4 Proven Ways To Effectively Fish A Streamer
Every angler wants to catch a trophy trout and there’s no better way than fishing a streamer.
While it’s fair to say that there is no “wrong way” to fish a streamer, there are some proven techniques which will help make that trophy dream a reality. Presenting big, heavy flies to the largest fish in the river brings with it a whole new set of challenges, including a new way of thinking about presentation. Your presentation is no longer passive, but active, and it is the action of your fly which must excite the predatory instincts of the fish. In the end, you will find your own style of fishing streamers but here are four techniques that have been proven to bring big fish to the net time after time.
Stripping the fly
This is what most anglers think of as streamer fishing. Tossing the fly to the upstream side of a likely lie and ripping it back. It’s exciting and visual and usually productive. It plays on the predatory instinct of large trout by imitating a fleeing baitfish. I favor the jerk-strip retrieve, popularized by Kelly Galloup. A very young Mr. Galloup demonstrates in this video.
https://youtu.be/Pr_SwnIx6bA
The speed of your retrieve is key. Have you ever made an impulsive purchase that you later regretted? Then you have some insight into the mind of the fish who eats a streamer. Like a bargain shopper, fish don’t like to miss an opportunity. Your fly must be a limited time offer. If the fish has too much time to inspect and think his decision through, he’ll decide to pass. On the other hand, no fish wants to engage in the pointless pursuit of a bullet train. Remember to think about the environment where the fish and fly meet. If the water is moving slowly, your fly should scorch off the bank sending the message that it’s now or never. If your fly is in fast moving water, it’s already moving quickly in relation to a holding trout. Slow your retrieve down and give the fly a twitching action like a wounded baitfish. Always remember, a predator takes what he wants. It’s your job to make him want the fly.
Swinging the fly
If we set aside for the moment, the argument over whether steelhead are trout, this is how I have caught my largest trout. If a 42-inch steelhead will grab a swung fly, you’d better believe a big brown trout will, too. I like to employ the swing when fish are following a stripped fly, but not taking it. I’ll size down my streamer and often drop a Soft Hackle 16-24 inches behind it. You will catch more small fish this way but you’ll catch the big ones too.
Swinging the fly is an effective way to reach fish holding in
Read More »The Scream Revisited
By Louis Cahill
There was something going on with Edvard Munch I never really understood, until now.
In art school, we were taught that the dark and often disturbing images created by Munch were born of mental illness and lost love. It wasn’t until decades later that I looked closely enough at the background of his iconic work “The Scream” to realize what was actually happening. I too know the pain of having my ass handed to me on the flats, only to see my buddy hook up with the fish of a lifetime, right at the dock. Who wouldn’t scream?
They might have been right about the mental illness. It’s the only explanation for fly fishing.
Read More »La Maraquita, a Streamer for Golden Dorado
The Maraquita streamer looks like one thing, casts like another.
The name is hilarious, if you speak Spanish. If you don’t, ask someone who does. I’ll give this much of a hint. It’s what they used to call Andy when his favorite fishing shirt was pink. La Maraquita looks like one thing but acts like another.
What makes this fly so effective is it’s bulky profile and it’s ability to shed water when cast. Built almost completely from schlappen, this fly weighs almost nothing. It makes accurate casting a breeze while pushing enough water to get the attention of a hungry dorado.
Pay close attention as Andy ties the fly. The secret is that all of the materials are tied in at the same spot, creating a huge thread dam for the palmered schlappen head to be built on. Look at the photo and you will see how large the head is next to a traditional hair head. It’s a brilliant design and it works.
WATCH THE VIDEO AND LEARN TO TIE LA MARAQUITA
Read More »Confessions of a Trout Guide
WHAT HAPPEN ON THE RIVE, STAYS ON THE RIVER…USUALLY.
