Hey, All,

It's been a while since anyone posted a new topic on this board, so I thought I would break the ice.

I hope you weren't misled by the title of this post to think that I was posting a picture of a fly that consistently catches steelhead, but now that I've got your attention:

1. What is the one fly you would carry with you for winter steelhead, if you could carry no others, in the following situations:

a. Fishing a big, broad river like the Cowlitz?
b. Fishing a medium-sized river like the Hoh, with runs, boulder gardens, and deep holes?
c. Fishing small pocket water on a river like the Salmon?
d. Fishing a river like the Sol Duc, with all of the above?

2. What techniques (nymphing, swinging, stripping, etc.) would you use in each situation?

I plan to use your answers to derive the ultimate winter steelhead fly fishing plan of attack, just in time to sit back and reflect while all our great rivers get closed for the season due to low returns.

Happy holidays!

Agreed so far - hard to beat the egg-sucker, and the swing is the most pleasurable (if not always most productive) way to fish.

Anyone else?

My home river is very small, and characterized by basalt bedrock, ledges, and chutes. There is very, very very little cobble, or tailouts for that matter, and not swing friendly. For that reason, I primarily nymph it, and like to throw these is sizes #2-1/0.

That is one sweet pattern - I bet a size 1/0 is hard for just about any fish (certainly any that's spent any time in saltwater) to lay off. I bet it would absolutely slay sea-run cutts, too.

My favorite is a purple or black egg sucking bunny leech.
Dumbell eyes, chartreuse head and electric blue flashabou for flash.

Cop Car, Prawn, Intruder...swing or die

Thanks Chuck...they are a bit time consuming to tie, but you can't argue with results!

I spent a few days on the OP this past week with a friend. I brought the bug rod, but, didn't use it. I have a new Center Pin set up. That scud pattern looks like it would work real well either nymphing or on a CP set up. I may be tying some up for next months trip over there. Thanks for the idea.

Sam

I'd nymph a peice of yarn tied on a hook, but since thats absolutely no fun for an answer......
Hoh river Depth charge tied on a copper tube, she gets down and dirty

When are you gonna clean that @#$!@ up Opie!

Do you use a two handed rod with that fly?

Anything with movement and i would swing it.

Twitch,

Awesome looking crustation, care to list the tying recipe. It would be much appreciated.

OPfisher, killer looking large profile swimmer.

As for one of my favorites, I'm with stonefish, I like a colored bead head for an egg sucking marabou spider or bunny leech tied on a 60 degree jig/fly hook, The Fly Shop's, TFS 5444. Very versatile pattern, can be fished on the swing or nymphed and I like the up turned hook. Snags up less and has a good hook up ratio.

How about a slight modification/expansion to the original question.

1. Favorite pattern to fish.
2. Favorite pattern to tie.
3. Most effective pattern.

With respect to the original question, I tend to mix things up based on factors other than river "size" and/or type. More often, water conditions, what I know about the water being fished (depth, speed, micro-features), and it's likelihood of holding fish.

If I am working a piece of water rather than fishing on the go (gear or feathers) I typically start big and finish small while trying to achieve some sort of color/contrast change in the process. I like the way those intruder style flies look, along with anything incorporating some long and thick rabbit, rhea, peacock, or ostrich to get a lengthy, swimming profile. Action, action, action. If you think color matters, than it probably does. If you don't think it does, than it won't.

Whether fishing with gear or feathers, if I am working a piece of water, I typically start big and finish small, start flashy and bold and finish natural. In the case of feathers, big meaning a 4-5 inch fly or 10-12 mil egg pattern. Small meaning a classic spey pattern or 8 mil egg.

I am sad and glad to say, I haven't put in much time swinging flies for steelhead. In fact, I can count all of the steelhead I have hooked on the swing using three fingers. However, I nymph behind guys swinging flies for steelhead all of the time and usually out fish them 6 to 1 I have yet to witness the swing accounting for more fish than a dead drifted presentation. I am sure it has happened, perhaps with some regularity, but I haven't seen it.

My vote for most effective would have to go to a 10 mil egg pattern in bubble gum pink.

