When winter offers up those intermittent, though often too infrequent, periods of moderate weather, it’s an opportunity to take out the long rod for trout.

Be it Lake Erie-run steelhead, or stream-dwelling browns, rainbows and brookies, these three flies will help keep you in the action.

Woolly Bugger

Few flies are as versatile as the Woolly Bugger, which can be used to mimic baitfish, crayfish and leeches, all of which are important fodder for trout, larger trout in particular.

While the Woolly Bugger is effective in a variety of stream conditions, it excels when the water is running slightly off color and flow conditions run from normal to high. While the norm may be low, clear water in the fall, weather patterns the past two years have provided plenty of water during the autumn period.

The Woolly Bugger is tied in several colors. Black provides a good profile when the water is dirty. Olive and brown, too work well when there is some color to the stream. As things clear up white should be the first choice. Colors can be mixed and matched as well, as in brown hackle with an olive body.

This is a fly that falls into the “can’t fish it wrong category.” Time of the season has a lot to do with how you work a Woolly Bugger.

In cold water, it is important to fish the Woolly Bugger slow and close to the bottom. A dead drift is effective and any action imparted should be limited to twitching the rod tip. Lead eyes help bring the fly down, as does a sinking tip fly line.

Sucker Spawn

It is no secret trout like to eat eggs. Many trout anglers duped trout on salmon eggs during some part of their angling career.

It is genetically engineered for trout to key in on egg-like food. This is especially common where trout and salmon run tributary streams from large lakes, but the fact is all trout will respond to a well-presented egg pattern. That’s why you should be sure to carry some sucker spawn imitations this fall through early spring.

Yarn is the foundation of many sucker spawn patterns, though other materials have become part of the recipe in recent years. In nature, fish eggs tend to be of brighter colors. As such, sucker spawn patterns mimic this.

Orange, yellow, chartreuse, white, pink and gold are all colors that are incorporated in sucker spawn flies. Most flies are tied on a no. 12 to no. 18 hook. A tungsten bead can be incorporated to add a bit of weight.

It doesn’t take spawning fish to trigger an egg bite. In clearer water. white and pink are effective. Yellows and golds may be better picks come springtime as they do a good job of mimicking sucker and carp eggs, fish that spawn in the spring.

But nothing is etched in stone here. As with most fishing situations, it pays to experiment.

Sucker spawn patterns should be fished near the bottom at the same pace as the flow. A strike indicator assists in revealing a hit.

Bead Head Pheasant Tail Nymph

Since most aquatic insects spend the majority of their existence as water-based life forms, it only makes sense an angler carry a selection of flies that properly mimic the larval forms of bugs.

The BHPTN is a good all-around nymph that is tied in a variety of colors. Black and olive are popular colors; sizes no. 10 through no. 20 are common.

Like the sucker spawn, a BHPTN should be fished close to the bottom. Fish take the nymph during the drift as well as the “swing,” where the fly reaches the end of the drift and rises toward the surface at an accelerated rate.

Some anglers use strike indicators while others rely on “high sticking,” where the tip of the rod is held high to keep a minimum of line on the water and create the contact needed to sense a strike.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle