November 18th 2024
I sent out a text to the crew on Thursday: "Anyone want to fish tomorrow?" All I got back was "I wish, man" or "I'll be tied up with work". I'd be flying solo. I don't mind fishing from the boat by myself from time-to-time. It can be very meditative, and I'm able to explore different spots that we'd normally ignore. Usually I end up casting to a void, but sometimes you end up discovering new "ninja" spots that no one fishes. I digress...
I launched the boat at first light with nothing but two spey rods in the boat. We had just received a slight bump in flow, it was cloudy, and the water looked perfect. Everything felt right. I meticulously stepped my way through a long bend with a Halloween Leech, swinging both sides of the river. About an hour and a half later, I hadn't had a single grab. I was at the end of the run and made one last cast, but it was a poor one. I tucked the rod under my arm and started a two-handed burn so I could re-cast...then I came tight to something. I looked up to my fly and saw a fish rolling under the surface. Did I really just hook up on the strip? I got the fish on the reel, and brought it close to the boat. It was a Brown. A BIG Brown. Reminder, I'm by myself, and now I have to solo-net what could be the biggest brown of my life while holding a 13 foot spey rod in one hand and a net large enough to land a full-sized Musky in the other. After a couple of hairy moments, I candy-caned my rod and barely scooped the Trout, tail-first. It was 27 inches on the nose. I could have gone home happy, but I decided to switch to a heavier tip (8.5 ft of T14) and a Sculpin. That proved to be the ticket.
Early in the swing season, I was struggling to hook anything. I went several trips without a single grab. I started questioning everything I was doing. Was I fishing too deep? Too shallow? Was I mending too much? Or not enough? "This guy caught them on a fly with a lot of Sea Foam Green Flashabou, I better buy a pack of that". On this particular day, NONE of that seemed to matter. I could throw a terrible cast with some random, beat-up old Sculpin from my box and get bit. On two of the fish I hooked, I had my fly dangling behind the boat while I was texting on my phone.
This all goes to show that when swinging flies for Steelhead, you don't need to over-complicate it. It's all about covering water and finding the dumb fish that will eat any fly you put in front of it. Good friend of the shop and Spey Guru Rich Felber gave me the best advice: "If you wanna catch steelhead on the swing, leave the nymph rod at home and just keep swinging".
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We are finally getting the rain we've been needing and there are good numbers of fish in all the river systems. Folks are finding them on nymphs, eggs, and streamers. With water temps still in the 50's in some stretches, the swing bite is occasionally out-fishing the nymph/egg bite. For the Rogue/Grand, a floating skagit head and an SA Textured Tip in Sink 2/Sink 4 or Int/Sink 2 has been ideal for these flows. In deeper water, go with a floating skagit and a heavier tip. For indy fishing, eggs still remain the number one producer with Coho Salmon still lingering around. This year's run of fish has been FAR more impressive than last year's, so if you felt like you were struggling to find fish last year, you were not alone! Now's the time to get out while the weather is mild and the fishing is hot!
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We have got a few open dates for steelhead trips in the coming weeks. If you would like to get out give us a call at the shop (616-805-4393) or shoot us an email.