February Fishing

 

I know, it's not a great picture but with the water temps in the 30's these fish are ficken cold and I'd just as soon not put my hands on them if I don't have to so this is all you get.

 

I haven't fished since the end of October and then, I really didn't fish. I was guiding. So I'm back up in Wolf Creek and I'm kind of board so I decided to grab a rod and take a few casts. The weather out here has been unseasonably warm and fish are eating. There are also quite a few people getting their fix on either by floating or just doing what I did, which is find an easy spot to jump in at the end of an island or the bottom of a run that dumps into some deep slow stuff and take a few casts.

 

I'm not going to lie, I can be a bit overly confident when it comes to fishing. So much so that I just grabbed a rod that had been rigged up since last season and didn't even change flies before I started making casts and within a few minutes, bingo. Unfortunately, it was a white fish.  A few minutes later I brought my first trout in and as I was about to release it, my leader broke...I should have re-rigged before fishing.

 

Sometimes when I wade fish like this, I just want to see how quick I can catch a fish and once I get one, I head back to the truck and call it good. It's kind of a game to see how far from the truck I have to walk and I try to limit myself to less than 10 casts. Today was a little different because I actually brought a few flies and some tippet material so I re-rigged and actually fished for a couple hours before my feet got cold and I decided enough was enough.

 

The whities were out in force today and because you're generally fishing soft water this time of year, it kind of comes down to chance on what's going to eat your bug first. I've talked about it before but the reality is, is once you think you know how to avoid white fish and only catch trout, they (the whities,) prove you wrong. I probably caught twice as many white fish as trout but it was still a good couple hours of fishing.

 

There is one pretty good way of avoiding white fish however, and that's to just throw dry flies. That's not to say white fish won't eat dries because they do but unless there is a ton of bugs on the water, you usually won't be bothered by them. I actually did see a few fish up eating midges today. I didn't have a rod rigged up with a dry so I didn't even try for those fish but I'm thinking maybe tomorrow I'll put the boat in and only try to find targets actively feeding. It could be a long day but then, what do I have to lose?

 

Keep 'em where they live...