Frozen Meats: How to Fish Winter Streamers

Image by Mike Doughty

Nothing tests your patience more than winter fly fishing. Between the numb extremities, frozen guides, and generally slow action, it’s the time of year when putting away the fly rod and planning that tropical vacation you’ve always talked about seems like a better idea. However, what many fly anglers don’t realize is that winter presents one of the best opportunities to land the absolute stud of a trout you’ve always dreamed of catching. And just like every other time of year, the best way to do it is by fishing with streamers.

Winter streamer fishing is a different game from chucking big bugs during the rest of the year. You’re not splashing down bright and gaudy flies trying to get attention from trout along the bank or ripping bugs through fast water to trigger aggressive strikes. Instead, with the water being so cold and the trout’s metabolism slowing to a crawl during winter, you’re fishing with slow finesse and a certain amount of trickery to convince a trout to eat. If you do it right though, winter streamer fishing can connect you with those big fish you don’t see at any other time of year and perhaps even land a trout that makes freezing to death seem worth it.

Size Does Matter

Almost every winter fly angler believes that smaller is better. They’ll fish spider-web thin tippet and flies so tiny they have to be tied on with a magnifying glass and tweezers. While this can be effective, especially when fishing in rivers and creeks with a lot of smaller fish, those micro-meals aren’t going to satisfy the big ones. Just like how many of us prefer to stay inside and gorge ourselves during cold gray days, big winter trout want a hearty and satisfying meal. They’re not going to waste what little energy they have swimming around and sucking in thousands of tiny bugs trying to fill their bellies—they want real meat, putting streamers at the top of the menu.

The streamers you fish during winter should be large, heavy, and easy to sink down and fish in the deep holes and buckets where the big fish like to hide. You’ll want to use large patterns made from materials like bucktail and marabou, which have a lot of movement and action on their own and don’t require much stripping and jerking to come alive. Two of my favorite winter streamer patterns are the Swim Coach and the Double Gonga. These flies swim with very little effort, have just the right amount of flash to catch the eye, and present a large, meaty profile that’s perfect for tempting the sluggish, bottom-hugging winter trout you’re after.

Low and Slow

Big winter trout aren’t going to be crowded along the banks or sitting along the edges of rapids and riffles like they are in summer. Instead, they’ll be holding in the deepest, slowest moving water they can find. The fish will stack up along the bottom of long, slow-moving pools, deep holes with current-blocking structure, and along sharp drop-offs just off outside bends. Here they can shift slowly along the bottom, feeding on slow, easy-moving targets. Accordingly, you’ll want to fish your flies as slowly and deeply as possible.

Swinging flies during winter is often your most productive technique as it’s an easy way to keep your flies at the right depth and under complete control. However, unlike traditional swinging where you cast downstream at a 45-degree angle and then keep the fly entirely still as it swings through the current, swinging winter streamers for trout comes with its own little twist. To sink the fly more efficiently, cast across the stream at a 90-degree angle and then make a very pronounced mend which allows the fly to sink with complete slack before tightening up. Then when the fly begins to swing, start to rhythmically pulse your rod tip up and down as the streamer comes through the water and even mix in a couple of small strips. This will cause the fly to flit forward and drop back in the water column like a wounded baitfish without moving too quickly through the water, an action that most big winter trout will find hard to resist.

Stripping streamers during winter can also be an effective technique, but you’ll want to do it as slowly as possible if you want to catch anything. Cast your streamer and then let it dead drift and sink as close to bottom as you can. Then just before it snags up, make a short, sharp strip or two before letting it sink again. Ideally, your strips should cause the streamer to quickly dart forward a few inches before drifting and sinking in the current for a few feet and then darting forward again. The sluggish swimming combined with a few quick sprints will present your fly as an active but easy-to-catch hunk of meat. Keep your line as tight as possible when fishing this way, as most trout will move in on the streamer as it darts forward and then eat it on the drift, making strikes hard to detect.

Fish the Dirty Days

Paying attention to the weather and river flows is vital for winter streamer success. Those bright but cold winter days when the weather seems perfect will still produce, but you’ll have better luck on the gray, low-pressure days when weather systems move in. This often means fishing in nasty snow and rain storms and becoming completely wet and miserable while you do, but it can be worth it as the streamer bite can be surprisingly aggressive during these times, especially when there’s a little color in the water.

Most rivers run low and clear during the winter, but if you monitor them using an app like Trout Routes or checking the USGS website, you’ll notice when flows rise and spike. On days when small spikes in flows are caused by recent snowmelt or rain, there will often be a slight change in water clarity where the river becomes a bit dirty without blowing out. These spikes create a sort of perfect storm that will get winter trout excited and cause them to feed aggressively, especially when these spikes coincide with a rise in water temperature.

Winter’s Bite

No matter what technique you choose, winter fly fishing is always going to be tough. Yet when you fish streamers in the winter, you’ll find it comes with a certain amount of hope. It’s a feeling that keeps you out there casting and fishing no matter how brutally cold you get. For one of those casts will eventually lead to a heavy, head-shaking pull at the end of your line that signals a connection with a trout that’s big enough to fill you with warm thoughts all winter long.