Cold does not stop fishermen

Paul Diprima shares fishing lore — including cold-weather tips.

I woke up to snow Friday here in Rome and it reminded me of many cold weather trips to the mountains in search of trout. Some of my all-time most memorable and some of the most productive trips have occurred in the dead of winter.

Trout are cold-blooded animals that require cold water to survive and will actively feed during a raging snowstorm and even after weeks of subfreezing days.

I vividly remember a trip to Cherokee, North Carolina, when we woke to a Saturday morning blizzard. With about 14 inches of fresh snow on the ground, Steve Peace and I caught about 25 or more trout with at least seven of the fish weighing over 3 pounds each.

Not all of my winter trips are that successful or that snowy. Just last weekend Steve and I returned to Cherokee. The weather was very pleasant and the fish cooperated with the slow-moving Mepps spinners fished near the bottom. During Friday and Saturday we caught about 70 fish, and most of them were rainbows that averaged close For a link to the Coosa Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited website, visit to a pound, with at least 10 that weighed about 2 pounds.

Steve and I both caught a few extremely small fish, with one of Steve’s being a wild, or streamborn, rainbow. I will give this a few words of advice. On the coldest days wait until the sun gets well above the horizon and fish deep with a fairly large bait and fish it slow.

When the sun hits the water the fish will warm up a little and begin to feed. The larger the bait, lure or fly is, the more likely a trout will go out of its way to get its lunch but will not get in a hurry to chase a meal down.

The weekend before my trip to Cherokee I was Ken Bradshaw’s guest on a guided float trip on the Chattahoochee River below Lake Lanier. Our guide was Chris Scalley of a River Through Atlanta guide service.

Ken and I both caught fish, with one of mine being a wild, stream-born rainbow. Stream-born brown trout are very common in the Hooch but wild rainbows are rare. There will be more about the guided trip in a future article. Chris Scalley is planning on being the speaker at either a February or March meeting of the Coosa Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Photo by Steve Peace

This “stream-born” rainbow trout was caught in Cherokee, N.C., on Dec. 2.

way that the public could get involved. Many of these trips were planned around vacation times and were confined to when the trip organizers could go. This often limited the number of folks that could go.

Mr. Palmer’s vision is to have multiple dates for trips to the same destinations. This could help a lot of folks go to locations they might never get to fish. Currently there are two trips being planned for the Coosa Valley Chapter this winter. One is to Cherokee and the other is to the White River.

Come to a chapter meeting and learn more. We have a lot of guys and gals that are willing to share their knowledge and would welcome new faces to join them on major excursions or just a short day trip on local waters.