1. What is the one fly you would carry with you for winter steelhead, if you could carry no others, in the following situations:

Answer: My own version of Silvey's tandem tube fly in either pink or purple.


2. What techniques (nymphing, swinging, stripping, etc.) would you use in each situation?

Answer: I would swing. If the water is not fit for swinging, I would either pass it up and find better water, or fish with my center pin.

1. One fly for all winter on rivers a. thru d., I'd pick a size 2 marabou streamer. If I am limited to only one color for that fly for all season and all the rivers, I'll choose purple.

2. I've never caught a steelhead by nymphing, altho I intend to some day. I swing flies on rivers a., b., and d., and have found only a couple spots to do so on c., the Salmon. Consequently I don't fish there much.

I wouldn't use my fly pattern suggestion as the basis for a plan of attack. My suggestion merely answers the question of what to do if you have to get by with one fly pattern. I don't actually use a purple marabou much in the winter, but I know I could fish effectively with it and even nymph it with a split shot on the leader. And it's quick and easy to tie. When I go fishing, I'll just use whatever's in my fly box.

Sg

Hey Sky - was that you pinning on the upper Sky on Sunday?

Hey Coley,

If you're talking westside/OP steelhead rivers, you're probably about right dead drift vs swing.

Have you ever fished the Thompson or Snake?? I'd venture the swing will outfish the dead-drift by about that same 6 to 1 percentage.

Just different types of water.

As for the question, I tie to fish. I used to play with spey patterns - great fun if you're into tying. Green Highlander was one of my favorites.

Favorite to fish (in winter) is a ostrich and rabbit string leech with powerpro to a gammy stinger hook. Pink/white or orange/purple.

Most effective depends on season - summer or fall it's a modified soft-hackle with long pheasant tail fibers in subdued brown/yellow. Winter it's the above fly.

Guess "most effective" depends on what you fish a lot.

Tight Lines!

Brian

To maybe start an argument but all in good spirit: Is "bead" fishing really flyfishing just because it is on a flyrod?

I guess my real question is what defines flyfishing? Anything fished off of a flyrod ala Situk; all mono and yarn balls with splitshot? No lead unless tied on a fly? Only way to truly get fly into zone can be from proper mends and actual flyline/head with no extra weight added to leader or fly?

A plastic bead pegged above the hook (dont get me wrong here as I know the effectiveness as I stare at my dads 15+ lb upper Kenai bow from Sept 09) with split shot seems like drift fishing. Drift fishing is cool and way more effective on drift gear. If I throw a pink plastic worm on my flyrod and catch a steelhead how did I catch it? Does it even matter?

Cheers

As a matter of fact it was. I was just killing some time before going to the Sunday spey clinic at the Ben Howard boat launch.

That questions is currently being 'debated' on a couple other fly sites. Beyond the legal definitions applied by States to "Fly Fishing Only" waters, the answer is . . . whatever you want it to be!

Fly rods are used for all kinds of things. Bob uses one to soak eggs under the boat for Kasilof Silvers. Others toss mono on the reel and drift-fish with them. Some put on dink floats and fish 1/4oz jigs. You could probably herd cats with one too.

I'm of the opinion that you use the best tool for the job. If I want to fish jigs, it's a gear rod (preferably a centerpin). Ditto for drift fishing. I don't enjoy casting big hunks of lead with a fly rod. Others can call it flyfishing if they want - I'm not going to waste time arguing.

It cracks me up tho, people that want to say "I caught a Steelhead on a flyrod". They get some guide on the Sol Duc to Back-Troll their bobber and jig (oops . . . I meant Indicator and Nymph) behind some big boulders using the classic 'swing' of the bow of the drift boat to get their offering in position. Eventually it's FISH ON and they get to pose with their prize.

For me, flyfishing isn't about anything other than that I enjoy the experience of swinging flies, either floating line or sinktip, for steelhead more than any other type of fishing. I'm not claiming it's the most difficult or the most artistic. I just enjoy the process of working a run this way.

