Fall is egg season. Salmon are on their redds in the Great Lakes tributaries, Kokanee are spawning across the West, and the first brown trout redds are appearing on the earliest waters — and every other trout in the river knows what comes off those gravel patches. (Most browns are still pre-spawn right now — Montana fish don’t spawn until November, and eastern browns run even later — but there are already enough eggs in the drift to make the egg bite real.) An egg pattern drifted behind spawning fish is as close to a sure thing as fall fishing gets.
Fish below the redds, not on them
This is the key detail: cast well above and drift your egg through the water downstream of the redd, where the eggs wash loose. Never fish to the fish sitting on the redd itself — target the rainbows and other browns holding in the run below, feeding on what drifts down.
The flies
Orange and chartreuse egg patterns are the proven colors. Standard Glo Bugs and similar eggs in roughly #10–14 get it done. It’s not a complicated game — the fish are keyed on one food, and imitation is straightforward.
Pair it up
A two-fly nymph rig with an egg and a trailing midge or BWO nymph (#20–22) covers both bets: the egg for fish keyed on the spawn, the small nymph for fish still eating midges. Fish the egg as the top fly so it rides higher in the drift where drifting eggs would be.
Know your redds
Redds look like cleaned-up, bright gravel patches in shallow riffles — freshly swept clean of algae. Learn to spot them so you can position below, not on, them, and so you can avoid wading through them (the eggs incubate in that gravel through winter).
The egg bite is the steadiest fishing October offers. When nothing else is hatching and the streamer bite goes quiet, eggs behind redds keep the rod bent — fished respectfully.
