The Weather Outside is Frightful...

But I'd rather be out fishing in it then sitting by the fire. The water temperatures weren't too bad, and I thought the fish might be feeding. Unlike most people who fly fish this time of year, I use big stonefly and mayfly swimmer nymphs. Why? They may not be as prevalent as midges and tiny mayflies, but they are worth the effort for a trout to eat. Energy gained vs. energy expended.

It sure works. I did as well as I did with a dry dropper in the Spring with dry dropper rigs on this same stream. The stream itself, my home water, has a minimal midge population in comparison to most others anyway, even though they still make up the majority of drifting debris.

I started off with a stonefly nymph. I lost two fish right off the bat, but in a plunge pool I have seen and rarely hooked big trout, I landed the first of many today.

On upstream I ended up hooking one nice fish that I saw sitting on a flat grey stone. He wasn't hooked well and came of. Not to worry, as I worked my way up I continued to catch. One from a deep pocket, two in the riffle above a fallen tree, one heavily spotted one from the plunge pool. Even further up I got two out of one of the better pools in that section. In total in that 100 yard stretch I caught ten out of fifteen hooked fish. Some were on soft hackle nymphs, others were on the stonefly. The day total was twenty out of thirty some takes. Now that is just spectacular for this time of year. Made up for the past few weeks of mediocre fishing.

And, to add to it, I ended the day on a clean wild Brook trout. 

The iridescence of the scales was stunning on this fish.

A twenty fish day in December is not to be overlooked. The weather may have stunk, but I'm oh so glad that I didn't stay home.