Trip Report: No Wadin' Good Time

After seeing temps forecast to reach the upper 30's I knew today would be a good day to go fishing. My neoprene waders sprung a leak on the bottom of the left boot last time I was out so I kept to the shoreline today. In retrospect I should have worn snowshoes. First I hit a larger driftless stream and caught three nice rainbows! 

This one was the biggest and had the healthiest look. He put up a pretty decent fight through the current and into a deep hole. Fortunately the deep hole had no tangles and he was brought to hand without complication. After fishing on this river for around a half hour I headed up the nearest tributary in search of fish hitting on midges. I saw a few buzzing around and wanted to get up to an isolated stretch to target some gullible browns.

 These small browns both fell for a size 18 stripped quill zebra midge emerger. I saw a few nice fish surface but without waders and without room for error I couldn't catch many of the nicer fish spotted today! When I first fished this stream in late summer of this year I remember thinking that this would be a good spot to fish without waders on a cold day. There were plenty of log jams that I could have crawled over and lots of trees that shaded the banks. I wanted the challenge of casting to isolated trout but found easy casting lanes, footprints, and no place to switch sides without getting cold feet.

In the picture above you can kind of see how climbing on drifts near the bank is a good way to get a cold bath. I slipped a few times but caught myself without getting wet.

This rosy cheeked rainbow trout ate the pink squirrel of prey. I switched back and forth between midge emergers and subsurface and found that all browns preferred dries while all rainbows preferred subsurface. Browns were around the tailouts of pools while rainbows were in deep current. After catching half a dozen more rainbows I headed to another small spring creek, one that I've never fished before. I caught a few quick rainbows before noticing little midges flying everywhere. I tied on the midge and before I cinched the knot fish began surfacing consistently.

 This spot yielded a solid number of small but colorful brownies. I scared up twice as many as I caught. I have an idea for summer that will catch me a ton of trout at this stream. Good find! Even though I didn't get to fish in the jungle today I still managed quite a few little trout!

This is the essentials that accompany me on every trip (unless I forget the camera). I'm starting to rethink getting a cushy fly box for all the different patterns I tied up so far this winter.