In last week’s column I wrote about the coming polar vortex and what I did to prepare for it. Well it arrived as predicted and I spent four days out of five fishing in it. It kept its promise of frigid temperatures and we even had a new record low. To me, the toughest conditions occurred last Monday.
The prediction was for a high temperature of thirty one degrees, overcast sky and fifteen to twenty five mile per hour (mph) winds with gusts over thirty mph (this resulted in lake wind advisories). The temperatures were to be low but with overcast skies there would be no sun and subsequently no solar gain. The real problem was the wind. This would send the wind chill down into the lower teens.
When I arrived at the lodge at 7:30 AM, it was twenty degrees, there was no sun and the wind was howling. There was a thin coat of ice and snow on my boat from the sleet and snow we had received the night before. I met my clients and discussed the day. They were in good shape and preferred to wade. That made a lot of sense to me. I thought that we would be warmer if we waded. The water was almost forty degrees warmer than the air. If we wanted to warm up, we could simply wade deeper. In a boat there, is no place to hide.
By wading, we could avoid the effects of the heavy wind on the boat. The water was pretty low as the Corps of Engineers had run little water over the weekend. These conditions made for treacherous drifting and I much preferred to wade. There were ten guides working that day on this corporate group and I was the only one that chose to wade.
We drove up to Norfork Dam and noted that the generation had ceased and the water was dropping fast. The parking lot was empty and we were the only anglers there. Nothing thins the herd like sub freezing temperatures. I had rigged a couple of rods the night before and I gave one to Pete and got him started. Martin was left handed and it took me a few minutes to change reel spools and convert the reel to right hand retrieve. We caught a few fish and broke off a big brown but it was time to move on.
About 11:00 AM we loaded into my Suburban and drove down to the Ackerman Access. Once again the parking lot was empty and we had the place to ourselves. We packed some sandwiches and water and headed upstream into the Catch and Release Section. I had them fishing two fly nymph rigs with a ruby midge below an egg pattern. We caught a few fish and tried soft hackles and woolly buggers. Here again we caught a few fish.
I took them further upstream and went back to the two nymph rig. We landed a nice rainbow and I decided to pump its stomach to see what it was eating. To my surprise the trout had been keying in on tan scuds. I pulled out a fly box and matched the scuds as carefully as I could based on size, shape and color. I removed the ruby midge dropper and replaced it with a size fourteen tan humpback scud. We were into fish immediately and took four fish on the first five casts. We fished until dark and did well.
When we got back to the lodge, we learned that we were the last ones in and we had outfished all of the other groups. Some groups had only lasted until lunch and others lasted until 3:00 PM. My guys had a great time and for them the weather was not an issue.
Wade fishing on a brutally cold day is counter intuitive but can be quite rewarding.
John Berry is a fly fishing guide for Blue Ribbon Guides in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over thirty years.
No comments:
Post a Comment