THE NATURAL

The Natural

Late fall through winter is a wonderful time for anglers to enjoy an opportunity for solitude with the cold days, clear water, and slowermoving targets. The trout are easier to see, but they are also lethargic and not willing to chase a small midge or baetis, so the wise angler has to fool them. This calls for smaller tippets like Scientific Anglers Absolute 6-7x Fluorocarbon, and even flies down to size #26 in some cases.

The biggest change you can make is to turn up the heat in the cold water game by delivering a more natural rig. Accomplish this by replacing anything that may appear unnatural to the trout—like split shot and indicator—and rely on the weight of the fly and the trout’s feeding behavior or movement to dictate when to set the hook. The following tips are rigging setups I have used over the years to crack the cold season code for success.

Connection from the Top

I am a firm believer that the less time you allow a trout to investigate your dry fly, the better the chance you have that the fish will commit. To accomplish this, I teach a trick that I learned from one of my mentors, John Barr, to fire the dry fly 1-2 feet above the rising trout, forcing it to react. This is especially effective during low water conditions in late fall-winter when the river’s edge is slow moving and will not allow a long drift.

If you really want to sweeten the pot, place a dropper midge pupa in an emerging state below, to allow the trout to feed without even having to break the surface. The trick to this setup is to think short, not just in the distance above the trout for a fast reaction, but also to minimize the distance below the dry with your dropper. This keeps your fly within the trout’s viewing window. Remember the closer the trout is to the water’s surface, the narrower and shorter the fish’s viewing lane is.

I usually start with a#18-24 tube midge with a gill tuft 6-12 inches below a Griffiths Gnat or Matt’s Midge. Then if I need to extend, I go with the Hopper, Copper, Dropper setup from John Barr, but with a small fly twist. The second trailing dropper is a tungsten tube midge to match the midge pupa food supply

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closer to the river bottom. This will give you a shot at the fish near the surface and any hidden targets or shadows below.

Materialistic Weight

It is amazing how many materials we have that benefit midge fly design. From hooks to 30d silk to micro beads. When flies are tied down to sizes 26 xs, plastic beads and 1.5-2.0 brass and tungsten beads are the way to go. Not only will the small diameter match the diameter of the midge, it will help it look natural. The weight of the bead will replace the split shot and become the lead fly, or when needed, the anchor bug. It is amazing how fast you can sink your rig with tungsten beads!

If I am fishing a shallow riffle that drops into a deep run or has a depression in the middle of the river, I will use a plastic or brass bead to achieve depth while preventing a snag on the river bottom, because it has a slower sink rate. If I decide to then fish the deepest part of the bucket, or the tail out of the run, I can switch to a tungsten bead midge trailing behind a brass bead imitation. This takes it to the lower water column and delivers to trout that are sulking deep in the run.

Manipulating flies with this bead design not only allow you to control depth, you can deliver different colors, flies with or without wings and gill tuft, and most importantly, a variety of sizes while still remaining a natural presentation to selective trout. Land Like a Feather

For the low water situations, or calm sections of river, fish are pushed to the edge, and you want to try and avoid hard landings with any nymphs rigs. This will not only spook a fish, it could spook a pod of trout that are known to hold or stage in deep holes. Standard large indicators or heavy flies can be the culprit. Instead, think of a way to indicate softly from material with no noise, such as the New Zealand Strike Indicator system with the ability to cut and adjust the wool, or my personal favorite, foam tab indicators with the plastic shell removed.

If you double up with one tab cut in half to make two stick-on indicators, you can use one to track the movement of the flies while the other stays in place, and they both move when you detect a strike. It is also an awesome tracking device for when you are visually focused on the trout and you simply want to know when the rig will arrive in the trout’s feeding lane. This is the best way to use your vision to keep a peripheral view of the drift, so you line up the delivery just like a golfer on the putting green.

Remember that in the cold season, every fish counts, and you will become better angler by challenging these slow moving targets in clear runs. By applying these tips this winter, not only will you have more successful days, you will become a more accurate angler and in other seasons be able to line up any shot. I wish you all success on and off the water this

winter!

About The Author

Landon Mayer is a veteran Colorado guide and author of several books. His newest books, The Hunt for Giant Trout, and Sight Fishing for Trout (Second Edition) can be purchased on his website, at www.landonmayerflyfishing.com. His newest video, Master the Short Game, by Headwater Media, can be purchased at www.mastertheshortgame.com. You can follow Landon on Instagram at @ landonmayerflyfishing.

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