Jay Peck's Blog

We had a big change in the weather and with the fishing. This cold snap changed everything in a big hurry. All of the creeks and river are going through the same changes, rapidly plummeting water temperatures. Instead of talking about what has been going on with the fishing. This time I will talk about how to deal with the changes. Hopefully you’ll find this helpful the next time you are on the water.

 late fall, early winter, can be a challenging time to fish. This is mostly due to constant fluctuations of water temperatures. At this time of the year, water temperatures can fluctuate as much as 10° in the smaller creeks. A temperature of just 3° can almost shut the fishing down. This may sound like a nine productive time to fish. But we need to keep two things in mind. First we fish when you get a chance and second is during cold snaps we need to adjust our fishing to what the fish are actually doing. In our case the fish are moving from there fall water to there winter water. This movement may be no more than moving a few years from ware they ware already setting. But the tape of water or river habitats can be entirely different. At this time the fish are looking for deeper slower spots to hold in. this may be gut of the pools, or deep spots in the runs. Any spot that has some depth, with a soft flow with some sort of broken surface for a roof.

Ones we found the right water we now need to adjust our fishing.  For the most part we will need to slow down. That is the speed of the drift. The water flow is slow in these spots and the fish are moving and reacting slower to the fly. We will also need to fish these spots more thoroughly. In colder water temperatures, fish will not move as far to take the fly. This is where using a strike indicator will become helpful. Strike indicators will allow you to control your drift and cover the water more efficiently.