As Skykomish Sunrise suggested in an earlier post, if the water isn't suited to swinging a fly I'll just fish with a gear rod. More fun than trying to make the fly rod do something it's not well suited for (IMO).

It's your fly rod - I think you should use it however you want to!

YMMV,

Brian / Doublespey

Of corse beads are float and jig fishing.... I mean nymphing, I mean fly fishing

Really, who cares, if you're happy catching more fish nymphing, cool! If you wana swing all day for a tug, cool too!

Sam- yes, Thats how I swing anymore. just got 4 new spey & switch rods. Now all I need is it to be march and april and Im in business!!!!!!

Looking at the picture, are you nymphing with a spey rod????

You do. And I do. We all do. Those many that have come before, and all of those that will come after.

In any given pursuit, it seems like there are those that gravitate to and/or strive for a certain level of purity. What defines "pure" is often the subject of great debate and many unwinnable arguments stemming from opinions driven by great passion for the game, or, in some cases, a general proclivity for conflict On the flip side, there are others, perhaps the majority, that tend to dabble in and dwell more towards the surface level of knowledge and ability, while either not caring for, or not knowing much about things like style or the purists definition of this or that. Of course many lie somewhere in between.

To me, pure fly fishing is fishing with a fly rod, fly line, and hand made fly constructed out of synthetic or natural materials. I realize that there are many levels beyond that, most with merit, but that is just about as far as I have time or care to take the issue both in personal value and in conversation.

Most anything that you can fish with a gear rod you can fish with a fly rod and vice versa. Beyond enjoyment of the process and purity of the pursuit, I tent to focus on effectiveness. I can fish a bead or glo bug rig far more effectively with my center pin rod than I can the fly rod. In most instances, I can fish that same water far more effectively with a long float rod and bait casting rig and the same terminal tackle. Why choose one over the others. Only you can answer that. For me, depends on the day.

I hate fishing the bead for the same reasons I dislike many forms of fishing. It's tedious, redundant and robot like, at times boring, it feels like a compromise, removes me from the best part of the strike, and, as KK likes to say, is the "fly fishing" equivalent of kissing your sister. That having been said, catching fish is fun, and so I do it.

I just got a handful of rhea feathers in the mail a few days back. Been playing around with some ostrich, marabou, rabbit and rhea combinations and have been having fun so far.

Good stuff guys.

Minor correction

My philosophy on these matters is very similar to yours in that I tend to factor effectiveness into my decisions on how and with what to fish. Granted, I have my own long, complicated list of preferences, but in the end, it would be dishonest for me to say I am so married to those preferences that I will accept a low probability of catching fish in favor of being able to use my favorite methods exclusively.

As for purity, there are far too many definitions around "pure" fly fishing to allow any of them to be absolute. At one extreme, there is a contingent that believes fishing only needs to be done with a fly rod and fly line to be legitimately considered fly fishing. Personally, I feel this definition falls a bit short in that something called "Fly fishing" should involve something called a "fly," but my opinion doesn't make theirs any less valid.

At the other extreme, there are those who will argue that the only true fly fishing is done with a floating line and a dry fly that "matches the hatch," fished on a dead drift. This basically describes the early British method, which most agree was not the original method. One school of thought (see Wikipedia) states that the origins of fly fishing lie in Macedonia, where an elite group of fishermen are said to have cast chunks of red wool and a couple of non-descript cock feathers tied to a hook into small streams, using a 6-foot rod and a 6-foot length of line. This "fly," by modern definitions, would be classified as an attractor pattern, and the concept of this being the original method of fly fishing seems to suggest that the most pure (if that is defined by originality) forms of fly fishing bear more similarity to fishing yarn flies and beads on a dead drift for steelhead, which is a relatively young practice, than the traditional British methods.

Ultimately, I think being overly concerned with purity, however you define it, can severely limit one's ability to catch fish, especially when targeting fish like freshwater salmon and steelhead, who are much more concerned with staking their claim to a redd and a mate than a meal. I am convinced that steelhead (particularly summer runs, who spend a good deal more time in freshwater than winter runs or salmon) will eat, but a lot more of them probably bite as a response to a stimulus in a presentation that triggers an instinctive strike than in the name of eating.

