Fly Fishing

Steelhead are a fly fisherman's fish. But depending on locality, some of the fly-fishing methods used for steelhead would make an ancient dry fly purist turn in his grave. It's a rare day when steelhead will rise to a dry fly, even when they're summer-run steelhead in a western river.

Most steelheading with flies means getting the fly down deep on the bottom where steelhead are. Sinking-tip lines are sufficient for moderate depths and currents, but steelheaders often revert to using heavy sinking shooting heads, lead-core shooting heads, weighted flies, and even splitshot to dredge the bottom for steelhead.

Around the Great Lakes, fly lines are often dispensed with altogether. The fly is simply strip-cast using monofilament and splitshot or wraparound lead to make it sink. In small streams this is all you need. Even spinning tackle can be used to fish with flies, but on larger rivers where you need to really reach out to fish, shooting heads are more practical.

Fly rods for steelhead range from number eight to 11 weights, in lengths of eight to ten feet. As with other tackle, it's a case of matching the outfit to river conditions.

The array of flies that will take steelhead is much too large to mention here. But they fall into streamer patterns, nymphs, and wets. Some popular West Coast patterns are the Comets, Kykomish Sunrise, Demons, and several shrimp imitations -- often highly colored flies. Around the Great Lakes, I've also taken fish on Skunk marabous, woolly worms, Spring's Wigglers, and various forms of yarn flies. Yarn streamers are easily made and are drifted like spawn. You don't necessarily need fly-fishing tackle to use yarn flies.

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