Popper Hopper

The popper hopper is one of our most successful fly patterns. Designed for reservoirs where the wind whips up a ripple, the bright yellow foam post is visible in even the filthiest conditions. The foam post also keeps the fly afloat on even the most choppy days. The popper hopper is deadly when heather flies, hawthorns or daddies are on the water. It is also a fantastic searching pattern.The popper hopper can be fished either by letting the fly drift in the ripple or by pulling it over the surface where it will pop and gurgle and create a ripple to attract the trout. The popper hopper also make an ideal indicator fly, tie a foot of leader on to the bend of the hook and hang a small buzzer or nymph underneath. 

Eathafoam Fry

Trout are predators, a fact that sometimes escapes the fly angler. Provided they are hungry and conditions are ok, trout will happily feed on small fish. At certain times of year this is more likely than others, particularly through late Summer & Autumn. Whilst you can use traditional fry patterns such as zonkers and lures. Imitating a distressed or injured fish on the surface can provoke an almighty take! Cast your floating fry out on a sinking line and strip back. Sometimes you can strip very quickly and they will chase, other times a gentle twitch produces more takes. Experiment with your retrieves and find which works best. Work your fly close to features such as reeds or structure where small fry are likely to be sheltereing.

Humi Snake Booby

This fly is a seriously deadly cold weather trout fly. It is tied with a stinger hook at the rear of the fly meaning you will hook anything that nips at the tail. For cold weather, fish on a heavy sinking line with a short leader no more than a foot in length. Retrieve very slowly so the fly pops up off the bottom allowing any lethargic early season fish to grab it as it swims passed. This fly can also be fished on a floating line where it will pop across the surface acting like an injured fish. 

Blob & Spider Combo

An unusual way of fly fishing that can be very effective, especially when the fish are being fussy feeders. Tie a short length of leader of around 10 inches to the bend of the hook of the blob and attach your black and peacock spider. Either draft in the ripple or pull through the surface film. The orange blob acts as an attractor and draws the fish in. The trout then see the small spider which they take as a natural. I have had some great success using this method when there are lots of midges hatching as a way to make your fly stand out from the hundreds of thousands of naturals in the water.

Black Adult Buzzer

When the midges are hatching and the fish are sipping on the emerging midges this fly makes an excellent pattern. The adult black buzzer will sit in the surface film and then slowly sink. It can be slowly twitched and pulled or on breezy days allowed to drift in the ripple. The reason I like this fly is it offers the fish a fly in, or just under the surface film where they often take the emerging midge. With this pattern you can pull the fly to give movement which is difficult with more traditional emerging patterns such as cdc shuttlecocks 

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Here’s my best trout flies for March and some of the most common hatches starting with the Large Dark Olive.

The Large Dark Olive will start to trickle off the river in March especially if we get a little decent weather. It’s an essential fly to have for March in both nymph and a dry fly.

Imitations of the large dark olive: 

Article notes:
Applies to fly fishing in rain-fed rivers in the UK.

Introduction

River trout anglers rejoice that February is a short month. Once March arrives it means only a few weeks until the river trout season is open for most of the country (unless you are lucky enough to be fishing in Wales and get an earlier start date).

It can feel like a long wait since October and as the season gets nearer, anglers will be itching to get out on to the rivers. All that excitement, enthusiasm and preparation can often result in disappointment as early season trout are notoriously reluctant to cooperate.

There is an old saying;

“It’s not worth casting a fly until there are leaves on the trees”

There are certainly no leaves on the trees on March 18th when my local rivers are open for business!

If you are new to early season fly fishing for trout or find yourself blanking every year, have a read through some of the information below, it might just get you an opening day fish!

Things To Consider

Water temperature.

Water temperature is probably the biggest factor that affects fly fishing for trout early season. Statistically, we are more likely to have snow at easter than christmas. Late march more often feels like winter than it does spring!

Put simply, the lower the water temperature, the less active the trout will be. The less active the trout are, the less they need to feed and consequently less likely to take your fly.

When trout are not feeding they are normally flush on the bed of the river behind a stone or maybe in a depression in the rock bed. They are very unlikely to rise to your dry fly or sprint after your swinging wet, you need to get your fly down deep and put it on the fishes nose.

7 degrees Celsius is a popular figure amongst anglers. Below that the fish are likely to be slower, holed up near the bottom and feeding less. As the temperature gets past 7c then the trout should become a little more active. When we hit 12c then things should start to kick off properly.

So in summary, in cold water, you need to have a deep fly that gets right in the fishes face. See techniques and tactics below.

Pick your time

In cold early season weather fish are far less likely to feed through the day and small windows of feeding are more likely.

The temperature is likely to peak around midday and on a good day, this may result in a small hatch of midges or large dark olives or some grannom caddis once we get to april.

The hatch of food and peak temperature may also stir up a few dormant fish and encourage them to feed.

So forget your early starts, stay in bed and have another cup of tea with your favourite fly fishing magazine.

Another point here is to pick your days. Avoid days when biting cold winds are ripping across the water – it often kills the fishing.

A stiller day with a bit of cloud cover is far more desirable. I have had some fantastic opening days even with a couple of feet of snow on the ground but the weather was steady and still.

