It’s the middle of winter but the days are noticeably longer. I’m actually able to put in some time on the nearby trails after work, snowshoeing for an hour before it gets dark. More daylight feels good.

Here are some summertime pictures of rainbow trout. All were caught sight fishing with dry flies: mayflies and small terrestrial. The two rivers I frequently fished don’t have high concentrations of trout so you have to walk a lot and search when the light conditions are right. The key to success is commitment to the angling style, intense concentration and observation, patience, and once a large fish is spotted, being sneaky. Fishing this way brings you closer to trout. You get to watch their behavior and sometimes even see them think.

I remember a day in August when I crawled up behind a large rainbow that was feeding opportunistically six feet from shore in very shallow water. I decided to plop my fly down between it and the bank. It responded to the vibration, slid over, looked at my offering up close, real close, then slowly turned away, circled tightly and returned to look at my fly again. Then it suspended itself right in front of it for several seconds, slowly tipped its nose up and ate.