Location, Location, Location: The Three Best Places to Find Fall Trout in Rivers

Fall is a great time to be on the water, and the fish are usually most aggressive before the cold weather arrives. Photo: Kubie Brown

If I had to choose a favorite season for trout fishing, it would be the fall. Hot, bright days of summer are winding down and cold, crisp mornings are cooling water temperatures, making fall trout very willing to feed on everything from nymphs, to dries, to streamers. This makes autumn a season where you have a fantastic chance to catch big trout throughout the entire day . . . but you must fish in the right spots.

Autumn can be a challenging time to find trout. Rivers are often low and clear, causing trout to retreat to specific areas where they can both find food and feel safe. This can be an advantage for anglers, as fall trout tend to stack up in certain areas, meaning that when you know where to look and how to fish, you can hook up with a lot of trout.

Buckets and Tanks

Buckets and tanks are fantastic spots to fish during autumn, especially on small to medium-size rivers. Generally, these waterways become extremely shallow during the late season, making even slightly deeper water attractive to trout. These deep spots can  be sudden drop-offs below faster water (“buckets”) or long, slow stretches of deeper soft water along the bank or in the middle of the river (“tanks”). While the two features may seem similar, you should fish them completely differently.

A bucket is a deeper spot below shallow water—a riffle, a ledge, a tailout—and trout will hold there in fall. Photo: Phil Monahan

Buckets are great spots for both nymphing and for targeting trout with larg dry flies. Trout holding in buckets usually hold close to the edge of the drop-off with their noses practically touching the bottom. These fish are great targets for both tightline and indicator nymphing, as you can cast heavy nymphs into the faster water, allow them to get down in the water column, and then let them drift over the edge of the bucket into the deeper section.

During a large mayfly or caddisfly hatch or in an area where there are a lot of terrestrials like grasshoppers or beetles, buckets can also be fantastic dry-fly fishing spots. Fall trout holding in buckets are almost always looking upward and waiting for insects to drift over the lip of the drop-off, so casting upstream of the bucket and letting your dry flies drift out over the edge of the drop off can elicit some aggressive strikes, especially when trout are stacked and competing for food in the deeper water.

Tanks can also hold a lot of trout in the fall and make great dry-fly and nymphing spots, as you can make long downstream drifts. However, if you’re looking to target larger trout in tanks, your best bet is to swing streamers and soft hackles. Both methods allow you to work your way through the whole tank methodically and can draw strikes from larger, more aggressive trout.

A tank is a longer stretch of uniformly deep water that trout retreat to, especially when water is low. Photo: Phil Monahan

Swing through a tank by starting at the top, where the slow water begins. Make a short cast down and across the stream at roughly a 45-degree angle, so your fly swings through the top edge of the tank. If it doesn’t produce a strike, strip 2 to 3 feet of line off the reel and make another cast and swing. Repeat the process, while walking downstream, until you get to the bottom of the tank or you get a strike.

Find Structure

Fall trout are always on the lookout for structure. In low clear water, things like logs, brush piles, boulders, and even the points of islands and gravel bars on the edge of the main current can all provide cover. This is especially true if you’re targeting any autumn-spawning species—such as brown, brook, or bull trout—as the fish are pushing upstream and will be looking for breaks in the current where they can rest and feed.

Fish structure with dry flies and nymphs by drifting your flies along the small current seams that form around and along the edges of logs, rocks, and points. However, if you really want to get into more active and larger fall trout, the best way to fish structure is by stripping streamers. While it can be risky casting large and often expensive streamers into snaggy areas where you can break off a lot of bugs, it can also produce some very large fish.

Fish any structure, such as rocks or downed trees, thoroughly, covering all angles. Photo: Charles Hildick-Smith

When you’re stripping streamers along structure, it’s important to be methodical. Trout will hold behind, in front of, and even alongside boulders and logs, so you want to hit all of the likely spots as you fish. Start downstream of the structure and cast upstream towards it, aiming for the farthest area of slow water created by the object. Strip your streamer rapidly back downstream to imitate a fleeing baitfish. After a couple unsuccessful casts, move closer and work your way around the structure so that you can cast and strip your streamer alongside it and eventually in front of it, consistently getting your fly as close to the structure as you can to trigger a strike.

Foam Is Home

We’ve all heard the old saying, “Foam is home,” meaning that foam lines and foam patches are sure to have trout around or beneath them. This is doubly true in the fall when foam is especially prevalent in rivers. In the clear water of autumn, foam collects in eddies and along bank edges providing trout with a veritable cornucopia of food, while also giving the fish overhead cover and protection from aerial predators.

You can fish foam patches effectively with nymphs and streamers, but my personal favorite is with a dry-dropper rig. This setup allows you to target trout that are feeding on the surface of the foam, as well as those beneath it.

Foam patches collect food, so trout love to lurk beneath, picking off food items in the swirl. Photo: Phil Monahan

Start with a large, easy-to-spot attractor pattern, such as a Stimulator or Purple Haze Parachute, and then attach a small, lightly weighted nymph to the end of a 6- to 8-inch length of tippet attached to the dry fly’s hook bend. “Lightly weighted” is key here as you’ll want a pattern that will break through the foam line and sink below the surface without dragging your dry fly under.

Once you’ve found the right fly combination, start fishing by casting to the outside edge of the foam first and then begin methodically working your way inward. After each cast, allow your flies to float in the foam for 20 to 30 seconds before casting again to give the trout plenty of time to find and hopefully eat your bugs. The action in these foam patches can be fast and furious, with trout appearing out of nowhere, so be sure to set the hook anytime you lose your fly in the froth.

Autumn Splendor

There’s no better time to be on the river than in the fall. The summer crowds have gone, the fish are more active, and you might even have the water completely to yourself. Trout fishing in autumn is a time for reflection, where you get to bask in the splendor of frosty mornings and brilliant foliage and just settle yourself into the natural rhythms of the river. And when you fish in the right places with the right techniques, you’ll catch a few more trout, to boot.