i have the urge to go fishing so bad!!!!

[whitewaterflyguy]

the past couple weeks ive been reading books,watching videos and tying flies now i really want to go fishing does anyone know when i can go fish in the clinton river(south east michigan) i have a 8.5 ft 5wt rod so steelhead is def. out

[ausablebrown]

I don't really know anything about the river you are talking about, but as far as I'm concerned:

If you can walk out onto the river and fall through the ice, you can fly fish!!!

Are you new to Fly-Fishing altogether?

[whitewaterflyguy]

i started last summer ive fished the manistee mainly and some lakes around me but yeah im relatively new to fly fishing

[ausablebrown]

I'm no expert on winter trout fishing myself, but I have gone plenty of times. Either I'm over-simplifying it or it is really this tedious, but here is how I do it:

Put a couple of nymphs on and fish every linear inch of a hole with them. Or if you see some fish, run the nymph right up under its nose, stop it mid current, do some somersaults with it, and a few jumping jacks to get the trouts attention and maybe he will open his mouth wide enough to eat it.

The only thing that I do every time is make sure one of my nymphs is black stone, there is the winter black stone activity in the east but I havn't witnessed too much of it. I catch alot of winter trout on the black nymph.

[ChrisinselwynNZ]

somthing to remember for winter fishing wether it is wets or nymphs, they need to be on the bottom not close. the fish when they are cold will not rise in to faster colder water to take anything

so if you are not catching the bottem a few times then you are not fishing deep enough.

True story
years ago when they changed the course of the tongariro in the North island of NZ, after waiting for the anglers to finnish they diverted the river and the rangers had 600 fish too move in to the new course, NOBODY HAD CAUGHT ANYTHING THAT ENTIRE DAY. the moral just because there is little action dosnt mean there is no fish maybe a diffrent tactic is required.

Best of luck for your outing in the cold

And they will hold in diffrent water in winter, because they are more concerened with energy conservation than feeding unless it warms up enough

Chris

[littledavid123]

Originally Posted by ausablebrown

I don't really know anything about the river you are talking about, but as far as I'm concerned:

If you can walk out onto the river and fall through the ice, you can fly fish!!!

Are you new to Fly-Fishing altogether?

LMAO...Thanks ausablebrown, now I have to clean the tea off the screen!!

Dave

[ausablebrown]

Glad I could be of service....You should know better by know. There are far too many smart*** comedians on this forum, I never read with a full mouth!