Chasing Winter Trout

I was beginning to develop a light tremor after not having fished at all since last August. Fortunately, last weekend I was able to end the dry spell.

While I've been unable to go fishing, I have managed to acquire some fun new gear including my new baby, a 6'10" 3wt Murray's Mountain Trout Rod by Scott.

The new member of the family.

So it was with giddy anticipation that I turned my car towards the Shenandoah National Park and the North Fork Mormons River. I passed one angler setting up to fish the main stem of Mormons River below the dam on my way in and another fishing the main stem on the way out. Otherwise, I saw no anglers on the North Fork and just one pair of hikers on the North Fork trail on my hike out. I arrived stream side at about 9:30 in the morning and after rigging up and a bourbon toast to a good day of fishing, I set out. The stream was lovely, still decked out in snow from the big storm a few weeks ago as well as ice walls that have been growing all winter.

I hiked for about a mile and a half up river to begin fishing on a recommendation from Mossy Creek Fly Fishing (stopping but once at a hole I thought looked to good to pass up...in which I caught nothing). I started off with a green caddis nymph which I lost almost immediately. I took this as a sign and switched to a bead head pheasant tail nymph. It took a little while to work out some of the cobwebs in my casting but it was within an hour that I caught my first brook trout. At this point I considered the trip a success but of course, continued fishing.

During the course of the day and while intently focused on catching the next fish I became dimly aware of scattered small white things floating through the air. Being on a trout stream and trout fishing I naturally assumed that these were trout flies hatching from the stream. Some time later I noticed that all of the white "flies" were falling downward rather than floating horizontal or upward as trout flies do and that they melted upon landing. I thus realized that it was actually snow flurries. Apparently I'm not the most astute weatherman.

After a little while without any more strikes I switched to a cream caddis fly nymph (which I tied). To my delight I managed a few more fish and decided to call it quits. All of my fish were on nymphs but I did have one solid hit on the surface when a brookie fought me for my float. I promptly switched to the dry fly which I thought most closely resembled a bright yellow strike indicator and, again, caught nothing. All in all though, it was a great winter day to be trout fishing.