How to Find Fishable Waters in the Mountains During High Water
You won’t find long stretches of fishable water, so you need to pick your spots and make good presentations. Photos: George Daniel
When I think about May in the mid-Atlantic, I see clouds of insects and happy trout plucking helpless insects off the surface on my local spring and limestone streams. Water conditions are often the best of the year. There’s enough turbidity to allow anglers to get within reasonable casting distance, and it creates a fuzzy window for the trout when they’re deciding whether or not to take your presentation. Plus, May offers up some of the best hatches of the season including sulfurs, caddisflies, Hendricksons, March browns, stoneflies. slate drakes, and green drakes—to name a few. Insect activity is the driving force to successful fly-fishing days.
All this makes May one of the best months to fish our larger streams and rivers. Well, except for this year, given all the rain we’ve had for the last four weeks. While I’m disappointed that I haven’t had a chance to fish a few of my favorite limestone and freestone streams during peak hatch season, part of me is happy for the rainfall as trout do like water. The foul weather has also decreased angling pressure on well-known river sections, where only the hardcore anglers have been trying their luck. Lastly, deep down inside, I’m happy for the high water, as it provides an excuse to head to the mountain streams of my youth to chase native brook and wild brown trout. It’s good to have options when high water exists, but it’s important that you adjust your expectations and your tactics to make the most of the situation.
Mountain streams don’t get a lot of sunlight, and the air is colder, which makes the “bite window” shorter.
When to Fish Small Streams
Unlike spring creeks, limestone rivers, and tailwaters, mountain streams can see real fluctuations in water temps during a 24-hour period. This means that the “bite window”—when fish will be actively feeding—is shorter. These high-elevation, small bodies of water are affected by colder air temps, and they often flow through a heavily wooded landscape that offers less direct sunlight. While these qualities make for excellent late-summer conditions, they can create less-than-ideal water temperatures for trout anglers wanting to get to the stream at first light.
For example, several of my favorite mountain streams didn’t start getting good until 11ish in early May. Why? Because it took a while for water temps to reach mid 50s. One stream in northern Pennsylvania was about 45 degrees at 7a.m. and didn’t get to 50 degrees until 11:15, which is when the bite started to pick up. Check the USGS Water Data site in your area to see if any of the gauges record water temperatures. You can learn a lot about both fish and insect behavior by knowing when peak periods occur, based on water temperatures. Even if you don’t have a stream thermometer, take note of when activity picks up and cross-check it later against the USGS water data. Very few mountain streams I fish have USGS data collecting sites, so the next best thing is to find a stream similar in elevation and latitude and keep a close eye on when ideal water temps occur. Let water temps warm up a bit before venturing to small mountain streams during the spring. Late summer or early fall will be a different story.
Mountain trout are generally smaller, but they are often native or wild—and they’re usually less picky than their lowland counterparts.
Rigging Up
I use a mono system consisting of 25 to 30 feet of 8-pound-test hi-vis Maxima with a 3- to 4-foot tippet section of 4X. I use this for both nymphing and jigging streamers. I rarely go below 4X when fishing small streams because you’re constantly snagging rocks and sunken wood. With 4X, you’ll rarely break off a fly, but it’s still small enough in diameter to allow medium-weighted nymphs to achieve proper depth. For strike indication, I paint a sighter marker on my tippet about a foot or two higher than the average water depth. For example, if I’m fishing water with an average depth of 2 feet, I’ll place my sighter marker about 3 to 3-1/2 feet above my fly. If you don’t like mono systems, then use any leader formula or system that allows you to keep most of your line and leader off the water.
Mountain Stream Tactics for Fishing
I love to fish dry flies on small mountain streams, but during high water, especially on cold spring days, surface presentations are rarely productive. Fishing subsurface patterns is often the only way to catch fish. I use both jig streamers and nymphs with a Euro setup. High water creates less fishable water, and sometimes the only workable areas are narrow seams along the bank or behind large obstructions like boulders. In these conditions, it’s important to keep as much line and leader as you can off the water while attempting to position your rig (fly and tippet) all within that narrow seam. This approach allows the flies to drop quickly to stream bottom, which is helpful. Your drifts in these high-water scenarios may be only a few feet, so achieving correct depth ASAP is vital to success.
