Winter fishing tips: staying warm

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast, we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA Rods, Lines, and Flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you're enjoying some wonderful time with your families and expressing gratitude for everything that is good in your life and perhaps for the good fishing you've had this year. I, you know, right now I'm looking outside of the mountains and we have some pretty heavy cloud cover We have some snow coming in tonight to a lot of the western states It's going to be a very cold Thanksgiving It's going to be a little bit gloomy and it's going to last for a few days At least over here where we are in Colorado And I just talked to my friend John, customer service department in Montana They're expecting some weather I know it's kind of spread all over the place here, but I hope that doesn't keep you from enjoying a really nice warm time with friends and family.

1:35And because of this weather, I thought I should talk a little bit about winter fishing, you know, just winter fishing in general, how to stay warm. you know maybe a little bit about fishing in particular but I think the focus is going to be on what I try to do to stay warm when I go out in bad weather and I might actually go fishing tomorrow since I'm going to be spending time around here and don't have that much for planned for the next few days but you know it's it's interesting I always get a lot of friends asking me can you fly fishing in winter and a lot of them are always surprised that yes we can fish In a lot of the country, we can fish pretty much year-round. So to get that out of the way, we can fly fishing in wintertime. We do have some limitations on where we can go and how much we might be able to stand in terms of cold weather, but usually it's not a problem. Some places, of course, have regulations that prevent people from fishing in the wintertime.

2:40I know in parts of California where I used to live, the season closed in October. But a big part of it was also open year-round. You have to check your regulations to see if there is a season. But here in Colorado, we can fish year-round pretty much everywhere. And that's kind of a cool thing. So the regulations are not a part of it. The only limitation that we have is whether the water is going to be flowing, whether it's going to be open. So in terms of fishing in the winter, some places here might freeze. For example, in town here we have Boulder Canyon. It's a fairly narrow canyon. It doesn't get a lot of sun in the winter because it runs east to west, and the mountains kind of cover the sun coming from the south. and the stream will very often freeze over. So that might make us stop fishing Boulder Canyon sometime in the middle of winter.

3:43But there's a lot of places that water stays open because it gets a little bit more sun or because it's a tail water. So tail waters are probably one of the most common places that people choose to fish during the winter. And tailwaters are essentially where water gets released from a dam. And particularly, I would say most dams are like this, but a lot of dams are bottom-released dams. Essentially, the water from the bottom of the reservoir above is getting released into the stream. And that water tends to have a very constant temperature year-round. It tends to be warmer than the water that is on the surface. so that's going to keep the water kind of warm and you know relatively warm at least it's going to keep it flowing through winter months so you know there's some tail waters that are going to be very good for fishing in the winter not all of them but that's the best bet to look for the other limitation is going to be you know how much do you want to put up with in the winter to go fishing.

4:52We can have some really good days here and there, you know, where it's warm. It's, you know, about 40 degrees. I consider that kind of warm in the winter. And then we can go out fishing comfortably. Sometimes, you know, if it's freezing or below freezing, it can be a little uncomfortable, but there's ways to manage that. I believe it's the Norwegians that say there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing or bad equipment. And that's what I'm going to be talking a little bit about in this episode, you know, like what do I do to stay warm? The coldest I have gone fishing is probably being, I think we started the day, it was 11 degrees Fahrenheit, so quite a bit below freezing. I'm not going to look up the Celsius conversion, but I'm going to guess something like negative 10 or 15 or something like that. Well below freezing. And I think it never got above like 15 degrees. So pretty cold 15 degrees Fahrenheit. I tend not to fish a whole lot when it's really cold. And I especially tend not to fish a lot when it's that kind of temperature.

6:05It's not very pleasant. Usually it's not very productive. But I will get out, you know, to get a fix and sometimes just to be outside and I do love spending time in the snow and you know sometimes fishing is just a good excuse for me to get out and do something. So what do I do when it comes to fishing in very cold weather with Tenkara specifically? So let's talk a little bit about the the equipment the rods lines flies and that kind of stuff first and then I'll get into the clothing or whatever ways I tend to manage to stay warm. One of the cool things about Tenkara with no reel, you know, is that first of all you can keep your gloves on if you choose to. You have a rod and you're holding the handle and the line is attached to the end of it. You don't have to be managing line with another hand and that makes it kind of a good winter tool. A lot of people have also pointed out that Tenkara specifically is really good for the winter because first your reel, you know, when it gets water, it's not going to get ice. You're not using a reel so you don't have to deal with defrosting a reel. Your rod doesn't have guides with Tenkara so you don't have to deal with ice building up in the guides which tends to be a real big pain when you're having to figure out how to get the ice from the guide so your line can run. And lastly, you can keep your gloves on, which is a beautiful thing about the Tenkara. So those, I just wanted to talk a little bit about that in terms of the equipment, really good tool for winter fishing. Now the line that is at the end, that's going to be susceptible to winter forces like anything else would.

