There’s nothing quite like standing in the middle of a January river watching your breath turn to mist while the sun barely clears the trees. Those winter days can produce some of the best grayling fishing of the year, but they’ll also remind you very quickly that your hands are basically the first thing to give up on you when temperatures drop.
Gear Used in This Article
I’ve learned this the hard way over the years. You’d think after enough sessions with fingers so numb you can barely tie a blood knot that I’d have sorted my glove situation earlier, but here we are. The thing about fly fishing gloves is they need to do two completely contradictory jobs. Keep your hands warm, obviously, but also let you do all the fiddly stuff that comes with our chosen method of self-inflicted misery.
The problem with most winter gloves is they’re designed for people who just need to keep their hands warm while they walk the dog or scrape ice off the car. They’re not built for someone who needs to tie size 16 nymphs onto fluorocarbon in a force five wind. I’ve watched too many mates fishing with those massive skiing gloves, constantly pulling them off to change flies, then spending the next ten minutes trying to warm their hands back up again.
What you actually need for proper cold weather fly fishing are gloves that recognize we’re doing something a bit specific. The fingerless style wool ones are fine for autumn, and I still use mine when it’s hovering around five or six degrees. But once we’re into proper winter sessions, particularly early mornings or late afternoons when temperatures really drop, you need something more substantial.
The best approach I’ve found involves gloves that have fold-back fingers or what some people call flip-top mittens. You get the warmth of a full glove most of the time, but when you need to tie on a new fly or sort out a wind knot, you can expose just your fingertips without stripping the whole thing off. These hybrid designs have saved me countless frustrating moments streamside.
Material matters quite a bit as well. Neoprene gloves are popular with some anglers, and they do keep your hands warm even when wet, which is handy given we’re literally standing in water most of the time. But I find them a bit clammy for my taste and they don’t breathe particularly well. I prefer something with a decent fleece lining and a water-resistant outer layer. Not fully waterproof mind you, because that usually means they’re too bulky for the kind of dexterity we need.
I’ve been using a pair of Snowbee Cold Weather gloves recently (https://amzn.to/4dbkzUH) which do the flip-top finger thing pretty well and they’ve got enough insulation to handle most UK winter conditions without being too bulky. The grip on the palms helps when you’re handling wet line, which is one of those small details you don’t think about until you’re trying to haul in line and everything’s slipping.
One thing I’ll mention that might sound obvious but took me ages to work out: size your gloves properly. Too tight and they’ll cut off circulation, which defeats the entire purpose. Your hands will actually be colder. You want a bit of room in there for air to circulate and for blood to flow freely. I used to buy them snug thinking that was warmer, but it’s absolutely not.
The other consideration is whether you’re fishing static or moving about. If you’re nymphing a run and basically standing in one spot for an hour, you’ll need more insulation than if you’re actively working upstream covering water. I actually carry two pairs now, lighter ones for when I’m moving and heavier ones for when I’m settled into a spot.
For your next winter session, try this: keep a spare pair of thin liner gloves in your vest or jacket pocket. Even with good fishing gloves, there’ll be moments when you need bare hands for something intricate. Having those liners means you’ve got a thin layer to slip on that’ll take the edge off while still letting you work, and they’re small enough you’ll barely notice them until you need them.