If we get into a mild spell then things can be explosive. I remember one opening week when I experienced the biggest hatch of large dark olives I had ever seen. The river was boiling with fish so much that I felt them slamming into my waders as they tried to take the ascending nymphs!

Techniques & Tactics

Bearing the information above in mind, unless you have a rare hatch of flies that coincides with some feeding trout, you are unlikely to be flicking dries upstream. If you want to catch then more likely you will need to be upstream nymph fishing or czech nymphing.

If that’s not your cup of tea and you “only fish with dries” then either consider your outing to be casting practice or stay at home!

Doing well on a dry fly from the off is the exception rather than the norm on cold rain-fed rivers.

Czech Nymphing.

Use either a single czech nymph or a team of 3 depending on the depth of the river. With just a couple of feet of fly line out of the tip of the rod, cast the flies upstream and slightly across and let them trundle down the stream.

Always keep the rod tip slightly in front of where you line enters the water and watch the end of your fly line like a hawk as it travels downstream.

My two golden rules for czech nymphing are:

1. If you are not snagging the bottom every so often then you are not fishing deep enough. You MUST be getting your flies down to the stream bed, the fish are very unlikely to swim up and intercept them. So if you are not hitting bottom every 15 casts or so you need to add more weight. You can either tie on heavier flies or pinch a split shot 6 inches above your fly.

2. Strike at every stop, movement or pause in the end of the fly line. I use a hi-viz braided loop on the end of my fly line and I also grease this up with mucilin to help it to float high on the water. Any kind of stop or pause in this loop needs to result in a quick instant strike!

I spend lots of time teaching this method and see many people not striking because they assume it’s weed or a rock causing the line to stop. Assume everything is a fish and strike!

Upstream nymphing.

On shallower streams where normal nymphs will get to the stream bed then the upstream nymph method can be rewarding. Either a single or team of nymphs can be used depending on your casting ability. The key to upstream nymphing is to be able to pick the slack line of the water with your line hand and keep in touch with the fly without moving it. Avoid long snaking casts that will drag the fly and bring it up off the bottom. Far better to make tidy, short casts and keep everything uder control.

Just like czech nyphing, strike at every stop or pause at the end of the fly line. Use a hi-viz braided loop if required which you can grease up to help it float. Again, just like czech nymphing, your flies must be getting to the stream bed. If you are not hitting bottom once every 15 casts then you need a heavier nymph. There will come a point where the nymph becomes too heavy to cast which is where you switch to czech nymphing.

Early Season Hatches

Flies & Accessories For Early Season Fly Fishing

Czech Tan Bug – BUY NOW >>

Hydropsyche Larvae – BUY NOW >>

Tungsten PTN – BUY NOW >>

Olive Pupa Tungsten – BUY NOW >>

Mucilin Grease – BUY NOW >>

Hi Viz Loop Connectors – BUY NOW >>

In this episode David experiments with a brand new fly pattern and fishes a static fly to midge sipping rainbows. It’s a cold winters day fly fishing at Barlow Trout Fishery in North Derbyshire but the fish still seem to be feeding!

Check out the podcast here

These small still waters can provide some fantastic fishing over the winter months but you may need to change your approach to maximise success.

Fly choice – My own personal preference is to fish buzzers, midges, and bloodworm patterns through winter as this is about the only reliable hatch that continues through the cooler months. That said, any natural pattern such as pheasant tails, shrimps or caddis can be successful. In my opinion, the depth and speed of the fly are probably more important. In the sporadic hatches and rises that occur during winter, dries can be successful too, try matching the hatch – the chances are it will be midges.

Cold water and fish metabolism – As the water cools, the metabolism of the fish slows meaning it requires less food. Fish, therefore, become less active in searching or chasing food. This means that you may have to fish with a static or very slow moving fly – stripping lures will not pay dividends for fish that do not want to chase their supper!

Static flies and slow retrieves –

There are a few ways to present a static fly:

1. Use an indicator. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it does a very good job in cool conditions. Set the depth of your fly to where you suspect the fish are feeding and let the fly and indicator just drift with the ripple.

2. New Zealand style. This is where a large bushy dry is fished on the surface and a length of dropper is tied directly on to the shank of the hook with a small nymph or buzzer suspended underneath. Many fly anglers feel more comfortable using this method as fish can be taken on the dry as well as the nymph. Check out our klink & dink fly – it’s perfect for this kind of fishing.

3. Sinking line with booby and a short leader. Using this method, the heavy sinking line should sink to the lake bed. A short leader of around 12 inches is used with a single booby fly. The buoyant booby will pop up just above the lake bed and can be fished static or with a very slow retrieve. This is a deadly method if the fishe are hanging around the bottom of the lake in very cold conditions. Keep the line nice and tight to detect the take and strike quickly to avoid any deep hookups.

Enjoy your winter fishing and tight lines!

The best time to fish is normally when the river is just starting to fall and lose its colour but still has a good bit of colour to it, you may often hear these conditions referred to as “fining down”. In these conditions fish that have been holed up in the low clear conditions come out to feed with confidence. The colour in the water disguises both you and your casting and the fish often feed with confidence. Although you may get fish to take a dry in coloured water, upstream nymphs or wet flies often produce the best results.

If you fish chalk streams you may never face these conditions as the underground aquifers that supply the water act as giant buffers, delaying and filtering the water to an even temperature, flow and colour.