Days and days of torrential rains have fly fisherman parked in front of their vices instead of knee deep in their favorite holes. When your favorite river resembles the Nile it’s time to dredge the bottom and break out the weight and nymph the Big, Brown and Uglies.

For starters, leave the 2-weight and 7x tippet at home. A 5-weight rod is perfect and some experts even fish a 4 comfortably with heavy weighted leaders and flys. Obviously you want to have a natural presentation at the maximum depth with a big fly that gets the trout’s attention. Leaders should be of normal length (7-9 ft.) but slightly heavier that usual. Good fly patterns to use are bead head hares ears, flash back hares ears, bead head prince nymphs and big brown stonefly imitations. The bead heads will get down the deepest while adding some additional flash. Tungsten beads are now being used and sink even faster. Add a bit of Mylar or crystal flash to your favorite offering and garner even more attention. That fly has to pass by pretty close to the trout for it to strike.

Eliminate water that you would normally consider productive. Skip the shallow fast riffles where low water trout would normally be and concentrate your efforts around back currents and eddies associated with slower pools. Fish the areas behind large boulders thoroughly. These high water feeding areas allow a trout to spend as little energy as possible.

Fly tied by Andy B.

After you cast upstream, be sure to mend plenty of fly line to allow the bug to sink. Drift it all the way down stream and don’t be surprised if you get a strike at the end of the drift. Trout won’t have time to strike right away because of the heavy current and will chase it down. If it were a natural, they would simply return to their feeding area in search of the next victim.

All the trout caught recently have been really fat and healthy. The rain prevented anglers from taking a lot of fish from the last two stockings of the year. They have been eating at will in the high water. On the other hand all the sediment being washed into the river has covered the bottom and prevented a lot of insect activity. Trout in this instance prefer a larger meal.

Temperatures are rising and we hope that the water is receding, but if the rains persist, go deep with big brown and ugly nymphs for trout with a lot of pent up energy. Fly fisherman aren’t the only ones being confined to close quarters these days.

Article by, Chris Lido

Chris is the current flyfishing and freshwater editor for the Asbury Park Press.

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