Winter Time Fishing

Winter time is one of my favorite seasons to fish for many different reasons. The first and foremost is that it is the best way to get a river all to yourself and not have competition from other anglers. Second you can run into the unexpected and see some amazing sites and sounds. There is a good article in the Denver Post which relates some of the reasons why serious anglers get out and enjoy the rivers during times of the year that others think are too cold and snowy for fishing. The brown trout in the photo above was caught in the Bear Trap Canyon in celebration of the New Year, by my good friend and fellow guide Eric Reithmiller.

Brrrrr, it's cold outside.

Ice flow on the East!!

I have had a real itch to get out and fish after last weeks good fortunes with weather and cooperative fish. But as you can see it has been a little cold in Southwestern Montana and most of the rivers have ice flowing in them. Last night the mercury fell to 1 degree and it has so far warmed up to a balmy 23 degrees at 3:00pm. Forecasters are calling for a slight warming trend late in the week which may open up some water and get me back out on the river. If not I will have to fire up the Auger and hit the ice.

Winter Day on the Gallatin

The weather was far to warm, 41 degrees, not to get out and enjoy a fine day of winter fishing on the Gallatin River. My good friend Eric and I headed out around noon and we were a little concerned as the wind was blowing fairly steady out of the Southwest. We decided to go ahead and check out the river bottom to see if the stands of leafless cottonwood trees would give us any shelter from the wind. Eric lives close enough to the river that we were able to get suited up in the Garage and make a 2 minute drive to the river. Surprising as it was the cottonwoods were sheltering us from the breeze at the Bridge and we invited Trico the fish pointer to leap out of the back of the pickup and join us at the river. We headed downstream and the wind completely quite blowing at all for the rest of the day. Eric was the big winner at the first hole and caught a half dozen brown trout to my single fish. We headed to the next hole where Eric gave my the choice of the run since he had the better side of the Diversion Hole. I choose to hit the tail out of the run and it was a good choice as I landed one 12 inch whitefish, hooked a nice brown and lost him and then landed the fish you see here shortly after. At that point Eric had moved downstream and fished the lower hole with no success. We had been out for a few hours and decided that heading in for a cocktail at Stacey's was well past due. We headed upstream past a couple of holes that we had left alone on the way downstream and we both discussed the fact we had yet to see a rainbow trout, which is usually the more prevalent species in this stretch. I had to throw my fly through one more run and miraculously there was a nice 12 inch rainbow that came to hand. Murphy has a strange way of showing his head and this was no exception. We hit the bridge and had a short walk to the bar to get a stiff cocktail and put the finishing touch on a perfect winter fishing trip!