The Winter trout addiction is sort of a voluntary beat down. The feet freeze and the fingers go numb until the line goes tight but the river is void of other fishermen and the trout are active. Winter trout were calling and Phil and I answered the call. Broken Bow, Oklahoma was just 3.5 hours away. We fished 1.5 days. The first .5 was more of a scouting mission and a reintroduction to a river I used to fish rather regularly. It was good to see trout again and even better to see them rising to dries. Well after the sun went down and we had both landed a few trout we called it quits and set up camp.The morning came quickly and we woke to frozen boots and waders and a herd of deer that didn't like our camp intruding on their forest. As soon as the ice was broken from the boots and waders, and we were able to get our feet in them ,we hit the water. Started the day throwing wooly buggers and swinging them through the tailouts. This was deadly. The fish couldn't stand the swing and I would have continued to fish this way but I lost my only two boogers. One to a super sloppy backcast, the other to a nice fish that headed downstream much faster then I could. I was then forced to remember how to nymph. After casting to the same fish for 15 minutes, and probably as many fly changes, the fish ate a size18 pheasant tail. This produced a few more fish before we high tailed it to zone two.
We arrived at zone two to the slow water and fish rising, dimpling the water. I had talked to other fly fishermen that were just leaving zone two and they mentioned swinging soft hackles. To keep with the theme of the trip I tried this and gained confidence in the technique when my first 5 casts were met with trout. This continued until the sun started to set and the fear of not being able to see where I was wading set in. It was a long drive home but a very successful trip. Thank you fellow fly fishers for the technique.
