Winter Fly Fishing on a Tailwater

Air temp 19 degrees, water temp 47 degrees =8.333 Celsius Good times!

Got out for about 90 minutes this morning for a short session on one of my local tailwater rivers. Air temps were 19 degrees when I left the house and 21 when I got to the water. Of course, being a tailwater, the water temperatures were much higher (almost 47 degrees) and the fish were much more active than they would have been on a freestone river.

This morning I was seeing how my new cold weather clothing system was working in pretty cold temps and I was very pleased. My toes got a little cold, but that is because I think I had my boots too tight. Other than that I was just fine.

My friend Dom from Troutbitten penned an article a few years ago about how something is always going to hurt when doing winter fly fishing and that is correct, but the pain is manageable and determined by how intelligently you prepare.

I started slinging some streamers on my 10’ 3wt and didn’t have any takers for the first 15 minutes so switched to a two nymph rig and had a hit or two but now real commitments. Thinking that I might not have enough weight in the system to get the flies down quick enough I added some split shot and on the next cast had a beautiful wild brown trout.

The water was a little faster and more turbid than last week, but the fish were just as pretty. The scenery wasn’t too bad either.

I had a couple more brown trout and one psycho stocker rainbow (went absolutely crazy and slipped off after jumping out of the water a couple of times). Wanting to make a short trip of it I promised that I would stop after the next wild brown…and on the next cast I was done.

Overall, I drove longer than I fished and have no regrets. I am very thankful to have wild trout water that I can fish year round near where I live in Roanoke.

Hope you are all doing well.

All the best and tight lines,

Mike