Friday Fly Day - Winter Flies Pt 2: Getting Eggy

Looking forward to winter, and into the now, last week we discussed what it takes to get down to where the fish are. This week we are talking eggs. Love or hate them I bet you fish them, so let’s take a look at what winter run trout want.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of the durability of yarn style eggs. You’re repeatedly casting and fishing deep, often close to cover and so your flies get a hard life. However finicky fish, slower, or still waters may call for a more realistic pattern when the trout has more time to mouth them, and so the Otters soft style of egg really comes into its own.

Otters Soft Egg Tangerine

Otters Soft Egg Tango

Otters Soft Egg Apricot

Everyone has their preference for colour but the best advice I can give is that if it’s not working, change it. As a general guide I look to larger and / or brighter colours in low light, dawn or dusk conditions and when the river is off colour. Smaller, more natural egg patterns are used in lower, clear or brighter conditions when visibility isn’t a necessity.

Glo Bug Tangerine / Brite Red

Glo Bug Champange / Brite Red

A veil imitates the milt of a freshly fertilised egg and offers movement to often lifeless flies, and an Ultimate egg pattern can make all the difference on those tougher days.

Ultimate Egg Brite Red

Ultimate Egg Tangerine

Ultimate Egg Steelhead Orange

Egg clusters and Wiggle eggs are firm canal, and river mouth favourites where big is often good, and they work as well on our NZ rainbows as they do on their overseas steelhead cousins.

Otters Soft Egg Cluster Tangerine

Brewers Wiggle Egg

And if fishing the snaggier pools where multi fly rigs are a recipe for disaster, a lead eyed muppet style pattern, or with its epoxy coated tungsten bead, the Brewers epoxy egg offer a one fly solution for getting deep without an additional bomb.

Muppet Early Girl

Muppet Tangerine

Brewers Epoxy Egg

As you can see, one fly won’t do it all and so we have you covered here at Manic with an exceptionally extensive egg collection, so you can have your eggs anyway you, or the trout want them.