Rivers up and down the state are mostly ice free due to several days of warm weather, with three day of 65+ last weekend. This caused ice dam warning on known areas of frequency, and a ton of snow melt. Watersheds were at bank full level and dirty.
Since then we have had much cooler temps and no precipitation leaving small and midsized streams a chance to drop and clear a little.
The heavy flow will surely trigger steelhead and rainbows to start making their spawning run. Now through April anglers have the opportunity to target these species as they make their way out of lakes and large rivers into smaller tribes.
This time of year aquatic activity is limited and slow moving. Small stone fly, and bright egg patterns as well as streamers are the flies of choice. These should all be dead drifted or very slowly retrieved. As the season moves along suckers start to spawn, so having sucker spawn patterns. Once steelhead have spawned they drop back to the lake they came. During this time swinging streamers is very effective .
Above is my steelhead box. I’ll be getting after them later this week. If you would like to get out after them we have guide chomping at the bit to get the season started.