I don’t know about you, but we’re always a bit relieved around my place move on to the January side of the holidays.  The hustle and bustle of the season is fun, it’s great to be with family and friends, but I relish the quiet of the post holiday week when kids are back in school and the mad rush about town (yes, even here in Bozeman - well, sort of…) has begun to settle.  It’s time to get serious about tying some flies and thinking about the spring hatches - hey, March isn’t that far away, and the days are already a tad longer in the evening.  It’s also time to get out and enjoy some fine fishing. 

We fish year round, not nearly as much in the winter as we’re often captives of the weather up here, but there’s always some fishing to do.  For years living down south in Salt Lake my buddies and I would hang up our gear in October and sadly some years not be back out on the water until late March or April.  We had no idea back then what we were missing.

No doubt some folks still think fly fishing in the midst of winter is a for fools only, and maybe it is - but there are lots of great reasons to get out and fish, and even to consider a trip to do so if you must. 

Why fly fish on great waters in the winter?  One obvious reason is that some of the great tailwaters in our neighborhood still offer amazing fishing during the winter / early spring - think the Madison (several “tailwaters” to choose from), the Bighorn, and the Missouri.  We’ve traveled down to winter fish the Green below Flaming Gorge, the Snake in Jackson hole, and the Boise in Idaho.  You might want to go ‘just because it’s there’. 

Other reasons we’ve in the past offered to explain our winter fly fishing madness - it helps treat a case of the shack / office nasties when you’ve been inside too long and simply need to get out.  The rivers in winter can be (and almost always are) starkly beautiful, quiet, and peaceful.  It’s possible to have solitude on some of the great (and very busy) western waters if you play your cards right - solitude on the river might be a bit over-rated, but there are few things like being alone out on one of these great fisheries some sunny afternoon.  Getting out in winter, getting cold and wet, and stumbling on cold feet (even the best of insulation will get cold after a while) makes spring, summer, and fall fishing seem like a cakewalk - you’ll appreciate next spring like you never have before. 

We’re going to post some tips, suggestions, and winter tricks over the next week or so to hopefully encourage you to get out and have some fun, or plan a late winter season trip for this year or next.  Tomorrow we’ll look in more detail at some of the prize winter fisheries in the neighborhood.

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