Winter Browns

[ifish4wildtrout]

I headed up to the hills today to fish one of my favorite brown streams. The weather has been in the 60's all week, but I was still a bit concerned about how the stream would fish. I have always fished this stream in the fall and have never tried it in the winter.

The fishing started out very slow. I had a brown follow my nymph on my first cast of the day, but that would be the only fish I would see for a while. I did have a pretty good strike a few minutes later, but that was about it. I kept switching back and forth from a double nymph to a dry/dropper. Finally, I decided to just fish a dry/dropper.

After an hour or so of no action, I was starting to lose a bit of focus on my fishing. I would watch my dry drift for a second or two, then scan the woods for bears and Bigfoot, then look back at the dry for another second or so. After scanning the woods, I looked back to see no dry, I set the hook and the fish came unhooked almost immediately. A cast or two later, same thing happened. I was a bit frustrated at myself.

I moved on up to the next run, which was almost identical to the one where I had just lost two fish. I decided I should pay a bit more attention and I actually caught a fish this time. I was happy, I was starting to think I might get skunked for the first time in more than a year.




I kept fishing. I was all fired up, thinking things were picking up. Well, I was soon scanning the woods for bears and Bigfoot again. There was no action for quite a while.

I came upon this deep and turbulent hole. I dapped my flies in and my dry quickly went under. This brown swam around the hole for a bit, then rode the small waterfall down to the next hole, tangled himself up in a big stick, after I got him out of the stick, he was all over the place, back and forth, up and down, and under the rocks. Finally, I netted him. I was happy to see he was decent size, especially for this small stream. I will say I was a bit surprised, I thought he was bigger based on the fight he gave.





A few minutes later, I nailed a small brown on the dry but he refused to have his picture taken. I had several other strikes on the dry then this little guy inhaled my nymph, ending the day.



All and all, not a bad day, especially considering it's February. I will be very glad when Spring gets here.

[5xtippett]

How big was that big brown? Those were some pretty fish!

[ifish4wildtrout]

Originally Posted by 5xtippett

How big was that big brown? Those were some pretty fish!

13-14 inches, he's kind of curled in that pic. I tried to get another pic but dropped him and he came unhooked when I dropped him.

[hookedonthefly]

Has anyone ever Fished the Bald River if so please tell me how it fished