Stone COLD!

February was cccccold on the Alley, but here and there we found some open water to get it done.   The bite was a little sluggish at times, but precise offerings kept plenty of fish coming to hand.  And, don't give up on swinging flies in cold water.

As much as switch rods and spey rods are all the rage these days, remember, you can swing from the top of any run without all of that.  I love my switch rod, but many of the runs here on Steelhead Alley don't require any fancy casting to swing a small streamer through a run with big results.  I was reminded of this on a small creek one morning this month after a few hours of rain.  Where I entered the creek there is a run that always holds fish when there is reasonable flow and some stain.  The flow was up a moderate amount, but nothing that required a sink tip.  I stood at the top of the run and swung a white woolly bugger through the run 5 times and landed 2 fish.  Not a bad way to start the morning.

The last bit of good news as February winds down is that the Winter stonefly activity is really ramping-up.  When I was out 2 days ago there were black tiny Winter stoneflies all over the snow on the river banks.  There was quite a bit of the larger brown stonefly activity noticeable on top of the slack water as well.  Don't forget the stonefly patterns in February and March here on the Alley.  The fish that have been in the systems all Winter long are munching on them and it's a great way to entice a hit, especially with fish that have been casted to by many other fisherman.

It's raining hard as I type.  The Spring steelhead numbers will begin to rapidly increase with every rain from here on.  If you want to get out call me ASAP, the Spring schedule is filling fast.  LET'S GO FISHIN'!