Winter Solitude

This is one of my favorite times of the year - December. Why you might ask? Well, because nobody else in their right mind is out on the water, only the truly die hard and derelict of us will take perfectly good days for hitting the slopes or sitting on your butt inside and instead brave the elements to go get your feet freezing cold in hopes of a fish...

Well, for those in the know, the winter fishing brings with it not just a lot of pretty scenery and the absence of a lot of other fishermen - it also brings to the seasoned angler 3-5 hours of the best nymph fishing when the fish are on the bite.

The one thing about winter fishing that no other season can offer is the absolute certainty of where the fish are going to hold. Forget screwing around trying to figure out if there's a fish in that 3-4 inch deep riffle feeding on something, forget scanning the shallows for cruisers, forget hucking something through a ripping corner in hopes of eliciting a strike, winter time means that you trudge through all of that water in search of the long, deep, slow pockets and runs and pools. If it's deep and slow and has some current feeding into it, chances are you'll find a fish in it during the winter months.

So the next time you think of hanging up the boots and waders and putting the rods back in the rod tubes, just remember, where there's open water, there's an opportunity for fishing. And where there's an opportunity for fishing, well I'll be there no matter what time of year it is...