Winter trout fishing is a time where your gear is tested and any weak points in your quiver are quickly identified. Having gear you can rely on all the time is important but especially during the Winter months, as more resources, time and effort often go into these outings. These are the top five Cortland products we recommend for making your time on the water more efficient and successful during the Winter months.
1. Tippet Rings
Anyone planning a winter trout trip should not wait until they are faced with harsh temperatures and standing upon icy banks to decide it is time to tie a three fly nymph rig. Instead, rigging preparation should be done ahead of time to save time and feeling in your fingers. However, there are factors in fishing that we only have so much control over. Getting snagged, tangled, broken off etc. happens to everyone. Tippet Rings make rigging very convenient by allowing you to tie multiple pieces of tippet or leader material to one ring and ultimately having more control of your nymph tag lengths and the rest of your rig. If one of your tags gets too short from changing flies, no problem, clip the tag off the ring and tie a new piece of tippet on, done. No need to retie a blood or triple surgeons knot when you can barely feel your hands.
2. Ultra Premium Fluorocarbon Tippet
This one may seem obvious to some but is important to note regardless. Winter trout lies tend to be slow, deep holes where the trout have more time to examine your fly before they decide to pass or eat it. This often results in anglers having to downsize tippet for a stealthier, more natural drift. Having a quality tippet material such as Ultra Premium Fluorocarbon Tippet where you can confidently downsize without risk of breaking fish off is necessary when Winter Trout Fishing. Spending all the time and resources to put together an outing in the Winter can easily be dampened by poor tippet choice. Ultra Premium offers the perfect blend of suppleness, strength and abrasion resistance, keeping your confidence high and your drifts natural.
3. Extended Tapered Fly Line
4. Sinking Streamer Line
When opting to fish streamers in the winter, the best option for getting down, staying down and being able to fish your streamer low and slow is going to be a sink tip or sinking head fly line. Cortlands Streamer Series offers a variety of different sinking densities as well as lengths in the form of tips or heads. It's important to choose a line that gets your fly close to the lower part of the water column but does not constantly get hung up on bottom or structure close to bottom. If we had to pick one universal line out of this series for all river types, it would be the Streamer Sink Tip 15. It has the perfect balance of sink tip length (15 ft.) and sinking density (6 inches per second) that will put your fly where it needs to be in most rivers without getting constantly snagged up.
5. Euro Nymph Braid Core
The Euro Nymph Braid Core is the best choice for tight line nymphing in the Winter. The Braid Core design ensures that this line stays memory free and stretch free, making it easier for anglers to pick up on those subtle winter strikes and complete successful hook sets.