My favorite methods of fishing for steelhead involve swinging flies (wet or dry) through a fish's holding area, but I don't limit myself to those methods, for these reasons:

• That type of fishing requires a very specific type of holding water that is more abundant in some streams than in others, but regardless does not represent the only water that will hold fish.
• Being primarily a bank angler, there is a definite limit to the amount of the aforementioned holding water that I can get to from a given public access point.
• I occasionally enjoy switching up methods to break the monotony of a slow day.

As for fishing with beads, yarn, jigs, etc., I am not above doing it, and in fact, I sometimes enjoy it. As much as I wish I could say that I catch most of my fish on elegant spey flies that I spent hours to tie, to do so would be to lie. I have caught more fish on a puff of yarn (with or without a bead), if I'm being honest, and I find it very challenging to consistently achieve the kind of dead drifts required to effectively fish such lures, so I don't think it makes me any less of a fly rod fisher guy in terms of skills than someone who swings exclusively.

My bottom line is a common one in this thread - do what makes you happy, with no regard to what others think (as long as you aren't intentionally flossing/snagging fish). And if you're out there nymphing a piece of pocket water one day and a guy with a spey rod* walks by you with his nose in the air on his way to the one productive tailout within the accessible mile of the river, take comfort in these facts:

• He is walking past a lot of good holding water that you will be able to fish.
• You are probably more of a "purist" than he is, if history is any indication.

* Note that I do not intend to classify spey fishermen as elitists. To do so would be far from the truth, and furthermore it would be to condemn myself, who also takes pleasure in the fine art of spey casting. I just needed someone to pick on to make my point.

Flies vary to the situation, the bigger question is what is your favorite line for a varying piece of water. The other important perspective to learn is how to fish your fly effectively on the swing. Lines and fishing your fly effectively is what is going to get you your grabs.

Well said Double Haul. You can have a fly box full of awesome patterns. If they are not presented effectively, hook ups will be at a minimum. Some fly patterns, just by the way they are designed, will give you a better presentation. For Winter Steelhead flies, a fly designed to sink and swing balanced and level will give you a much better presentation, than a fly that is not evenly balanced. An evenly balanced Winter Steelhead fly can be achieved numerous ways by tying with: 60 degree fly/jig hooks, Brass tubes, Buck tail wings and tails in conjunction with front barbell eyes and mid - weighting with metal beads, cones and lead. Something to think about if you tye your own. Presentation is everything.

Regarding what fly fishing is contrasted to spin/bait fishing can be fun. On average, fly fishing enhances the prospects of catching trout and reduces the chance of catching a steelhead. If the method involves split shot or a slinky, it isn't fly fishing. In this modern age of so many alternatives, the only way to be certain one is fly fishing is to fish a rod made of split cane, a fly reel made in England, a silk line, gut leader, and flies tied with natural materials only. Falling anywhere short of that is to risk being labeled a bait slinger by somebody. And if that matters, one has problems of a different sort.

Sg

sure thing there baitguy...

The "G." in Salmo G. stands for 'Gutslinger'.

Dan, that was supposed to remain covert!

A few comments, hope they are fun.

I am new to the list and new to steelhead fishing with flies, although I fly fished when I was a kid in the 60's and didn't know any better. All my gear got stolen, then I discovered girls and cars, and hey, it was the 60's. I do remember most of them, though. 8^)

I mostly mix jigs with bobbers, or drift in some variation. I have been tying my own jigs and have just recently taken a real honest class in tying flies. Very cool. First 8 weight here we come.

BrianL said:
"Fly rods are used for all kinds of things. Bob uses one to soak eggs under the boat for Kasilof Silvers. Others toss mono on the reel and drift-fish with them. Some put on dink floats and fish 1/4oz jigs. You could probably herd cats with one too.

Comment: I am amazed at how gear and fly terminal presentations have converged over the last 30 years. I think it is actually good for fishermen as we continue to learn from each other. I probably won't try to heard cats with a fly rod, though. Hard enough with a drift rod.

