Great Steelhead Flies: Do you Know any

SteelHead is great. Does anyone know of any great patterns besides copper johns and pheasant tail nymphs. If so please tell me the pattern and could you please give me the recipe in how to make the fly.

Thanks so much,

JWM

http://www.westfly.com/patterns/steelhe ... rain.shtml

poke around that site.

Brings up a question...a question like this...is it regional specific or even river specific...e.g. I don't think there are many of us that would use a Copper John or PTN for steelhead on the Deschutes or probably anywhere in the NW........OK so now somebody is going to say they do ...but I think there are regional differences....

Green Butt Skunk size-4 Lower Deschutes, Oregon.

http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php

search the fly gallery

Egg patterns, glo bugs and sucker spawn.

Duck, copper johns, PTNs, etc are staple steelhead patterns on some rivers in northern California, like the Trinity. I wonder if they are not used farther north because no one ever bothered to TRY them there, instead following the advice of anglers before them. I know when I was living in SW WA there were "accepted" patterns and anything outside of those were scoffed at, although I occasionally caught steel on them while trouting. My first steelhead (East Fork Lewis) was on a #14 dry mayfly.

As for the original post, there are entire books dedicated to steelhead flies, and any fly shop would probably have them, especially shops on or near steelie rivers in your area.

In terms of the steelhead I have caught, my most productive flies have been...

glo bugs
san juan worms
stonefly nymphs
mayfly nymphs
PMD and BWO dries
big hairy dries
black or olive streamers

Dennis

DG..I think you are very correct.

Gutbomb hit the nail on the head if you?re thinking of the Erie Tribs. Hard to go wrong with Egg and Spawn patterns. I like a variety of colors to match the conditions like, orange, pink, egg, white, off white, cream, light yellow, chartreuse, and even sky blue, etc. Smaller nymphs like BHPT, Princes, GRHR as well as a selection of wets can be effective also. Wooly buggers in olive, brown, white and black work also. Other times various streamer patterns can be very effective (emerald shiner, and other whites have worked well for me).

www.flyfishsteelhead.com/gr.htm
Grande Ronde River (eastern Oregon)

www.flyfishusa.com/flies/stlddw-4.htm
Bomber dry fly
Waller Waker, Bee dry fly

Many yrs ago, while trout fishing on the Clackamas River, a 7 lb steelhead rose to the surface and took my Orange Bucktail Caddis dry fly. It was one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. That steelhead took my fly so gently that I didn't realize it was a steelhead until the fish turned and showed it's white belly and then my heart almost stopped. Luckily the river was shallow in the middle and I chased after it downstream and finally landed it. (3 lb leader)

I think flyfishers that use dry flies for steelhead are thinking outside the box.
Doug