7:57so when I was fishing in that 11 to 15 degree day the line is going to touch the water sometimes and that water is going to pretty much instantly freeze and it was kind of interesting because you know I'd cast and some line would get on the water and about two or three casts later you know I'm trying to keep the line off the water the the beads of water would freeze over make this kind of pearl string necklace on the line, and the line would get really, really heavy. So what I would do is either I would bring the line in and rub my hand on the line to push away all that ice, or I would just lay the line on the water and just let the water kind of melt the ice. It was very little ice. You know, the problem with that is that every time, once I started doing that, there will always be water on the line and three casts later there'll be ice on that if i use my gloves to or my hands to kind of get the bead beaded ice from the line i could keep it dry and keep it from freezing a little bit longer so that was kind of a nice thing so keeping the line off the water and sometimes just bringing it in to get the ice off the line so that's in terms of managing the equipment, it's going to happen a little bit if you're fishing in that kind of cold weather.

9:24Usually if you're just around freezing, it's not that big a deal. It doesn't freeze that quickly. But that's one way to manage it. Now, in terms of flies and fishing tips and that kind of thing, I find that winter fishing is not super productive in my experience. you know the fish I think there's certain temperatures especially when it's right after the temperature drops like for example today it started off warm and it's really getting cold very fast the fish are probably going to hunker down and stay down for a few days so I don't expect tomorrow to be particularly effective for for fishing but you know I will try to get out and see what happens. A lot of people tend to like fishing deep when it's cold, you know, very small little nymphs sinking the fly and that kind of thing. So those are good tips. You know, in my experience, yes, I do want to fish a little deeper, generally speaking, in the wintertime.

10:34I will use the currents to sink my fly and sometimes I will even clip the hackle of the fly just to make it sink a little bit faster and if I have a fly that I tied with more thread on the body to make it sink faster I will probably use that as well lots of tips out there on fishing in the winter in terms of fly selection and that kind of thing I believe most of you know my philosophy I don't change flies a whole lot and I don't carry split shot and that kind of thing and I've had a lot of success in the winter time as well even without using those things so I'm gonna leave my fishing tips at that for now you know it's when I get out there I'll try to catch fish and but I don't hold myself to super high standards when it's really really cold I think. Now let's talk a little bit about a question that I get very often from friends in terms of what should I wear, you know, how do you stay warm when you go fishing.

11:37There's a lot of different ways and I don't think I have an answer, you know, I don't think I have a system that I stand 100% behind at this point because I do play with different things, always trying to kind of see what is the best way. And every temperature is going to be kind of calling for something a little different, I think. But the main foundation here is kind of like anything else when we do stuff in the wintertime to stay warm is the concept of layering, using different layers to stay warm, as opposed to like one kind of heavy layer, in my opinion. and I think that's very applicable to fishing as well. So let's talk, why don't we start from the bottom and work our way up. So let's start with our feet. So our feet are what is, especially if you're going to be waiting, doing any kind of waiting, but even if you're just standing around, I think feet are one of the first things to get cold.

12:44Feet and hands, you know, on the extremities. not a whole lot of meat going on in there I guess and it gets cold really fast if you're standing in cold water in cold days your feet are going to get cold very very fast so what do I look at doing in winter time for my feet first of all let's assume we're wearing waders I think waders and good wading boots are absolutely indispensable for winter fishing. I don't go out there when it's freezing without waders and get hypothermic. So if you want to do any winter fly fishing, do get some good wading boots and wading socks. And then what are you going to be wearing below the inside of waders? It's kind of up to you. there are some socks that are designed specifically for weighting and specifically for cold weather weighting they tend to be a little thicker but in any case I like to wear a thin liner and that's kind of what I wear when I go skiing as well or do any kind of ice kind of activities like ice climbing some very thin liners that are going to be in touch with my feet and those tend to kind of draw the moisture out and push it out in a way.

