The last month has had it’s ups and downs as far as my fishing journey has been concerned.

Most of my favorite trout spots have been stocked and fishing decently. October is an interesting time because you’ve got lots of freshly stocked fish that get hammered by anglers and become quickly educated. Fluctuating temps can drive certain hatches or shut down the majority of insect activity. The fish seem to aggressively take streamers and bright hot spot nymphs one day, then totally shut down the next day for anything that doesn’t look like the naturals in the water.

It’s tempting to think that newly stocked rivers are gonna produce 50-fish days, which they sometimes do. However, there’s just so many variables that come into play in seasonal transitions. For example, the last few days have seen a bit of a heat wave come through. This also came after rain caused river levels to rise and fall again.

During the rainy, higher water days, the trout seemed to key in on eggs, streamers, and Perdigon nymphs. Not really surprising. However, as soon as the river levels decreased and the weather became warmer, the rising temps seemed to trigger massive mayfly and midge hatches. The beginning of this insect activity produced some great opportunity to fish pheasant tails and more natural patterns.

It did, however, reach a point where there was so much insect life all of a sudden that the fish became picky and unwilling to take even the most lifelike presentations. To me, it’s all about adaptability and patience. What worked yesterday might not work today, so keep a variety of patterns on you and don’t be afraid to try new flies and techniques that you may not use very much. Below are some videos of some recent fishing excursions from the last few weeks in which I encountered many of these changing conditions.

Happy autumn everyone!