BrianL also said: "I'm of the opinion that you use the best tool for the job. If I want to fish jigs, it's a gear rod (preferably a centerpin). Ditto for drift fishing. I don't enjoy casting big hunks of lead with a fly rod. Others can call it flyfishing if they want - I'm not going to waste time arguing."

Rick's comment: Works for me. I really like centerpinning, although it takes practice and works better for me in closer waters than far. Man, oh man, I love seeing that bobber drop, especially when I have been paying attention and have the slack out and the line mended and I don't go spastic.


And FleaFlickr02 said:
"At the other extreme, there are those who will argue that the only true fly fishing is done with a floating line and a dry fly that "matches the hatch," fished on a dead drift. This basically describes the early British method, which most agree was not the original method."

Comment: In about 1978 I asked and paid a guy to tie up some flies that resembled eggs with a little lead wrap so I could put them on 2-4# mono line and drift them in some pockets in some small streams up on the West Slope Rainier. He told me when I picked them up, "These aren't real flies, you know. This isn't fly fishing." I whacked 'em and neither I or the fish knew the difference.

I think he must have been an even older than me old school "match the hatch" kinda guy. So now Glo bugs are de riguer and drifters use yarnies. Go figure. I love it all.

And then FleaFlickr02 said:
"One school of thought (see Wikipedia) states that the origins of fly fishing lie in Macedonia, where an elite group of fishermen are said to have cast chunks of red wool and a couple of non-descript cock feathers tied to a hook into small streams, using a 6-foot rod and a 6-foot length of line. This "fly," by modern definitions, would be classified as an attractor pattern, and the concept of this being the original method of fly fishing seems to suggest that the most pure (if that is defined by originality) forms of fly fishing bear more similarity to fishing yarn flies and beads on a dead drift for steelhead, which is a relatively young practice, than the traditional British methods."

Rick adds: I am that Macedonian guy of the non elite version. Trying non conventional things is a major part of my fun in fishing. I used to look judgmentally at guys using rods missing eyes, and having mono on fly rods, and fly line on casting rods, and all kinds of goofy stuff, UNTIL I watched what they were doing and realized they were usually out-fishing me. They were usually local and knew what worked right there and then, and didn't know or care what they "should" be doing. I was the clueless one.

I am definitely going to try chunks of red wool and non descript cock feathers very soon.

Tight lines and good spirits, folks.

PS I hope Twitch posts some instructions soon for the "Twitchy Shrimp." what a beautiful piece of work.

My favorite winter steel pattern:

Wow! That's a lot more effort than I put into my yarnies. I dig it. The feathers off the back give it a crawfish kinda look... What does that thing swim like? And what kind of hook is it tied on - Octopus?

That feather does 2 things. It represents the claws of a small sandshrimp and gives it just the right bouyancy to act as a "wing". The profile is just about exactly as it is in the picture.

I must admit that I drift fish this fly but I am sure it could be setup as a nymph presentation or something.

No issues with drifting flies here - they can be downright deadly drifted on conventional gear. It could definitely be nymphed from a fly rod. You may spot me doing just that if it ever quits raining long enough to give us a chance to fish. This is getting ridiculous!

Anyway, that's a pretty cool take on a yarn fly.

Same here in black

It doesn't matter if you swing it, nymph it, or stuff it in an engine....you can't stop the "Sparkplug"

JD

That one looks like the humpy special that was so hot in the snohomish this year!!!

Love the "Sparkplug." A bit tought to cast, but it literally knocks 'em dead!

NGK's catch more ornamental fish!

FD

My favorite is one I ended up calling "The Citation." I'd rather not explain how it got it's name.

JD,
The sparkplug is truly an elegant fly that I have been relentlessly tying and fishing ever since you revealed the pattern last week. Using my custom 19' 12/13 Bob Clay cane rod I have found that a pair of jumper cables cut back to 2050 grains with the coating stripped off to reveal a 3' wire leader is an immaculate setup for late February hoko steelies. Although the original color combination has proven to be deadly under most conditions I have found that substituting medium dun for the original chartreuse throat can be very effective once the fish have seen some pressure.