When the water and air temperature drop, fishing on small waters can become tough, see the previous post why on why the cool weather may effect your fishing. But there are a few little tricks to lure rainbows into taking, when the trout get cold feet…

1. Fish deep

More often than not when both the air and water temperature drops, the fish go deeper, presumably in search of warmer water – Anglers who tend to stick to a lure on a floating line may struggle in the early and later parts of the day, but that’s not saying one won’t catch… My preferred method is a fast intermediate or Di3, fish a lure at a steady pace, counting your line and fly down in intervals of 5 seconds on each cast. Continue until you get regular takes, once the fish have been found you can determine the fishes depth.

Eg – Fast Glass (1.5ips sink rate)

2. Don’t forget the Bung

Fishing the bung isn’t up everyone’s street, but it certainly is a deadly method. I’ve written a blog on bung fishing before, so for those of you who’d like to learn more, see here: learn how to fish the bung. Once the depth of the fish have been located, you can set the fly below the bung at the exact or preferred taking depth. It’s absolutely deadly when you get things right.

3. Use Worms

No, not literally, earth worms. But Squirmy worms or App blood worms. They are devastating in the winter. Both are flies which anglers find ‘iffy’ but I’d never go to a small water without a couple of each in my box. Green, Olive or Red apps worms are my favourite, and the original Pink Squirmy is usually the first on my cast. Set at the correct depth, of which, at Cwm Hedd on Saturday (where the above fish was caught), took a squirmy worm at 7ft deep. Exactly where I caught another 9 trout, all of similar stamp.