That was the general consensus up and down the river. Theories abounded, from snowmelt lowering the water temps to a grey, blustery day where the air temperatures never really spiked. I’ll throw in a pitiful amount of bugs and be done with it. I nymphed within and above the permanent TMA from 9:30am-2:30pm. Water was a cold 34 degrees, there were a few minor snow showers, and the river was running at the princely sum of 175cfs. Lots of folks out fishing today. Many thanks to those who kindly shared water.
There was a 15-minute window of consistent sunshine in the early afternoon — enough to get a few bugs going — and that’s when I had my only touch of the day. I often tell people that I’ll always sign up for one fish in the winter, and when it’s a tank of a high-teens brown, all the better.
The winning fly, a Frenchie variant, on the day-saving fish.
currentseams.com 
Hot damn and Halelulia!
From your biggest landlubber fans
I’ll drink to that. 🙂
First fish of the day is the hardest. Nice going!
I got stubborn, Pete. I knew there were fish in the pool, and I told myself I wasn’t leaving till I got one. 🙂
Do you typically use bead heads on your drop shot nymph set up?
Hi Paul,
I’m a big fan of bead head nymphs. The bottom fly in my setup is almost always some kind of bead head nymph. Conversely, the top dropper is almost always not a bead head; rather, it is a soft-hackled fly in natural colors. Since droppers are the fastest way to find out what the fish want, I usually will give the trout a choice of colors and sizes between the two flies. Hope that helps!
I fished a small stream and shared the same results. It seemed as if the fish just stayed on the bottom and refused to eat.
I read the first five words and was hoping you’d say it was entirely different. I assume that somewhere the fish were biting. 🙂
Glad you got out, old friend. I was thinking about stopping at a small stream on the way home, but the time-space continuum conspired against me. I’ll shoot for 2017.
Almost never a bad move to have Frenchies as your anchor fly.
Or in this case, point fly. With a standard issue brass bead and no heavy wire, this fly has precious little weight. It’s the BB shot that anchors the rig.
A couple weeks ago my first six fish came on the top dropper. 🙂