14:07Depending on how cold it is, I might wear one or two more pairs of socks. And then I'll wear, if it's really, really cold, I'll wear typically a thinner kind of merino wool sock on top of the liners, the very thin liners. Do not wear cotton. Whatever you do, just don't wear cotton socks. That's probably one of the worst things you can do because the cotton will absorb the water. It's going to freeze and you're going to get cold very, very fast. So the liners that I wear, all kinds of synthetic materials out there or very thin wool liner socks. If it's really cold, I'll wear a medium kind of weight sock on top of that, relatively thin actually. and then I'll wear a very thick wool sock or weighting socks, socks that are designed specifically for weighting. They have a lot of weight to them. So to accommodate all of those socks, I do tend to have larger boots that I like to wear in the wintertime so my feet don't get too crammed in the boots because on top of those two or three socks, I'm going to be wearing also my waders, which have the neoprene booties.

15:28So if it's really, really cold, I wear those three pairs of socks. If it's, you know, depending on the temperatures, if it's, let's say, just about freezing temperature, typically I'll just wear a thin liner and a thicker weighting sock on top of that. For boots, I mentioned wearing, having a larger kind of size boots, and that's pretty much the boots that I wear throughout the year. I don't have boots that are specifically set aside for winter fishing. I just get my boots that are larger so they can accommodate different socks. And sometimes if I don't have that many socks, my feet will kind of have a little bit more room in there, but I don't mind too much. Now, for the waiting boots in particular, I am a huge fan of rubber-sealed boots for the wintertime. part of the reason i gave up on felt so boots a while ago was because of winter fishing felt will tend to cling on to snow and mud and then you kind of build up if it's really cold and you're walking on snow it's one of the worst things that happens the felt will kind of adhere to this first layer of snow and then you kind of freeze to your boots and then you get another layer and before you know you have five inches of snow before right below your feet and that's absolutely horrible felt also doesn't have any traction when you're walking around in the snow so rubber sew boots for me all the way in the winter in winter time I do not even play with felt above that inside I'm gonna Again, it depends how cold it is, but I really like having, I have a merino underwear pants that I like to wear when it's colder.

17:21And if it's really cold, I wear that and I wear some fleece pants above that. And I'll tuck them into my socks, you know, I have the socks kind of long pulled over the pants so that it stays down and that kind of thing. one note on the socks too by the way just avoid having socks that are really really tight I found both from fly fishing in the winter time as well as ice climbing or skiing that if you have very tight socks you'll kind of cut your circulation down a little bit and you might get cold fast so if you're wearing this kind of thicker socks and you're wondering why your feet are getting cold very fast, take a look at how tight your boots or your socks are. And that's another reason to wear fairly loose wading boots in the winter. So I think that kind of covers the below the waist system that I use here. One more tip too, like I do this mostly for ice climbing. I don't do it for fishing that much because there's not a whole lot of oxygen there. But you could consider putting some toe warmers those kind of chemical toe warmers in your waiting boots as well if you have a tendency to get very cold in the winter in your feet there's not a lot of oxygen that goes down there and those toe warmers are designed to work with less oxygen but you know I'm a little dubious of the effectiveness of those toe warmers for fly fishing I do wear them sometimes for ice climbing if it's really really cold all right so we talked about the socks the boots the pants and then on the chest area you know I'm a big believer that keeping your chest warm is really really important for staying warm you want to keep your thorax pretty covered up and that's kind of up to you it's the same as kind of any you know being out in the winter where you wear I like to wear a thin base layer, either a merino wool or some kind of synthetic material as a base layer.