So this time of year in Colorado, the rivers are blown, there is no one in town and all the guides are hanging around the shop bullshitting about their worst/best days on the water. It got me to thinking that I should tell some stories about the worst possible guide trips/situations that we’ve had on the water. Hopefully this does not reflect poorly on our guide services, but it will shed some light on what happens in the day-to-day life of a fishing guide. I know there are a ton of guides out there who will want to one-up me and please do, I love this stuff. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Guide #1 (me) was floating with a mom and her son. We were catching tons of fish and having a great time. The son was maybe 12-13 years old and was a stud fisherman aside from giving me a fantastic Hank Patterson “snap it!” cast. As we floated down the river, mom was snapping pictures left and right as son caught fish after fish. At one point we were back-rowing a riffle when all of a sudden mom jumps out of the boat and starts running through a knee deep run towards an island in the river. My first thought is “wow, she really had to pee,” my second thought is “this woman is trespassing, and we are going to be issued a ticket at the takeout.” Lost in all my jumbled thoughts is a calf elk stranded on the island. This woman took it upon herself to rescue this thing. Next thing I know
Read More »Cuda Up in My Grill
JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS I’M SUPER PROUD OF MY NEW SLIM AND TRIM STATUS.
Louis has been on me a while now to drop some serious LB’s. I’ve really been stacking them on from my wife’s fantastic cooking. He says there’s a reason he doesn’t take photos of me anymore, and I really can’t blame him 🙂
Unfortunately, I’ve not lost the weight in reality. I ran across these two photos from four years ago, fishing down in the Florida Keys with Capt. Joel Dickey. He guided me to this behemoth barracuda on the fly. To this date, it’s probably one of my most memorable saltwater moments I’ve experienced on the flats. The take and battle were epic, particularly since my arms were already complete jello from the prior twenty minutes of stripping hand over fist as fast my arms would go.
Numerous barracuda prior had given us promising chases but as they so often do, they let off the gas and lose interest at the last second. About the time I was ready to yell uncle, Joel shouted in his famous southern accent, “DUDE, look at that giant cuda at two 0’clock”. I some how managed to lay out a good cast, and I was about five strips into my retrieve when this guy hammered the fly and took off faster than I’ve ever witnessed a fish swim. That’s when the “shit hit the fan”.
Read More »Don’t Ride the Brakes During Your Fly Casting
Are you finding that you’re lacking distance and falling short of your target with your fly casting?
Is your power and line speed insufficient? If the answer is yes, I bet you’re also getting a fair amount of tailing loops or dreaded wind knots aren’t you? Come on, be honest. There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of if you’re periodically falling into this category with your fly casting. Believe me when I say, you’re not at all alone. I see it regularly on the water guiding, and most of the time anglers struggling with these problems usually are only doing one thing wrong with their fly casting. Nine times out of ten, in this scenario, anglers are decelerating their fly rod during their forward cast, back cast, or even both, in some cases. What you need to be doing to fix this problem is smoothly accelerating your fly rod during your casting stroke, making sure you’re stopping the rod at it’s fastest point. This will allow your fly rod to distribute the energy loaded during your cast efficiently, and you’ll have plenty of power (line speed) to reach your targets.
DECELERATION DURING YOUR CASTING STROKE: SHORT STORY & CASE STUDY
This past fall I was fishing big attractor dry flies with a client of mine. There were plenty of big fish willing to rise to our offerings, but to get them to eat, we had to stay far back and make long casts to them. Otherwise they’d spot us and spook. My client, a capable fly fisherman with strengths in short presentations and roll casts, developed a weakness for distance, when a head wind picked up. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the distance needed to present his dry fly ahead of the fish. Several minutes we worked a prime piece of water that I knew had some eager fish looking up, but we got no takes. My client turned to me and said, “They must not like this fly pattern”. I replied, “You may be right man”, and I handed him the nymph rig and pointed upstream to our next fishing spot. But what I really wanting to say is, “No, the fly pattern is good, you’re just not getting the fly anywhere close to your target”.
