3 Flies for the Week: January 7
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Time to read 3 min
It’s wintertime, well sort of. Up until the past few days it’s been a mild winter and it was really feeling like an extended fall. Regardless of the weather, the bug life and fish are behaving like it is winter. There are no mayflies or caddis or stoneflies, just midges (aside from the Pueblo tailwater, but that section of river is an exception). This isn’t as bad as it may seem as this allows for straight forward fishing. No figuring out what’s hatching and what perfect fly to toss out there, just run a midge pupa when they’re actively hatching and a larva when they aren’t. Simple. Yes, the flies are really small and it can be difficult to keep fish on the end of your line. But that’s just a part of winter fishing.
Those of us who live in Colorado are lucky enough to have a seemingly endless amount of tailwaters that have fishable water year-round. Many other states have limited numbers of tailwaters and are much more spread out. Within two hours of the Denver metro we have Deckers, Cheesman, 11 Mile, Dream Stream, Williams Fork, Blue in Silverthorne, Blue below Green Mountain, Arkansas in Pueblo, South Boulder below Gross, Big Thompson below Lake Estes, and Waterton. There’s plenty of quality fishing to go around and with such a large amount of opportunities there’s really no excuse not to get out, aside from it being cold of course.
Like I mentioned above, the flies during the winter are very simple. But here are our recommendations for 3 Flies for the Week: January 7
The all-time winter classic, the egg. An egg is one of, if not the best lead fly for winter-time nymphing. Brown trout just got done spawning a month or two ago and there are eggs galore in the winter. So even if it is a bold presentation, it’s also a natural one. With the natural look of it, even if fish aren’t necessarily interested in eating eggs at the particular time you’re fishing, the fly does a fantastic job of getting the fish’s attention to look at your midge(s). Unlike other egg patterns, the roe fly is incredibly durable and can withstand catching a few fish. Many other patterns either fall apart too quickly, or are super durable but don’t look realistic enough for our finicky fish.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly! We’re recommending a midge that’s a sz16, but for a great reason. This is not a fly that is used on the backend, at least not at this size. Generally in the winter we like to lead with eggs or small stonefly patterns, but when things are tough and fish aren’t like the big stuff, larger midge larvae patterns get the job done. Recently I was having a difficult day on the Blue in Silverthorne trying to get fish to eat on a rig that had an egg on it. I switched to a sz16 midge larva pattern and immediately had success! There’s a great lesson with this, even though the water is cold, don’t be too stubborn to change flies. And sometimes fishing an all midge rig is the ticket during the winter. This fly was designed by Juan Ramirez, a local guide that focuses on the South Platte and the Arkansas in Pueblo. He came up with this pattern to have the natural two-tone body that midge larva have to fool our stubborn tailwater fish. Fish this as a lead fly, or in smaller sizes on your back fly when the midges aren’t actively hatching!
If you don’t know already, we’re big fans of this midge pattern. Designed by Tyler Boroff on the San Juan, this simple yet deadly midge pattern is meant to imitate an emerging midge pupa. It has a sleek body and small foam section that does a great job of imitating the air bubble the body creates once the exoskeleton begins to split apart. But this is a small fly and it can be difficult for fish to differentiate your fly from the thousands of natural pupae floating by them. In order to combat this, Tyler added a small flash section just behind the thorax to add a little attractant and help make your fly stand out. Throw this fly on the back end of your nymph rig, whether that be a two or three fly rig.
Thank you for all reading along this week! We know our 3 Flies for the Week have been a bit more sporadic, but we don’t want to oversaturate you with the same flies over and over. If it hasn't been mentioned before, we plan on putting these out on a more consistent basis again once more hatches are on the water.
Xavier Puls
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to Xavier on email at xavier@goldenflyshop.com, or call the shop at 303-330-1292. Thank you!