January Fishing – The Big Wood

The Big Wood is fishing better as we move into February. There are more surface feeding fish on certain days. I like using 6x and small midge patterns in different stages. My favorite is the trailing shuck midge. This pattern works on the surface, but will also take fish sinking a little. I always start by trying to fish it as a dry by applying lots of dry fly powder to keep it floating. Try to get in close to the feeding fish and work one length of line to be consistent. You can also trail the midge off of a bigger pattern such as a Parachute Adams. I also like trailing Zebra Midges; brassies both bead head and non-bead head, and other small nymphs off of a Parachute Adams size 14 or 16. Sometimes big Stonefly nymphs, Hare’s ear nymphs and other standard nymphs in bigger sizes work very well. I’ll usually use indicators to fish these flies. Streamer fishing can be very effective this time of year and my favorites are sculpin and leech patterns fished very slowly down the runs. Mix it up and try fishing a streamer upstream and back towards you. I also dead drift Wooly Buggers in the winter and spring and have very good results.