2026’s First Trips

The egg bite rules

It’s been a minute since I posted, but we are back and better than ever.

I had to figure out, to be transparent, if I wanted to keep writing here and took most of the month of December off to think about it…and fish.

What kicked me back over the edge was an article I submitted to one of my favorite magazines, Tenkara Angler, that was accepted for their annual print version. I will share it after it is published there.

It has been really cold here, except for one brief crazy almost 70 degrees day that I was, of course, too busy to fish on. Cold weather means that I am going to spend most of my precious time fly fishing on tailwaters as that guarantees a better chance of success.

The first two trips of 2026 have been on the same tailwater in two separate locations and they were very different experiences. The first was a more ‘urban’ setting that had clearly been stocked recently and/or the holdover rainbows had moved into the neighborhood.

I am not a huge fan of targeting stocked trout as I find them to be not as fun to fish for as the wild/native trout. Additionally, it chaps my ass to have a bunch of stocked trout planted into a stream that has natural reproduction of wild and/or native trout.

All that being said, catching any fish is always more fun than catching no fish.

This was one of the best stocked rainbows I have ever caught and it fought really well. It was clean and colored up. I took some time with it in the net faced upstream to make sure it had recovered well enough to give another person a chance at catching it later. As it was all of 18 inches…there is a better than average chance it might end up on somebody’s dinner table, but, that is the breaks man.

Another good looking stocker that fought…not so well. The day was warm (50’s) as I had gotten there later in the day and the bite was really, really hot. I caught a bunch of stocked trout in around 90 minutes and had a grand time in that I didn’t fall in the cold water.

My next trip was very different and it was really cold. 27 degrees at the trail head and the walk in was welcome to generate some body heat before jumping in the water.

My hopes were high for the opportunity to catch some wild brown trout, but my expectations were tempered by the really cold air temps. The bite was slower, but, it was still good because I caught a really nice wild brown (huge for that section of the river) and was also fishing my new tenkara rod (Nissin Air Stage Fujiru 410).

The 410 is a dream for tight line nymphing in deeper water because of its ability to generate good hook sets in deeper water and because it is really good at handling larger fish.

I only landed two fish that morning, but, getting this stud of a wild brown was amazing and casting the 410 was a dream. Loved the reach and the joy of how it casts level line.

I fished a tungsten weighted egg pattern and it has been a real winner for me every winner.

How is your ‘new year’ of fly fishing coming? Let me know in the comments below.

All the best and tight lines,

Mike