. By closely checking the surface of the stream, I spotted a half dozen riseforms in a slow back eddy. I put a Murray’s Little Dark Stonefly Dry size 16 on Classic 9ft 6X Leader and cast to the closest feeder. The trout took my dry stonefly on the first draft. I caught two other trout on the same fly in that back eddy before the commotion of fighting them spooked the other trout.
After not seeing any other trout rising in that pool, I decided to fish the upper end below the riffle with a size 14 Dark Stonefly Nymph. By using a dead drift method with a Trout Nymph Leader 9ft 5X, I could easily detect the trouts’ strike.
Over the next two hours these two tactics enabled me to catch more trout in the next mile of stream. Trout fishing in the winter can be fun and often you don’t see as many people on the stream. Listen to the rest of my podcast>>>
Smallmouth Bass Fishing in February
I like to fish the Bank Bays on the smallmouth rivers at this time of year. These are areas that previous floods have carved deep cuts from 10 to 20 feet back in the river banks. These cuts may reach 20 to 30 feet down the river bank. The water may be from 3-5 feet deep.
These bank bays form perfect feeding stations because they provide protection from the powerful spring currents. They also hold large populations of minnows. Listen to my podcast for flies and techniques.
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