On the Fly: Winter tailwater tactics for a successful day

While shopping for hard-to-find tying materials in Charlie’s Fly Box down in Arvada last week, I overheard shop guru Sam Wright utter “tailwater trout eat at the same restaurant every day” while recommending flies for a customer headed to the Blue River. That was a great distillation of what fly shop people preach day in and day out, in my humble opinion — especially for us at Taylor Creek, who live and work on the Fryingpan tailwater. (A tailwater is a trout stream that is regulated by a dam.)

It got me to thinking while driving back up that these fish (especially in wintertime) are served up a thin gruel when it comes to food, and when your fly has too much going on, it’s immediately suspect. When it comes to being too much, think overly-used crystal flash, shiny beads, and flies that are simply too large and not on the menu.

The upside to fishing in winter is that there are only a few things hatching, instead of myriad. You can leave all of your fly boxes packed with stoneflies, salmonflies, craneflies, caddis, yellow sallies, and larger mayflies behind until spring and focus on what’s really hatching: midges. On the Fryingpan, you can add in tiny black winter stones and mysis shrimp, as well.

Flies we recommend this tie of year are going to be small and sparse. For dry flies, try Bill’s Midge Emergers, Pat Dorsey’s Midge Emergers, Rene Harrop’s CDC Spent and Adult Midges, and Craig Matthew’s Improved Z-Lon Midges. Subsurface bugs like the Bling Midge, Skinny Pheasant Tails, WD40s, and Pat Dorsey’s Black Beauty shouldn’t steer you wrong. We fish a black size 18 Putterbaugh’s when we see the little stoneflies as well.

Keep it simple and small, and you’ll have some success fishing this winter!

This report is provided every week by Taylor Creek Fly Shops in Aspen and Basalt. Taylor Creek can be reached at 970-927-4374 or TaylorCreek.com.