Temps steady in the mid 30s. Breezes steady out of the SW in the mid 20s with gusts into the low 30s.

Would normally use a 7 wt in these conditions, especially when fishing weighted stonefly nymphs. That's part of this challenge. To fish conditions I would normally fish with my different graphite rods with just the one rod.

One of the other compromises was to downsize the stonefly from a size 6 4X long to a size 8 4X long. And add a bit less weight. Since the salmonfly nymphs are in the system for three years before hatching, there is always a good variety of sizes available to the fish, so scaling down a bit shouldn't be a major compromise. Fishing a single nymph rather than the tandem I consistently use with the bigger, faster rod is more significant.

Kind of a pretty day despite the reported weather conditions. The spot I chose to fish today is sheltered by a woods which blocks the SW winds, to some extent.



With the recent cold spell, I was wondering if there would be slush ice in the river. Nope. A fair amount of shelf ice has broken free and is floating along, but otherwise the river is running clear and ice free. The shelf ice comes in pieces the size of a dinner plate up to the size of a dinner table.



Wouldn't be wise to get too close to the edge of the shelf without waders, and even then there are plenty of places where it is a very big step down to the streambed right off the shelf.

Today it was a two to one ratio on the whitefish to trout - two whitefish and one trout - in a couple hours on the water.



Fished a pretty long stretch, and caught all three fish in one small section, fairly quickly. Did get in a lot of casting exercise. Hard to call it practice in the prevailing conditions. The wind surely didn't get up into the 30s where I was, but a fair part of the time there was enough breeze to affect casting.

Good chances the conditions will be more favorable tomorrow. Got a recommendation on some water I haven't fished, but it is definitely exposed to the SW winds so I'll need to pick my day carefully. The fellow I talked to seemed to think there would be a better chance of finding some trout in this particular stretch - smaller browns mostly. Hope to find out soon.

John