About any nymph will work. These fish aren't picky. I tend to use both tungsten and lead weight beadhead Prince nymphs on Leeds. But hares ear and caddis nymphs certainly work. I'm sure smaller nymph varieties would work but I start big and only go down if needed- which is not the case 99% of the places I fish.
My best memory of hitting the lower section in winter (was mid January) was when my 2 dogs ran up the far left bank after we had done poorly a couple miles further up. This is maybe a hundred yards above the bridge. Now my dogs had fished with me hundreds of times and knew not to spook fish as well as being extremely obedient to my commands normally. I think they were just excited to have an area they could run and play (and probable warm up) in the snow. Anyways despite being mad at the dogs for likely ruining this stretch of water, I fished upstream anyways. In the next 10 minutes I caught 3 Bonneville Cutthroat over a 40 yard stretch. The first one had a cataract in it's left eye, so did the second one and then the same with the 3rd. It was a little freaky. I guess all 3 were spawn mates with the same genetic defect. However they obviously didn't see my dogs run up right next to them of the left stream bank.
My best memory of hitting the lower section in winter (was mid January) was when my 2 dogs ran up the far left bank after we had done poorly a couple miles further up. This is maybe a hundred yards above the bridge. Now my dogs had fished with me hundreds of times and knew not to spook fish as well as being extremely obedient to my commands normally. I think they were just excited to have an area they could run and play (and probable warm up) in the snow. Anyways despite being mad at the dogs for likely ruining this stretch of water, I fished upstream anyways. In the next 10 minutes I caught 3 Bonneville Cutthroat over a 40 yard stretch. The first one had a cataract in it's left eye, so did the second one and then the same with the 3rd. It was a little freaky. I guess all 3 were spawn mates with the same genetic defect. However they obviously didn't see my dogs run up right next to them of the left stream bank.