Searching for Trout in the Snow

This is the time of year you’ll find me with Euro nymph rod in hand, searching for trout in the snow. There aren’t a lot of dry fly fishing opportunities in December. Sure, you might find a short Blue Wing Olive (BWO) or midge hatch, but it usually doesn’t last long. I went to the river last week looking at the snow and hoping for a fish.

You can see by the image above, I was successful.

It was a cold day, with temperatures topping out in the high twenties. The water temperature is warmer than the air temperature!

Here is an image from a side channel. Yes, it’s cold!

I fished my Beulah 10′ 3 weight Euro nymph rod. It takes a little getting used to after dry fly fishing.

What is noticeably different are all the knots it takes before I can make one cast.

Since there was a tippet ring on my leader already, I only had to tie FOUR knots. Here is my setup below with my variation of the Pheasant Tail Perdigon nymph as the point (bottom) fly.

The top fly in the image is a Rainbow Warrior Perdigon attached to the tippet ring with a short piece of monofilament.

Here are the flies I used last week:

Pheasant Tail Perdigon

$3 Dip

And fish ate both of them.

I was lucky enough to land two Rainbows and several Whitefish, including this 14 incher.

Lots of moisture is in the forecast. About five inches of snow on Thursday and then close to three inches of rain. It should be a mess for a few days!

If you aren’t familiar with my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel, here are links to my favorite Perdigon nymphs.

…and a link to my latest YouTube video tying a Callibaetis Spinner.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Enjoy…go fish!