5 Tips for Better Fall Fishing

Fly fishing during Colorado’s fall can be a beautiful, but frustrating affair. Insect hatches have thinned out, brown trout are beginning to spawn, and crowds flock the rivers. In this blog, we’ll be going over five tips to make your fall fishing experience a more memorable one. Without a lengthy introduction, let’s get to those tips.

Most of the major hatches are over this time of the year. Some riversheds are still seeing some tricos, caddis, or a few other hatches, but most places will only have two hatches left: fall BWO’s and midges. As most of us know, midges are very tiny insects that hatch year-round in our fisheries. Our tailwaters throughout the state are infamous for the fantastic, yet difficult midge fishing. These bugs are so tiny, that most of the time people don’t even know they’re hatching. Fishing a sz30 would be the best way to imitate these guys, but we don’t want to do that. We can fish much bigger than a sz30, but not by too much. To meet somewhere in the middle, we recommend fishing sz22 or 24 midge patterns in order to be somewhat small enough to match the hatch, but big enough to land our fish appropriately. 

Likewise, fishing fall BWO’s is equally as tricky. Unlike their spring counterparts, fall BWO's are very small, averaging between a sz20-24. In our freestone fisheries, it would be best to fish a sz20 since these fish are little more opportunistic than our more pressured tailwaters. On the other hand, if you’re planning to fish a tailwater, starting with a sz22 is our recommendation. Although this isn’t always fruitful, and fishing in low conditions can call for a sz24. 

These tiny bugs require small tippet, with 6x fluorocarbon being the norm when nymphing and 7x nylon for dries. Fishing this small isn’t necessary, but it will certainly result in a better drift and more hookups. In order to not bend out these tiny hooks and break the thin tippet, we recommend fishing 4wt rods: 8-8.5’ rods for dry fly fishing, 9.5-10’ rods for nymphing, and a 9’ being a great do-all.

We firmly believe that streamer season is year-round, but it’s hard to argue how effective streamer fishing is during the fall months. With the combination of spawn aggression of brown trout and fish looking to put the feed bag on before the upcoming winter, any trout that can fit a baitfish in its mouth will!

Although a dedicated streamer rig is highly recommended to make your day more enjoyable, you can use any rod you have to fish streamers. A 7wt is our general recommendation for streamer fishing in Colorado. This rod allows you to fish any sized streamer and make casting these big flies much easier. That said, if all you have is a 5wt, we carry plenty of streamers that are easy to throw on lighter gear. 

If you’re a more dedicated streamer angler using heavier gear, we recommend fishing flies like a Supernatural Peanut, Montana Humdinger, Heisenberg, Peanut Envy, and many more. For anglers with standard trout gear, we prefer throwing flies such as the Kreelex, Micro Dungeon, Mini Dolly Llama, Wooly Bugger variations, and a few more.

With the combination of cooling temperatures and smaller insects, trout are no longer looking to hold in fast water. Sitting in fast water, such as swift runs or riffles, means trout need to expend more energy. Without big bugs to balance the calories burned, trout don’t want to sit in fast water. Additionally, with cooler temperatures, there’s plenty of oxygen in slower moving water in comparison to the summer months. If you spend your time fishing slower water or transition areas, you’ll find the trout.

An important note, fall means brown trout are spawning. In order to preserve our amazing fisheries and allow fish to create future generations for us to enjoy, we need to leave spawning fish alone! Trout will create spawning beds, called redds, in faster moving water in order to oxygenate their eggs. Redds can be identified as clean patches of gravel, usually with a bucket built within it, allowing the eggs to sit and not get swept away. If you see fish in faster water, odds are they’re trying to spawn. Leave them alone!! 

To reiterate, fish that are eating will not be sitting in fast water and almost any fish sitting in swifter water is trying to spawn. Fish the slow water and you won’t have to worry about fishing for spawners.

As the overnight temperatures continue to drop, our mornings are going to be getting colder and colder. Although we aren’t seeing it in the metro quite yet, our mountains are already seeing overnights below freezing.

Fish don’t like to be active when water temperatures are cold, especially if they know it’ll be warmer in a few hours. Rather than rushing to the parking lot right at sunrise, enjoy your morning coffee and take your time getting to the water. Although there’s always a morning midge hatch, these bugs won’t start hatching until the water temperature spikes just a bit from the morning sun. Additionally, fall BWO’s won’t start hatching until mid-morning. Getting to the water around 8 or 9am these days will get you to the water at the perfect time where trout will begin their daily feeding. 

Take this tip with a grain of salt, as getting to places like Cheesman (where a long hike is required) at an early time can be beneficial to get to the water in a timely manner. That said, I’ve wasted plenty of cold fall mornings waiting for the fish to start eating, and of course they wouldn’t be eating until mid-morning. Keep this in mind as we continue to roll into winter where getting to water even later in the day is beneficial! 

This might seem like a no-brainer to many, but avoiding popular fall areas can yield great results. Many anglers, whether residents or tourists, flock to popular areas such as the Dream Stream and Gunnison Rivers. Both of these rivers have something in common, migratory fish. The Dream Stream and Gunnison Rivers are home to migratory kokanee salmon and brown trout, and with that come a whole lot of people!

Neither of these locations are secrets, being widely published in online and printed sources. Although both of these locations are great fisheries, anticipate filled parking lots and little room to move around. Yes, they offer a unique experience to our year-round fishing, but it can be frustrating showing up to these places and seeing giant crowds even during the work week. None of us will say, “don’t go to the Dream Stream (or Gunnison).” We are always happy to point our customers in the right direction for success. But if someone is asking where to go, we never suggest these locations because we enjoy peace on the water as much as anyone else. Instead, looking towards fisheries such as the Upper Colorado, Eagle, Arkansas, and (ironically) Cheesman/Deckers will give you more solitude and a better day of fishing. If you see everyone online going to or talking about a certain place, odds are it’s best to not go there. 

We hope these 5 tips help you with your fishing this fall! As always, if you have any questions or need some help, feel free to call the shop or come into either of our locations and we’ll get you taken care of. Until next time.