help needed for winter trout

[rhodyflyguy]

i was hoping to get some advice for fishing winter trout in CT. I live near the salmon river, blackledge river, and jeremy river, with TMA areas and the airline trail within 5 minutes of my house. however, most of my trout fishing takes place in the spring. what do you guys suggest for lures and flies for winter trout fishing? i already have a few olive wooly buggers and nymphs. do you suggest other patterns? how about lures? any and all help would be appreciated.

[NatickDave]

Your choice of flies is good...might want to add something smaller with rubber legs to impart motion and also get some color variety...most important thing is to let them sink deep and strip them sloooowly through the pools...fish need to be bonked on the nose when the water is this cold.

I fished the Salmon with FishinBill a couple of years ago...what a gorgeous river...too bad I only caught one little rainbow.

Have fun,
ND

[Go Fish]

Don't listen to Dave he doesn't know what he's talking about ;)

In addition to the good advice given above you might think about trying very small nymph, emerger and adult paterns. Alot of a trout's winter forage base is in the form of midge larva. Usually these bugs are best represented by size 18-26 patterns.

Some of my favorites are the: Brassy, Copper John, Miracle Nymph, RS-2, Poxy Back and WD-40.

Pick a 6 or 7X tippet and fish them with as little weight as you can using a "high sticking" method. I find fishing little stuff is most effective when I can see the fish.

[teflon_jones]

First of all, you need to either use bead heads or small split shot on your line. You absolutely must keep your fly bouncing off the bottom in the winter, more so than any other time of year!

As for patterns to use, the flashback pheasant tail (or regular one) is probably my top pick. A Hare's ear is a definite must too. If you want to go a little off the wall, a San Juan worm has been known to produce well in the winter too. My last recommendation, if you want to get big trout in the winter, is to tie on a streamer and work it slow. You won't get many fish, but the ones you catch will be BIG.

[rhodyflyguy]

awesome guys, thanks you very much.

[dudley]

Because of the very low water, the Blackledge and Jeremy's were not stocked this fall. The TMAs (like the Salmon), the trout parks and about 6-8 other large rivers were the only moving water to receive fish.

When I fish there in the winter, I like to fish the deeper pools like the old Day pond bridge abutment pool and around the handicaped area.
Most of the time it's deep and slow. I like to use a fly with a little flash or color. Something to get the fish's attention. But not too big. the fish have very slow metabolismsin the cold water. I believe that they instinctively know that if they eat something too big, they'll be digesting it all month.