Viking Lars | Saturday, 26 October 2024
When nymph fishing for trout and grayling outside the dry fly season, even in it, I have three patterns that I rely heavily on (and a few more - just for good measure). All three represent staple food sources that trout and grayling feed on year round and in just a few different sizes these are enough.
Hans van Klinken’s Lead Head Caddis (one of Paul’s favourite patterns), a simple gammarus imitation and a Green Flash Back Nymph. The Lead Head Caddis imitates case building caddis larvae that I know from experience that grayling and trout feed heavily on through the winter. So much that I have on a few occasions caught grayling, where you could clearly feel the small pieces of gravel in their belly as you released them. It’s a good imitation and it gets down deep - fast. I remember one particular stretch of river where we caught a lot of winter grayling (before the cormorant nearly obliterated them). There was a section that had a sandy bank sloping into the river. Casting one of these downstream, close to the bank and slowly feeding line, so the fly nearly rolled down, was extremely effective. Van Klinken originally tied it with a lead head (surprise), but lead has become illegal to use in Denmark years ago, so I use a tungsten bead instead.
The Green Flash Back Nymph was intended to be an imitation of a Rhyacophila caddis larvae. It’s an extremely efficient fly in medium to small sizes and because of the bright green colour and flashy back it does well even when the water is a bit coloured.
Especially in the spring as the water warms up just a little, the small gammarus is my first choice. Gammarus are prolific in nearly all streams and I wouldn’t be surprised if they make up the majority of trout’s and grayling’s food through the cold months.
Winter nymphing is very dependant on the weather. Floods and high-water and the resulting unclear water are common and timing needs to be right. I’m a weekend fly fisher and hitting one of those weekends with good conditions, maybe just a little warmth in the air, no family obligations and petrol on the car requires some luck.
It’s spawning time for trout soon and you should of course stay well clear of the shallow, gravelly runs they prefer to spawn on. It just so happens that grayling like slower and deeper water in the winter, so that’s not a problem.
I’ll have to see if I still have that old Jim Teeny 150 grain MiniTip line that I used to use. It was perfect for rolling the Lead Heads down the banks. Otherwise I have that half DT with interchangeable tips I was working on. It’s too heavy, but it works really well (I’ll report more on that later). I bought 30’ lengths of the grain tips, so I could probably customise some for a 4- or 5-wt.
I haveen’t winter fished for grayling and trout for some years. There was one stretch of a river, a good hour’s drive from where I live, that was open through the winter and I don’t even know if that’s the case anymore.