So yesterday I packed away my ice fishing gear for the year. I can probably find some ice somewhere to fish on this weekend, but I’m not going to risk it. It’s time to start getting ready for opening day of trout season on April 1st.
In preparation, I bought myself some goodies. After contemplating a new reel since last fishing season, and staring at one all winter every time I stopped at Crossroads for bait, I finally pulled the trigger and bought one…
The rod that I will be doing most of my fly fishing with this summer is the L.L. Bean 7’6″ 4wt. that I bought last year. This rod has treated me well, but I was using a reel that is slightly too large, spooled with whatever line the former owner was using (probably 5wt). The line was starting to get beat up, and I wanted to size the reel down a bit.
I ended up going with an Okuma Sierra S4/5 reel, and picked up an extra spool while I was at it. I bought these up at Crossroads while stopping for bait before my last ice fishing trip. This seems to be a good quality reel for a pretty good price, and I’m happy with it.
With a new, smaller reel, I obviously had to buy a new fly line (or splurge on two). I shopped around for a little while, and ended up ordering two lines from an online fly fishing store. Both lines are WF4, one floating and the other with a 15′ sink tip. These lines cost me a pretty penny, but if I take good care of them I shouldn’t have any problem using them for several seasons to come.
I didn’t have much luck last year at the beginning of trout season, and I was fishing with worms at that point. I can only imagine the time I will have trying to fool a fish with a fly on high, fast, dark water. With such a mild winter we’ve had, the water levels probably won’t be as high as they usually are this time of year.
I’ve been doing some reading about nymph fishing lately, and have decided that if I want to catch any fish this spring, I’m going to have to learn how to do this.
I have an OK collection of nymphs, probably about 20 of them ranging in size from 10 – 14. This should be enough to get me started, unless I end up snagging everyone of them on my first day out (which may happen). I picked up some leaders, tippet material and a few strike indicators the other day, and I think I’m ready to go.
If I understand nymphing correctly, I’ll be casting upstream and trying to dead drift my nymph(s) back down towards me, stripping line and keeping an eye on my strike indicator waiting for some unnatural movement before trying for a hookset. I have heard of fishing several nymphs at a time, but I don’t think I’m ready for this quite yet so I’ll probably be starting with just one for now.
I’ll use my new sink tip line, and probably a 5x tapered leader to start (until I break it off enough times and have to tie a tippet on). I am a little weary of using a finer leader, as I am not that accurate at casting yet and will probably encounter more than enough snags my first time out. Also, if I am using a sink tip line and nymphs, I would think that I can get away with a little thicker of a leader?
Do any of you have any suggestions on what nymph patterns work well around here in early April? I have a several Pheasant Tail Nymphs, Bead Head Prince Nymphs, March Brown Nymphs, and a few Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymphs. I don’t have a huge collection so I guess I could just try the different patterns and see what works and what doesn’t.
How high up your leader do you generally put your strike indicator? I think the first few times out I’ll be fishing on a small stream that only gets about 20 ft wide and probably has an average depth of about two feet. I obviously don’t want my nymph snagging on the stream bed all day.
Does anybody have any tips for my first time out trying nymph fishing? I’m getting antsy already and I still have 2+ weeks to wait!
