Oncorhynchus mykiss,
The highly sought after game fish of North Western United states, the popularity of catching steelhead has risen to the for front in western angling, how you catch them will always be controversial. I have been using a Spey rod since 1990 and it dramatically increased my SENSE of catch ability, I say sense because it actually did not catch me more BUT I could fish it more, then came the higher catch rate, I definitely like to catch them more on the Spey rod than any other method!.
Now since I started nymphing steelhead on the fly rod I found that catching them in high percentages was better for the psyche and later found that my clients liked it MUCH better as well. Imagine that, paying to go steelheading and expecting to catch them, what a concept; it actually may have pissed off some of the guides and anglers that did not catch so many steelhead.
To this day I see many steelheaders’s that use the Spey as a tool to cast to the other side of the river or to throw300 grain heads and not as a tool to fish the water they stand in. The Spey rod has born a revival in swing fishing for steelhead like no other tool since High Speed Hi-D from Sci. Anglers.
What is not remembered or learned so much in the first few years or 10, of using the 14 ft tool is how to fish the swing, our fly fishing forefathers learned how to fish the swing out of necessity, but in the slow days for steelhead fly fishing 1970-1986 (the drift fishing era) it had been forgotten. Now armed with the POWER of the Spey, the shoot first maybe land a dumb one later approach, runs rampant! I know of very, very few anglers ( I do know a lot of anglers) that actually can go into a river with a good run of steelhead in it and catch one entirely on skill and technique. I do however know that by combining yesterdays approach to swing angling with today’s swing tool an angler can be pretty dam good at catching swung fish as a daily routine.
Teaching the old school methods take time, much more time than teaching new methods, old school methods are acquired from time with the line under tension wile swinging the fly, having a rod the caster is used to handling helps dramatically.
Fortunately for the other 95% of the self taught week- end anglers there desired subject will at times go berserk and attack shit just out of meanness.
This is one of the reasons steelhead are the coolest fish in fresh water. One of the best swing anglers I know Vern Olsen once told me he’s fishing for the ones that eat it with HATRED and he has found a lot of them.
Now since being a fishing guide I could not be happy taking MONEY for a job that was so often left unrewarded, I approached steelhead fishing from a new angle. Back when the upper Hoh River on the Olympic Peninsula finally went to catch and release and No Bait is when I decided I would take this love of steelhead to the next level. I started guiding clients for steelhead and we did not always use the swing. I discovered that even though all I had ever done was fly fish for steelhead on the swing, I did not get the feeling that clients where satisfied with a couple grabs or a few Dolly on an average day. I really know that I wasn’t, I simply felt I owed them more, they needed to see the fish, feel the fish on the line at a much higher percentage of the time, they needed to handle this great fish and get that feeling of total content, that the world is great again and life is good. I wanted them to see and feel as I did about the steelhead, that there beauty and power was respectable and obtainable.
The first day I tried nymphing for steelhead I did not really know how to even nymph for Trout let alone steelhead. I did know I felt dirty about it what I did not know was how great it was to be dirty! My convictions told me it was disrespectful to the fish, come to find out those where other peoples inherited convictions through the mystic of publications.
My upbringing as a very young steelheader was either bait or swing the fly, bait when we went plunking due to dirty water then swinging when we could. Pure bait during the competitive years,(82-88) buddy fishing, taught me where the steelhead lived and when. Swinging the fly with my grandfather taught me exactly that, how to swing old school. Swinging the fly religiously again after I felt I had caught my share drift fishing ’88- 96.
Now I was venturing into new waters so to speak and it was a complete turn around in success from just swinging all those hours for the grab or a really good day four steelhead.
So there I am sitting in the upper Hoh with an 8wt and a dry line, twist on lead and orange yarn on a hook, I have just landed my 8th steelhead and am all by myself and within sight of the boat launch. I cannot remember the last time I had done that even with bait, I was ecstatic about steelhead again, fact is more than ever. I still stuck with the swinging thing; I was making custom lines for Spey rods all the wile nymphing whenever I felt like; no one was watching or catching more than the one a day. I soon found myself nymphing a lot going to zipper lip rivers and streams with my old bait buddies and crushing them, the same ones that thought I was crazy for fly fishing steelhead at all. I soon fell out of the loop and went rogue, I was on my own no support team. All the while fencing the Spey angling tradition, hell I was selling a hundred lines a year on the side, custom sink tips and Spey Lines. Rio came out with some great lines and finally made a GOOD loop on them so it gave me an out, I could get off the extra work train of looping lines at night and just go catching.
I started guiding a lot more and really learned how to nymph trout on the Yakima while guiding it. So here I am over twelve years later and catching steelhead like it was 1985 while tossing sand shrimp. I have pretty much developed my style of angling that generally keeps me and my clients happy. The big runs have returned to nearly all the rivers, the stream etiquette is the best of any state. I am using the nymph rod just as another tool in the big game of it all even though many still feel it is a sin. (Guide hint) What some anglers don’t adhere to is the use of a tool that will get them the end results more often even if it to catch a swung fly steelhead every day.
So at year 2010 I am more compelled to not fish the nymph rod when I go angling myself, this has been creeping up on me, this feeling of had caught enough on one type or another just as in 1989 when the bait rod started its cobweb collection. My Spey rods have all been broken numerous times from cliental abuse and I feel that I owe them some love and affection this is my year the year I come full circle again in my never ending pursuit of the Steelhead it’s time to bring back old school swinging!
