True Fly-Fishing for Salmon and Steelhead?

I love to fly fish, the process of delivering a virtually weightless fly with a weighted line is fascinating to me. I enjoy casting and the process involved catching fish on a fly. This does not include chucking and ducking. While I believe Chuck and Duck has it’s place in Michigan fly fishing, (namely getting flies deep quickly in some of our short deep runs), it lacks the skill and therefore the satisfaction derived from making a fly cast and hooking up with your targeted fish. I believe that Chuck and Duck techniques have also kept us from learning new flies and methods to catch our anadromous (salmon and steelhead) species. We have come dependant on a method that, while it is fishing with flies, it isn’t fly fishing.

I’m happy to report that this seems to be changing. A number of guides have been trying to find ways to catch salmon and steelhead actually fly fishing and specifically with streamers. As I‘ve written before I have had some success catching steelhead on streamers. You can read my article on steelhead on streamers by clicking here.

Our Head Guide, Jon Ray, has been chasing salmon on streamers for most of July and August and has some very exciting results. Below is a fly that has produced some exciting hits, it’s called a Chunky Monkey. Jon Ray took my daughter Casey and I a few days ago and in three hours we rolled 15 Kings, hooked 4 and landed none. It was a blast, at one point I had what looked like a 40 inch fish chase my fly, it was way cool. This recent action plus the positive results we had with salmon last fall leads us to believe that we can take anglers fly fishing for salmon and steelhead and have a reasonable chance of success.

The basic equipment needed for salmon is a 10 or 11 weight fast action rod like my T-3 , nine foot 10 weight. Load a 350-400 grain sink tip on a large arbor reel (the Orvis Mach V Reel will work) and your ready(see my article describing the technique for casting heavy sink tips by clicking here). We have had a lot of success on chartreuse and white and orange and white flies that have a lot of action. Many of the anglers trying to get hook-ups on streamers with Kings are using plastic lips and cones to get the streamer to move in the water more. As I write this Jon and I are in Sault St Marie fishing the Garden River we have had some action on yellow streamers for Pinks.

We will continue to search for flies and methods that produce results on salmon, steelhead and Lake-Run Brown Trout without the use of excessive weight. The satisfaction when you get a hook-up using streamers or strike indicator nymphing is well worth the effort needed to learn the techniques. Though many casual anglers may wish to continue to chuck and duck, I hear from many of you that you want to use more traditional fly casting methods. If you have an interest in learning how to chase these fish using fly fishing techniques let us know. We would be happy to teach you. Just give us a call 231-228-7135 or send me an email chuck@hawkinsflyfishing.com

Hawk