Hi everyone
I have just registered here and I’m very impressed by this forum…
Anyway, I had a question and I wanted to get folks opinion on this. I live in the Northern New York (far, far away from the big city) where water temps have been low. In fact, yesterday was the first time I saw a temp above 50. I fished yesteday around mid-morning and while I was on the stream, a modest hatch of small BWOs were coming off. No rises at all, probably because the water is still pretty cool, but the stream was also running bank-full and kind of chocolate colored. I used a #18 BWO sparkle nymph on point and a #18 BWO emerger above it…with no luck at all. My question is, does anyone think it’s worth fishing such small flies in high, discolored, cold water? I felt like it would have been impossible for a fish to notice sich small flies unless I drifted them right over its nose.
Thanks for any advice!
Conditions like you describe may be an occasion to “scratch the hatch”.
When the water is high and muddy I typically don’t search with dry flies EVEN during a hatch unless I SEE rises. You’d be better off fishing slower eddies and holding spots with the usual suspects; streamers, larger wets and nymphs, ALTHOUGH size isn’t as critical as depth IMHO since I have taken fish in muddy water with dinky flies.