Snowshoeing For Trout (Or, Never Take Phone Calls In the Winter)

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

When life gives you several feet of snow, you employ the same principle; you make a snowshoe trip to some of your favorite trout water.

I don’t know if Edmondson was fishing or praying for trout. Votes?

With cabin fever setting in all over the area, finding a pair of accomplices was easy. I called Edmondson, he picked up the phone, and I said “You up for doing something supremely stupid?”

“Absolutely” he said.

Wayne Eng fell for pretty much same line, which suggests an advanced case of snowstorm fever.

Thus, we found ourselves parked at a snow berm, shouldering packs and strapping on showshoes for the one-mile walk into our target pool.

At first, the going was easy; a snowmobile had compacted a trail in the snow, and the walking was steeply downhill. Later, we left the snowmobile track and started plowing through drifts a couple feet deep, which elevated the trip from fly fishing trip to aerobic fly fishing trip.

(I discovered the real distinction between the two the next morning.)

Though trout are waiting for us down there, first, a picture.

Naturally, our first spot didn’t produce anything — fish, rising fish or even bugs. After mucking around, we packed up yet again and headed to another spot.

There, we found a few trout lazily sipping BWOs — slow, maddening rises to a very sparse hatch.

I got one to eat a Sully tied emerger, and the fish turned out to be exactly one inch longer than Dave Edmondson’s landing net (I’m guessing 15″-16″).

The standard Underground Trout portrait.

We took turns fishing our one run, and Wayne hooked one that flashed some extraordinary color before coming loose, and Dave Edmondson had two takes, but never got a hook in either.

Frankly, the trout was a bonus; fishing a river where you’re dodging the ice chunks floating by — a snow-silenced river that hasn’t seen a single footprint in at least several days — is pretty cool shit all by itself.

As if fly fishers didn’t already carry enough gear.

And basically, I lied in the above paragraph. Catching the trout was cool — and a lot more fun than the hourlong hump up the hill in snowshoes.

Trout function in water that’s only a few BTUs above ice cube-hood, an amazing reality in itself, and they’re damned picky when the river’s that low and clear.

Catching them in winter is far from a certainty, and if the reward wasn’t in the trying, there’d be a lot fewer fly fishermen.

The walk out was a bit of grind, though not enough of one to stop me from planning a similar trip — to another snowed-in part of the river — in the near future.

Snow started falling again on our walk out, which wasn’t easy, but it was stunning.

Fly fishing in winter is a bigger logistical challenge than summer; you’re often carrying fewer flies, but a lot more gear designed to keep you warm in some truly inhospitable conditions.

Getting around in deep snow fires up the metabolism, but the last thing you want is to overheat and start sweating profusely. The second you stop — presumably stepping into a river of heat-sucking water — your body temperature plummets.

Thus, you have to carry enough clothing to balance the two activities, which probably means a daypack, and maybe a 3-5 piece travel rod.

Naturally, there’s more winter fishing to come. And just as naturally, you’ll hear about it here.

See you on snowshoes, Tom Chandler.

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