12-21-25 Searching Big Rivers

This winter has been one for the books, so much snow and ice on the water has substituted fishing trips with ski trips! That being said, a few warm days in December allowed us to hook up the drift boat and do a float on some big water. This stretch of water has never produced many fish in numbers, but when we do connect, it’s usually a pretty solid fish.

We had a little bit of snow on the ground that was all melted off with a recent rain. That was followed by 2 days with air temperatures in the 40s. My plan was to fish a sinking line with a sizeable streamer to agitate a territorial brown trout. I used a dungeon that I tied with oversized eyes for weight to get it down. My plan was to slowly work the streamer right off the bottom of the river and mix in some erratic motion. I was fishing with my friend Jim who tried out a faster retrieve and we would see what the fish preferred, if anything at all.

I rowed for the first hour of the trip in what seemed to be some excellent looking water. I want to revisit some of these areas in the spring because I was shocked we didn’t even move a fish. I’ve only fished this stretch of water one other time and didn’t recall all of the structure and great trout habitat in the beginning. The flows were a bit lower this time around, which made reading the water a bit easier.

Jim and I switched and we got to a really slow stretch, looked like a lot of frog water, but perfect for a lazy brown trout. I started working the water, focused on trying to get my fly down low and slowly work it back to the boat. I wasn’t expecting any crazy chases with all of the snow melt we had after the recent rain. I continued to tick and jig that dungeon near the bottom when I finally felt a little tension, I pinched the line under my finger and gave it a solid strip set but didn’t feel like I got a good hook set, so I stripped again and set with the rod. In this large water, there are so many different species of fish, so I wasn’t really sure what I had hooked. Even in this cold water, the fish did a great job of bulldogging me to the bottom. I was using a 2’ piece of 25lb flouro as my leader, so I put some heat on it and brought the fish up. A nice brown trout took the streamer and I was able to get him in the net.

My trip was made so I happily got back into the captain’s chair and started rowing, hoping Jim could get an opportunity before we got back to the boat ramp. We worked a lot of good areas, even anchored up on a large pool that had a big tail out we both expected to have a fish hiding in. A whole lot of casting, but not much else was happening on the river, which is what we expected. It doesn’t really phase us, as we both enjoy throwing streamers in the winter in hopes of that one fish, which we were lucky enough to already run into.

A lot of this type of exploring big water has to do with being in the right place at the right time. Jim decided to rest his arm and shoulder from casting and got back on the oars. I went back with the same dungeon and continued my slow retrieve style. I should have played the lottery that day, as luck would have it, another fish took the streamer and ran down in front of the boat. I felt like I had a pretty good hook set, but could tell the fish was wrapped in the line. I kept tension and got the fish to the surface and Jim started forward rowing to get to the fish as I picked up the slack by raising my arm. We were able to quickly get the fish in the net, another brown. This one had way less colors, but you could tell he had been through some spawning battles.

As we rowed our way back to the boat ramp, it seemed like the perfect time to light up cigars and celebrate the day we just had!