Warming Up (a tiny little bit)

Here in southeast Idaho the grip of icy cold weather has finally, and slowly, began to release. The temperature on the river today was up to 14 degrees F. That of course is still pretty cold, but better than the 0-5 degree F daytime highs that we have been experiencing.

I only fished for 2 hours today. This cold air has really suppressed the fish activity. Usually this time of year has nice baetis and midge hatches around 1 pm, but I have not seen any on the water over the past few weeks. Also, where there are usually rising trout, there has been silence. Not a rising fish anywhere.

One good thing about the cold weather we've been having is that finally the heavy weed is dying back. This makes nymphing a bit easier because the flies are less likely to get fouled with weed.

Today I used a duo set up of heavy nymphs and worked some of the deeper holes trying to dredge up trout. After finding the right combination of flies and tippet length I brought in 3 fish out of one hole. I also hooked 3 others further upstream.

On the line

The largest of the day

After catching these trout I had to change to my new three fingered gloves because my hands got too cold. I should have started out with them but I wanted to compare the two different styles.

Hopefully it will continue to warm up and get into some reasonable temperatures like highs of 30-35 degrees F. We'll see; so far it's been a cold winter!