Indicator Nymphing During Winter on a Connecticut Blue Line (Fly Fishing for Wild Trout) 

Well, only a couple spots in this stream even exceed 3ft, but the natural resistance of the flies against the water will mean that they typically ride up and run shallower in the water column than the actual tippet length. Only in nearly stagnant water (or isolated eddies) will the rig ever really straighten out beneath the indi. So when determining what depth to run a rig, it’s important to consider the resistance of your rig and the water speed, in addition to the apparent depth of the water, adding length beneath your indi to compensate and ensure your flies get down deep enough. Although it tends to get cut out of videos often, I’m constantly adjusting the indicator to dial in depth, sometimes at every spot or even multiple times at a spot. And it’s not uncommon that an adjustment of even just an extra 6” of tippet beneath the indi will yield fish where previous drifts at just a slightly shallower depth turned up nothing. Airlock indicators help by making it very fast and easy to make those sorts of depth adjustments, though there are other indie that are easy to adjust too. Snags are almost an inevitability sometimes, especially in winter when it’s so crucial to get within a few inches of the bottom. As long as there isn’t lots of timber to get hung on, you can usually give the rig a light tug and it’ll pull free. But flies will be lost sometimes; it is what it is. One strategy to avoid losing an entire 3 fly rig if you do get hung up is to tie each fly with successively lighter tippet: 3x to the first fly, 4x to the second, 5x to the point fly. That way you’re more assured of keeping a few flies even if you have to break off a snagged point fly, for example.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. Your videos are always both entertaining and instructional. All the best.

As far as brand, basic is fine. I've used Cabela's and Frogg Toggs. And I ALWAYS buy boot-foot neoprenes, at least one shoe size up, to ensure that I'm getting an air gap around my feet when I'm wading in cold weather. I can throw my neoprenes on with the same ordinary socks I'd wear on a non-fishing day and go wading for hours in mid-30s water and that air gap around my feet keeps them from ever getting prohibitively cold. The overall fit of neoprene is unflattering, clunky and somewhat restrictive compared to using breathables. And for lots of folks, those are deal-breakers, and that's fine. Stocking-foot breathables are perfectly serviceable in winter as long one invests time and attention each time they go out into making sure that they have breathable/insulative socks and that they're wearing proper base layers. For me, the convenience of being able to ignore all those considerations, arrive at the stream with around-the-house clothes on my back and be perfectly comfortable in my boot-foot neoprenes is entirely worthwhile. I will add that if you do go the boot-foot neoprene route, get felt soles or ensure that the lug soles you get are compatible with studs. You DO NOT want to be slipping around on rubber soles out there. At best, slippery rubber will slow you down quite a bit. At worst, it'll greatly increase your chances of falling. I virtually always run floating lines on my 3wts. There just aren't many small-stream scenarios in which a sinking line would offer much extra benefit, and a sinking line comes with the major disadvantage of being unsuitable for fishing dries, dry-droppers or indicator nymphing. If a situation comes along that requires getting down fast, I just use split-shot to sink the leader.

@@ConnecticutAnglerterrible wader advice. dont listen to this guy. there’s a reason fly fishing waders are almost never neoprene

Back when my channel had only a few dozen viewers, I didn’t worry about naming streams. But with a much broader reach these days of a few thousand subscribers and lots of unsubscribed viewers (even though I haven’t posted hardly at all lately), I think it would be sort of irresponsible on my part. These small streams are delicate fisheries. They can only sustainably handle so much foot traffic before it begins to take a toll. I’ve caught wild trout on nearly 100 small streams in Connecticut now, and there’s probably AT LEAST 100 to go if not more, so there’s no need for folks to converge on the small subset of them seen in my videos. But I fear that might just happen if I was dropping the names of each one.