It’s looking like we will have a string of favorable weather here over the next 10 days. Air temps are predicted to reach into the 40’s. With this warm up it’s no surprise to see rivers opening up and some little black stones crawling around in the snow at the water’s edge.
My ideal early spring fishing conditions start in the mid 30’s and end in the upper 30’s. With this much snow on the ground, warmer temps will cause the snow to melt which will stain and drop the water temps.
When spring fishing, I tend to carry two rods with me. One tight line nymphing rod, and one mono right streamer rod. Having dedicated rods help me effectively fish each technique more thoroughly, and with less down time changing out leaders and retying knots.
Some important factors that led to finding fish were constantly changing depth on my indicator. When fishing heavy flies near the bottom I fish 5x tippet, which helps free some snags that may have broken off on 6x. With the stain in the water and absence of other anglers, I don’t mind sizing up my tippet as fish don’t get much pressure this early in the season.
With the water still being cold, I tend to lean on an indicator more which allows me to make longer casts, longer drifts and stay on the shore out of the water. Tight line nymphing definitely has its benefits but slow moving, cold and deep water isn’t my ideal scenario. Even with the presence of stoneflies my best producing fly was a very heavy natural colored walts worm.
The fly fishing gear in the shop is slowly starting to make its way over. We have changed up the fly display to cull some older patterns that weren’t getting much love to some newer offerings from Fulling Mill, Umpqua and some even tied locally. The dates for the OCC 17 and Fly Fish Film Tour have all been set. Make sure you register to secure some awesome swag and to help out the fine folks at the New Haven River Anglers.