A long rod comes in handy when you need to keep your line and leader off the water.
Higher flows allow you to get closer to the fish, so short casts (less than 20 feet) should be the norm. A 9- to 10-foot rod is an excellent choice to make short casts and keep as much line/leader off the water as possible. My friend Brian Wilt uses an 11-foot Euro rod for small streams with few issues. Short, wristy flips or bow-and-arrow casts are all that are required, so you should have little trouble using a longer rod in these scenarios.
Patterns for High Water
What I love about fly fishing small mountain streams is how few patterns I need. Typically, I enjoy heading to small streams to fish dry flies later in the season when water levels are low, but I haven’t seen a single fish rise in the last month, with water levels well above average. So, this time of year, I keep my nymph and streamer selection simple: I’ll stash one or two dozen small streamers and nymphs into a fly puck that fits comfortably in the pocket of my waders. All subsurface patterns I used this spring were size 12 with a ⅛-inch tungsten bead for higher water. If you need additional weight to get deeper,add a small split shot—either on the nose of the streamer or 6 to 8 inches above the nymph.
Sculp Snack
Hook: Gamakatsu B10S Stinger Hook, size 12. (George ties a size 4 in the video.)
Head: Black tungsten cone, medium.
Weight: Lead-free wire, 0.20, 10 wraps.
Adhesive: Superglue.
Thread: Light olive, 6/0 or 70-denier.
Tails: Marabou, light olive over tan.
Flash: Gold Krinkle Mirror Flash, small.
Body: Olive UV Polar Chenille.
Collar: Light olive over tan Laser Dub.
Legs: Barred pumpkin Sili Legs.
Tools: Dubbing brush.
This year’s selection has been simple (all in size 12):
Sculp Snack Streamer with a ⅛-inch tungsten bead. This is my favorite Woolly Bugger version, and I carry these patterns in white and UV olive. Use flies that are small and short, since you’re generally targeting fish between 7 and 12 inches long. Use too big a streamer in the mountain streams, and you’ll encounter lots of short strikes. Fish jig streamers with an upstream presentation, and twitch the rod tip to add some movement into the streamer during the drift.
Squirmy Wormy with a ⅛-inch tungsten bead, in red and pink. I don’t know of another nymph that produces such excellent results on small streams during high water.
Pheasant Tail or Frenchie Pheasant Tail with a ⅛-inch tungsten bead. If trout aren’t hitting the worm, plan B is to switch to a Pheasant Tail or a Pheasant Tail variation.
Green Weenie. During a recent lesson on a small mountain stream, the green weenie was hands down the most productive pattern. There’s something magical about a small chartreuse fly on small mountain streams—at anytime of the year.
Fishing these streams can be a lot of work, but the rewards are worth it.
Get in Shape
Lastly, walking and wading for small-stream fishing in high water is physically demanding. Sometimes fishable water is spaced far apart, requiring long hikes through woods to get to the next spot. It’s not uncommon for me to cover two to four miles during a 3- to 6-hour fishing session. Most spots are good for just a fish or two, and I rarely spend more than five minutes fishing a spot. Small-stream trout are less selective and will usually take a good presentation on the first drift, so focus on making a couple good presentations and then move to the next spot.
One way to shorten the distance between fishable spots is to look for stream sections with less gradient, wider stream sections, or areas where the stream braids into several channels. You can find a lot of this information on Google Maps using the “terrain” feature or by using apps such as TroutRoutes. I find fishing these small jewels during high water challenging—both mentally and physically. The average size of the trout in these remote streams is small, but the gratitude I feel for having the opportunity to catch wild and native trout in these natural areas is huge.
