Sweet brown & sweet picture by customer Steve Ferrell, caught this past week. A cold start to the morning, but supposed to be sunny and crack into the 40's today, not windy at all, with long range highs mostly in the 40's, nights averaging into the upper 20's/low 30's. The exception will be Thursday/Friday this week, with highs mid to upper 50's & sunshine- sneak out if you can! Layer up, we have plenty of thermals, fleece, warm hats & fishing gloves. Water level in the permanent Catch & Release section is a very nice 265cfs total flow, with a normal 207cfs coming from the dam in Riverton. As usual reports vary quite a bit depending upon angler's ability level and techniques used, with some fishermen doing quite well, especially the nymphers using egg flies and small nymphs. Fish are rising in the mornings to Winter Caddis, and in the afternoons to small Blue Wing Olives. Streamers are still a good choice, but play around with retrieves- as water temps drop, you will need to fish them slow & deep, but always experiment because trout love to break the rules. We
are once again fully stocked on egg flies & Squirmy worms in a
variety of colors. Water temps are averaging in the low to mid 40's, with the exact temp depending
upon the day, location, and the time you take the temp. This
means fish are not quite yet in winter mode, when they tend to stack up in the
pools & slower runs. As weather
cools, water temps will slowly slide downward too. The majority of the
browns have already spawned and are hungry, looking to bulk up before
winter.We will of course be closed on Thanksgiving this Thursday, but open normal hours on Wednesday, Friday and this weekend.
We just scheduled our second & final Don Butler beginner tying class for this winter, it will be 2 day course, January 9th & 16th, 10am-3pm, cost is $125 per person. Call 860-379-1952 to sign up, class size is limited. See Events/Classes for more details.
Olives will continue to be the main hatch in November, make sure you match their diminutive size- anywhere from #22-28, with #24-26 being the most common. And yes, in this case, yes size matters, Lol. If you are tying nymphs to match them and fish subsurface, a shorter-shank #18-20 hook is usually plenty small enough in my experience. On the surface though, match the size! Winter Caddis #18-24 are hatching in the mornings, they will actually get heavier as we move into December.You may still see a few #16-18 Tan Caddis on milder days and some smaller #14-16 Iso's (they will look more like a big Blue Wing Olive), but both hatches are about done. A few people are still catching with big October Caddis dries. If you are nymphing, make certain to fish #14-18 egg flies (yellow, pink, cream, orange), as well as some smaller nymphs in the #16-20 range- Flashback WD-40's, Zebra Midges (black, olive), and Pheasant Tails are all good choices now.
Other suggested flies include the following nymphs: Yellow Stoneflies #8-16, Black Stoneflies 8-14, Fox Squirrel Nymph #12, Squirmy Worms #10-14 (red, tan, pink), Hot Spot Baetis #16-20, Blue Wing Olive #16-22, Rainbow Warrior #16-18, Tan Caddis Pupa #14-16, Green/Olive Caddis Larva #14-16, Pheasant Tails #16-22, Prince Nymph #12-14. Play with colors on your streamers, lately some of the better ones have been brown/yellow, olive, yellow, and brown. Nothing lighter than 2-3x on your streamers, and go heavier if you are tossing big ones. 5x fluoro is a good average for your nymphs, and 5x-7x tippet for your dries (depending upon size), with 6-7x being more the norm right now due to the small size of the flies & flat water they hatch on. Long tippets help with both dries & nymphs: it will give you "S" curves to get a drag-free float with dries, and it will sink faster with less weight when nymphing.
From now until April 2016, we close at 5pm every day. Our rental apartment is now closed for the season, and will be available again starting in April 2015