There are times when the best thing you can do guiding is to go along with your clients and not voice the complete truth. Now it’s important to understand that I had already explained to him a couple different times, that the problem he was having is that he was slowing down his fly rod to a stop during his casting stroke, and it was sucking his power and distance out of his cast. If I would
Read More »Playground Earth Relay Episode #3 – Fly Fishing Owyhee River
Louis and I are proud to showcase with all of you today Episode #3 of the Playground Earth All-Terrain Relay sponsored by BFGoodrich, which documents an epic off-roading and fly fishing adventure to the Owyhee River in Oregon for trophy brown trout.
We couldn’t be happier with the final cut and we hope all of you thoroughly enjoy watching the brilliant work created by Camp 4 Collective. First, we’d like to thank BFGoodrich and The Martin Agency who believed in us and allowed us to participate in this once in a life-time opportunity. We’d also like to thank Camp 4 Collective for making us look top notch and Rob Parkins, our Lead Location Scout, who put in countless hours of his time to make sure our relay was a success. We couldn’t have pulled it off without these great partners.
Read More »Fill Flash For Cooler Photos
WHEN SHOOTING IN NATURAL LIGHT YOU CAN OFTEN CREATE DRAMATIC AND BEAUTIFUL EFFECTS WITH FILL FLASH.
If you have a dedicated flash for your camera, it can be pretty easy. Here’s how to start. Most DSLR cameras have a flash output adjustment. It allows you to turn up and down the flash power in thirds of stops: -.3 being one-third stop darker than a normal exposure, – 1 being a full stop darker. There is a similar adjustment for ambient light exposure. If you’re not sure how to set these functions check you manual. For a nice natural fill flash look, set your flash in TTL mode and start with a setting of +1 for ambient exposure and -2 for flash exposure. Check the results on the view screen and adjust up for a brighter image or down for a darker image. Experiment and see how the image changes. Your first
Read More »Use Side Pressure To Avoid Breaking Off On Snags
You’ve got a big fish on and it’s making a screaming run straight for a big snag on the far bank. What should you do to decrease your chances of breaking off?
Your best bet is to apply low side pressure with your rod while keeping a perpendicular position between you and the fish at all times. Doing so you can put twice as much pressure on the fish than you normally can when your fly rod is in the overhead fighting position. Secondly, it’s much easier for you to steer the fish’s head and turn its direction using low side pressure. Always follow the fish up and down the river during the fight. The closer you stay to the fish the more leverage and power you can apply to steer and control the fish. Lastly, don’t tighten down on the fish trying to stop its run towards a snag, because nine times out of ten you’ll end up breaking the fish off. The harder you pull on a big fish the harder it generally going to pull back. If you find playing the fish aggressively makes the fish fight harder
Read More »Take the Time to Research Your Boat Ramps
It’s really easy to get excited about a last minute trip when your buddy calls and says the fish are biting, and then not take the time to research the logistics of where you’re going to be fishing. Much of the time things work out in the end when we’re doing what we love, but every now and then, no matter how hard you try to make things right, you’re bound to get screwed. That was the case for us during our final day of our recent musky trip with our good friend Charlie Murphy in West Virginia. Due to poor water conditions, we had to go with a Plan B and change our fishing location the final day of our trip. Charlie had taken a friends word that we could launch our boat at the designated spot with no problem. Unfortunately, his acquaintance thought we were launching a drift boat, not a john boat, and that turned out to be and impossible task, without the aid of a cheap pvc roller and a 20 foot section of rope. Now, I’m known for being able to back up a truck and trailer with the best of them and until this day, I was batting a 1000%. So much for my perfect batting average of backing up, because this midget boat ramp put it to me. I tried like hell, but it just wouldn’t fit.
If we would have had the time in our plans to drive by and look at the boat ramp prior to our fishing we could have saved a wasted trip by getting the equipment needed or headed back to our first spot where the musky fishing was super hot. We had nailed them the first couple days but the musky weren’t monsters. Let me give some advice to those that are willing to take it.
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