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Backca!
"e Vol. 39
The Monthly Newsletter of the Wyoming Fly Casters
February 2012
How to Catch Trout in Winter by Tom Rosenbauer Walk along a trout stream in the winter and the riffles and pools that danced with insects and rising fish look as lifeless as the bare branches on the hillsides above. Overhanging brush that offered secure feeding spots in August is transparent and useless without its veil of leaves. You peer into a riffle and can't imagine a trout living there. But there is plenty of life in a January river. I bought a house on a small trout stream, and in the process of figuring out how to improve my habitat for the wild brook, brown, and rainbow trout that live there, I became as aware of a trout's needs in winter as in summer. Because natural mortality of trout populations is highest in winter, if you're a landowner you pay attention to habitat concerns that most fly fishers never consider. For instance, young-of-the-year trout need safe havens from floods, mergansers, and anchor ice that are totally different than the needs of
adult trout. They can't handle fast current and need to stay away from older trout that might eat them, so these little guys need lots of protection in the gentle currents of backwaters and shallows. I've sunk a number of brush piles in eddies and backwaters where young trout can find refuge, and hopefully next year I'll be rewarded an abundance of healthy yearlings. Adult trout spend the winter in different places. There are about eight pools and a half-dozen riffles on my property, and all of them hold trout in varying densities during the trout season. I'm able to walk the banks of this river at least twice a day, and gradually I've discovered places where I can crawl up to the bank on my belly to watch the trout, undisturbed. I've been known to leave a house full of guests to do this when the light is just right, but I don't advise it unless you crave a reputation for eccentric behavior. Continued on page 4.
Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss World Record: 43 lbs. 10 oz. – Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan – June 5, 2007