When approaching a trout stream, even those clear, easily spooked chalk streams, the fly you choose is based on sound, observational logic. You select the food item most likely to take the trout. If the water is covered in mayflies, you tie on something that approximates their appearance. Even if the water is blank, a good nymph or a juicy terrestrial presented in a lifelike manner will take fish. The trout angler, often armed with a knowledge of entomology sufficient to teach it at the college level, can almost always choose a fly that is logical. The trout eats stonefly nymphs, so I will choose a fly that imitates a stonefly nymph. I will work the fly in the water to the best of my ability to further imitate that stonefly nymph. If all goes well my fly will look and move like the real thing, thus inducing a strike.
Steelhead are far less cut and dried. Why steelhead take flies is one of the great mysteries of the natural world. Convincing an animal to put something in his mouth when he no longer has any interest in feeding seems like a fools errand, however it is precisely this unlikely venture that makes steelheading the great sport that it is. This begs the questions, what fly do you choose to make a fish eat that has no interest in eating? What is appetizing to the anorexic? That is obviously a facetious and silly question, but its a question the steelheader must ask himself on each and every trip to the river.
Roderick Haig-Brown thought the freshwater phase of the steelhead’s life plays a very important part. He tied his steelhead bee to represent the terrestrials he occasionally found in the stomachs of steelhead. No one can argue against the effectiveness of this dry fly. Other anglers have adapted this theory to nymph fishing and Kauffman Stones have accounted for their fair share of steelhead.
That’s not to say every good steelhead fly is based on the fish’s pre-migrant diet. The hallmark fly of Olympic peninsula steelheading, the Orange Heron, has the profile of a shrimp or prawn, and many a silver bodied streamer has no doubt fooled a steelhead by imitating a saltwater baitfish. The less glamourous side of steelheading plays on their fondness for eggs with cursed floats and red balls of yarn lashed to a hook and loosely called flies.
All these theories of fly selection and design are dashed violently against the rocks when a bright cerise bunny leech, resembling next to nothing in nature and certainly nothing in the steelheads diet, produces when fished through a pressured lie that turned up nothing the dozens of times before.
When all is said and done there are two things that matter in a steelhead fly. First that it is a color and profile that the steelhead can see, and second that it wiggles in such a way that the fish can’t resist and though he knows full well that no nourishment will come from it, he eats it. The former attributes are a much more important topic of discussion as you always need more of the latter. You want movement, all the time. More is better with movement. As for color and profile, brighter and bigger is not always better.
First, let’s talk about color. Much has been written on how water affects color. It is true that red is filtered before all other colors in blue water, and that colors can be drastically changed underwater. For most of my fishing, the fish isn’t going to be more than 10 feet from the fly, and colors are as they are from that distance. When it comes to color I am mostly concerned with brightness. I separate colors into three categories: Red/Orange/Yellow, Blue/Green, and Black/Purple.
Red, Orange and Yellow colors are the brightest and I usually reserve them for glacial waters or tea stained waters, though I fish some form of orange no matter what for two reasons. Firstly because the most important insects in our area, Salmonflies and October Caddis, have orange in them, and secondly because fish in their spawning phase tend to have a certain affinity or responsiveness to orange, whether this has to do with changes in the rods and cones of their eyes or simply because that is the color of salmon eggs is of no consequence. I tie flies with four colors from this category: Claret, Lemon Yellow, Orange, and Bright Cherry.
Blue and Green colors are of middling brightness, and I like to think of them as long distance colors. They are my go-to shades in clear water or in the bright sun. Green plays an important part in my fly selection if I am close to the ocean because the fish’s eyes are more sensitive to green when fresh from the sea. I tie flies with four colors from this category: Olive, Highlander Green, Chartreuse, and Kingfisher Blue
Black and Purple are the darkest colors, and I think of these as silhouette colors and employ them in turbid water. Purple has also proved to be the most productive color in low light. I only use the two base shades in most of my flies.
These are by know means hard and fast rules, and I break them frequently. I fish Bill Mcmillan’s winter’s hope in both clear and greenish water, and I frequently fish Syd Glasso patterns in all conditions just for the heck of it.
The next consideration is silhouette. The main goal here being to give the fish a fly that is big enough to be seen but not so big as to be frightening. This can get tricky in low summer flows, and downright impossible in the torrents of winter. I separate silhouettes into three categories, once again: Spider type flies, Winged flies, and Full Silhouettes.
For Spider type flies I have three “levels”. In low summer flows simple soft hackles are the ticket. In middling water I like spiders with duck flank like the classic Gosling or Doug Rose’s Widgeon girl. In full spade I reach for the cliche choice in a Marabou Spider. The same level system applies to all the silhouettes. For my winged flies I have Low Water style(the Blue Charm), typical dress(Winter’s Hope), and spey style. For Full Silhouettes I have Buggers, Comets, and Intruders.
When I approach a run I am looking to fish it in three phases, offering a different silhouette each pass through. I always throw in a color that doesn’t belong, say and Orange fly in clear water or a silhouette in a glacial run, and I always include a key color, Green if near the ocean, Purple if fishing lowlight, and Orange every time else. For example, in a clear summer run I might start with a Partridge and Orange, follow with a Blue Charm, and finish up with an Olive Angora Bugger. In this same run, turned green by spring run off and in the low light of morning, I might start with a Gosling, follow with a Winter’s Hope and finish with a red comet. In a similar run inflated by the rains of December and set closer to the sea, I would lead with a Purple Marabou Spider, Follow with a Green Highlander Spey, and finish with a Black Intruder.
This may all be folly, I’ve caught steelhead on a purple peril in the middle of bright sunlight in crystal clear water. The main thing is that it seems to work at least a little bit and anything that puts a few more fish on the end of the line and keeps my mind busy between bites is more than worthwhile. What may be a nuisance is my addition of classic patterns and patterns tied by writers and friends. I fish Glasso’s and old english patterns to connect with my angling lineage, and I fish Haig-Brown, Mcmillan, and Rose patterns to connect with my literary lineage. I fish my friend Jeremy’s patterns and classics like the General Practitioner even though they fit no silhouette category of mine.
This is all just bloating of my ego and a direct result of too much vice time. I believe I would catch the the same amount of fish with only the simple flies, but that would rob so much of the sport from me. I have to be honest with myself and say that if catching steelhead where my only goal in this venture, every cast just a means to an end, I would not have a fly rod in my hands. I wouldn’t be casting a Gray and Orange, but instead a gob of eggs and pencil lead. For me each cast is an experience, and each fish an opportunity rather than a goal. When a steelhead takes a gypsy I feel connected with my recently deceased springer spaniel, when I rise a fish to a widgeon girl I pay homage to Doug’s lab, Lily. When I hook a fish on a Gray and Orange I walk the steps of Syd Glasso and when a steelhead eats a perfectly presented Blue Charm I am transported to the 18th century on the river Tay. These are as much a goal of my fishing as catching a fish is. As my dad always says, if it were only about hauling in fish, they would call it catching and we’d all be commercial fisherman.
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