River Streamers

[Fly Goddess]

Okay, I use wooly buggers, zonkers, muddlers, etc in stillwater, but I Know they kick on rivers also. When I fish rivers I usually use a dry/dropper or indicator and two nymphs.
Around here several of the fellow FF use streamers, but I have yet to try it. I would think that I would probably do the cross/drift/strip tech, but, what do you all use and how?

I have use streamers on the bigger rivers of Idaho, but not here in the rocky mountains, due to the fact I use either a 2wt to 4wt and either bamboo or glass, plus the full flex graphites. I like to feel the take.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Goddess,

I pretty much use a standard across and down, swing and strip style myself. I may do a mend or two to get the fly down, but once the line starts to swing, the fly is going to rise anyway.

Most takes come on the swing or on the dangle (always let the fly stay on the dangle for a few seconds before stripping). The rest of the heavy strikes are on the first couple of short strips in.

When the takes is on a tight line, there is no missing it. 4 wgt boo took a nice 16 inch cutt in Idaho with a muddler. (shhh, that's between you and me)

REE

[DShock]

Goddess,
I don't know you can get from this info, but when I flyfished for steelhead with a Guide. He hammered on me the whole day to MEND my line so the fly was downstream ahead of the line.
There was no stripping involved, except to recover the fly. I was told to drift the fly into holding areas. I envisioned that the fly was to dangle on the steelhead's nose and it would strike.
Unfortunately the theory wasn't proven since I didn't get a bump all day.
In my opinion the Muddler Minnow is one of the most famous flies of all time. It is unique because of the deer head and very lean body. It looks simple but I never learned to tie it. The variations on the Muddler are amazing.
Doug

[Tracy]

I use the swing mentioned by Ron as well as stripping, and let the fish tell me which technique to stay with. If I'm stripping, I'll vary the speed and timing. (ex: strip, strip, strip, pause, strip, pause,...; or a simple fast, static strip) If I get a bump while stripping fast, I switch to a slower strip and pause or swing technique.

Fast stripping can be very effective. But I've also seen trout hit the tail of my streamer while I was stripping it, yet not hook themselves. I try to stop the retrieve when that happens to see if the trout will take the streamer as it drifts. When this happens, I switch to a slower strip and pause, or swing technique.

Another technique is to give your streamer a little action while it swings by raising and lowering your rod tip a little, or stripping a few inches of line.

Hope this helps,
Tracy

[Eric D]

The answers above are good but give this a try- use a sink tip or full sinking line, you'll be surprised how many more strikes you'll get . It will get the fly down. And from my experience bigger fish will see the fly.
I used my sink tip a lot this year. I caught a lot of trout and they averaged larger than I had before.

[Sawkill]

Eric,
What weight is your sink tip?

Bob ...

[Fly Goddess]

The answers above are good but give this a try- use a sink tip or full sinking line, you'll be surprised how many more strikes you'll get . It will get the fly down. And from my experience bigger fish will see the fly.
I used my sink tip a lot this year. I caught a lot of trout and they averaged larger than I had before.

Thanks, I do use a TYPE II on rivers (I prefer the full sink, but that is just me)
I also have a streamer line that is 15' of sink tip with floating following. I agree, gets you down there, and I don't weight many of my flies, other that the bead heads.

[Jim Flamming]

Get yourself a copy of Kelly Galloup and Bob Linsenman's book "Streamer Fishing for Trophy Trout". Kelly also did a DVD on the book which sells through FlyFish TV. Good stuff.

[LadyFisher]

Part of the 'secret' in Kelly's book is how the fly is retreived. Especially true on big flies, retrieve them fast - as if it is a bait fish discovering it is in the wrong place and needs to get out of there fast. There are a large group of folks who believe big flies = big fish.

[Fly Goddess]

Part of the 'secret' in Kelly's book is how the fly is retreived. Especially true on big flies, retrieve them fast - as if it is a bait fish discovering it is in the wrong place and needs to get out of there fast. There are a large group of folks who believe big flies = big fish.

For the most part that would be me, but the big ones this summer where indeed caught on smaller (size 12 and smaller) flies and during the winter I have no trouble with size 32's and good size fish, but I will stress, I never go smaller than 6X tippet.