19:33And then above that, I'll usually have some type of fleece. And then I might wear like a vest or kind of a puffy kind of jacket. And then I'll wear a shell if there's a need for it, if I feel like it's really cold. You know, and then of course, if it's super cold, you might want to have a little a down jacket or a down vest or something like that. That's kind of up to you. Everybody has different tolerances to cold, so it's always hard to describe layers. But again, do not wear cotton. If you do fall in the water, if you get sweaty, cotton is something that you really don't want to have out in the wintertime. Okay, so we talked about the chest, and let's talk about our hands, gloves. as I mentioned gloves or or the hands are one of the things that gets really cold very fast in the winter when it's cold out there that's the one part that I kind of go back and forth a lot on my system what kind of gloves I like to use I don't claim to have found something that works 100% of the time for me or that I'm always happy with so I go back and forth between different things a little bit. The ones that are the gloves that I usually and by the way I always have gloves with me if I'm going out when it's really cold. The ones that I found that seem to work really well for me for fishing are those fingerless gloves that have a mitt top that kind of goes over all of your fingers at once so you can have you can pull it back and have the dexterity of your fingers to tie knots and that kind of thing and then you just put the mittens on when you just want to keep your fingers warm so that's what I like to use you know some mitten with fingerless gloves the other thing that I do with tenkara like a lot of you know you know we have our index finger on the top when we're casting and the mittens make it kind of hard to do that but I find it as fingerless gloves sometimes I'll actually just have my index finger exposed and I'll cover all my other fingers just to kind of give me a little bit more control over the grip of the rod but you can keep it completely covered as well of course. Something that I play with sometimes is not wearing gloves at all when I'm fishing but rather just having a couple of those chemical hand warmers on me. And then with Tencato, you know, because we don't have to use both hands at the same time, I found that I really like having, you know, one hand warmer in each pocket of my jacket or vest, and then just take turns with my hands. I kind of like that system.

22:20I find that I can warm up my hands really well, as long as I don't let them get very cold. I can just kind of when one hand is starting to get cold I'll put in my pocket and use my other hand for casting and that kind of thing and then when I catch a fish the nice thing about it is I don't have to get fish slime on my gloves it's a little bit better on the fish skin and I do find that my hands tend to stay warm really nicely when I'm using that kind of system so that's kind of what I play with for the most part and sometimes I'll just have other gloves just to kind of keep warm you know I on occasion I've you know even used just kind of regular you know some thick kind of fleece gloves and I'll take it off when I have to handle a fish and that kind of thing and then on the top you know on the top of my head I will pretty much always have a binny in the winter time keeping the ears and you know warm I do like to have a somewhat oversized binny there's one very thick one that I like it's a fleece kind of beanie for when it's super cold because I can kind of pull it almost back to the back of my neck a little bit to the top of my neck and I keep it really nice and warm so I like to wear that in the wintertime too and that's pretty much it for my system I know everybody has different systems they They have gloves that they swear by, and they have socks that they absolutely love.

23:55And I probably do too, but nothing comes to mind as a super highly recommended kind of winter gear for me. Because I play a lot with different types of gear in the winter still. I'm getting used to fishing in very cold weather. Didn't used to do it that much in California. I have done a lot of it since I moved here only three years ago, so I'm still kind of dialing a system down. But the secret, I think, is kind of having some good layers, you know, different layers as opposed to one thick kind of piece of gear on you. Don't cut your circulation, you know, on your feet especially. And if you get a chance to, like, you know, if you go in the water, come out for a few minutes, you know, just don't stay in the water the entire time. And that's a good way to kind of, you know, manage the cold. And lastly, and this is actually very important, keep moving. this is where you know the the approach that we usually teach in Tenkara of move from one pool to another tends to come in really handy if you stay planted in one pool for a long time and you're not really moving that much you're going to get cold if you kind of move on keep do a little hiking you know if you start finding yourself a little cold go for you know hike a half a mile or a quarter mile upstream somewhere else and that can keep you pretty warm for a long time. When you start finding yourself cold, kind of rotate your arms a little bit, get the blood flowing. A lot of times, you know, we get cold because we don't have enough warm blood kind of flowing to the extremities especially. So if you get moving a little bit, you know, hike upstream a little bit longer, move the arms move the legs that's a that goes a long way in keeping you warm in the winter time so if you have any tips that you'd like to share um i probably overlooked all kinds of winter you know advice that you might have um because as i mentioned i'm pretty new to it but if you have any tips that you'd like to share with us share it with us on facebook tenkara USA page are on a tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast page.

26:09Let people know what you recommend that they try to do for fly fishing in the winter. And get out there. It's beautiful. The wintertime, it's a season like no other. I find that it tends to be incredibly peaceful to be out there when it's really cold and there's some snow around. There often is pretty good fishing. you just have to kind of go find it and it's so quiet you know i think the snow kind of makes everything peaceful and serene and just beautiful so enjoy the season for fly fishing as well and let us know how you do in the winter time with your tenkara rod and i'm going to leave you all with the song tokidoki by Takenobu you can check out his music at takenobumusic.com and this is the album Climactica so I'm going to leave you off with it and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving Now we meet many many many many many Now we meet many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many Now we meet many more many more Now we meet many more many more many more Now we meet many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more many more I'll be right back, I'll be right back, I'll be right back.

29:34My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My love, My Thank you.