Fishing Around A Little Ice

White Zonker
Hook: Daiichi 2220
Size: 6 – 2
Thread: UNI 6/0 Orange
Body: Silver mylar piping
Wing: Zonker strips white

White Zonker is one of the flies that I have mentioned many times in my updates. The white Zonker is an excellent winter streamer, for both steelhead and Brown trout. I like to fish the fly on a slow swing in the tails of the pools for Brown trout. When I'm looking for steelhead I will fished this fly in the head of the pool on more of a dead drift.

The cold water and the lake effect snow fall that we have experienced last few days, has put a lout of slush ice down Sandy Creek. This slush ice will ice up the lower portions of the creek. The Upper part of the creek will still stay open through this cold snap. The way the weather forecast is looking for next week, the ice that did form in Sandy will be gone early next week. The Oak Orchard is continuing to clear up and should be clear enough to fish in a few more days. With a cold winter water temperatures we are now dealing with, we now need to have a little more clarity to the water to effectively fish. The general rule of thumb, or in this case foot, that I use is that if I can just barely see my foot in knee-deep water, the clarity is good enough to fish. It seems that with the super cold water temperatures the fish need a little bit more time to look at the fly before taking it.