Beautiful day to be out on the water today but anytime in January is tough around here. Temps were in the mid 50's probably. This stretch of water was about as crowded as I've ever seen it in 4 years....even in summer. Dudes were gettin' trucked in. Surprisingly, my favorite section is pretty much the first one you get to after a short hike and there was a slot open so my buddy Scott and I set up shop. January is tough because the flows are low (about 60 cfs today). When the flows are low, there's less spots for the fish to hide and so they tend to be a bit more spooky. The other bad thing about winter is that the deeper pools that the fish generally congegrate in move slow and so the fish get a long look at your stuff so it better be good. Flies better be spot on with regard to color and size, tippet should be invisible, and sometimes even the lead shot causes lockjaw. Your expectations have to be in check during winter too. Half a dozen fish is success and they probably wont be large but this particular section of the river (my favorite) has some bruisers in it (20-24" is not uncommon to sight fish to in the summer).

This is a little pool that usually holds a few nice fish in it but Scott struck out there.


This is my favorite spot. It's a run about 100 yards long that has some deeper pools in it and a few riffles and boulders. During the summer when the flows are in the 200's, the bigger trout move in and you can just see a silhouette on the gravely bottom as it darts back and forth feeding. Every summer but this past one, I usually spend the eveings here destroying things. I got into this smaller brown after making at least 200 drifts to it. In all I hooked into 4 or 5 browns and bows in this area but never managed to get one in the net.