I need to tie some flies for salmon fishing this fall, i have done google searches and searched on here, but i still dont have a clue what to tie. What would be a good set of flies to cover most situations. I fish a small river with fast and slow flows. The river runs into Little Traverse Bay, northern lower penninsula. Mostly catch king salmon with a few pinks. Water is usually low with a few exceptions when it rains. Any pictures of flies and their recipes would help greatly.
CD
CD,
I haven’t fly fished for salmon, so I can’t help you with a list of flies. However, whenever I go to a new place to fish or fish for a different species, I contact a local fly shop or two and just ask them. I will always buy a few flies to support their business, and then I use those flies as examples, to tie my own. Good luck and Best Regards…
Try this:
http://www.mojoflies.com/
I fished Lake Ontario tribs a few years ago and kept it simple - egg flies, egg-sucking leeches, and small (#12) stonefly nymphs all caught fish. Have fun, hope you catch a bunch.
Regards,
Scott
ps - take Joel’s advice and contact some local shops
I like to use marabou flies for salmon. One favorite is Jack Gartsides’ soft hackle streamer. I believe it is in the fly of the week archives. I have found no advantage to one color over another so i have settled on bright colored flies that are easier for me to follow in the water. I don’t weight the streamers but use split shot a couple of feet above the fly. I think marabou flies should move as freely as possible to take full advantage of their inherent liveliness. I have also just had a request to tie some #6 stoneflies for the upcoming salmon run from a new aquaintence who fishes the same water I do so I may have to try a few myself.
Thats the main problem, i dont have a local fly shop and the closest one is about 2 hours away. I have been tying egg flies and egg sucking leeches, but was wanting to try something else, so maybe i will have to try the stonefly nymph. Thanks
Bunny flies, egg-sucking leeches in Pink and chartruese, purple & black wooly-buggers…really hard to beat.
CD,
Do the fly shops that are a couple of hours away have web sites? Drop them an email. They will be your best source of up to date information. Best Regards…
Cd,
All good suggestions so far. Although these aren’t true local fly shops for you, both have a presence on the web and both provide seasonal advice on flies for salmon. Both service fly fishers on the west side of Michigan in the lower penninsula. These aren’t sponsors here - the mods can delete if necessary.
www.fishbaldwin.com (Baldwin Bait and Tackle)
www.schmidtoutfitters.com (Schmidt Outfitters - Ray Schmidt)
Phishtales
Here in Iceland Red Frances is one of the deadliest flies for Atlantic Salmon (ok, not strictly for King Salmon, but it looks like a prawn from the sea…).
Red thred
White and brown hen feathers for “feelers”
Light brown hen for palmering
Red wool in body
Gold for ribs
Pheasant tail for tail.
Shape it like a carrot
If you try it, tell me about the outcome.
Thorarinn
I can’t say I’ve ever gone for salmon, but when I hit the erie tribs for steelhead, I carry 2 boxes. Box 1 is all eggs. Glo bugs, sucker spawn, estaz eggs, etc. In colors ranging from white, cream, and peach, to fluorescent orange, hot pink, and chartreuse.
The other box has an assortment of woolly buggers (black, white olive), generic nymphs (PT, stone, prince), and streamers of a few different types.
These streamers are kind of an ever changing selection, though a simple fly of palmered marabou with some flash, in a variety of colors, will certainly get the job done. Zonkers are another easy addition (carry white, black, and purple)
This year, I’ll be trying out a selection of spey and dee inspired flies, hairwings, and slip-wing wets, though I can’t personally vouch for them yet.
I use the buggers and zonkers and egg flies regularly, but i want to try hairwings and wet flies. What are some good pattern books that wont break a fifteen year olds bank.
CD,
Go to this site and have a look around. If you click on their classic salmon flies link you will be able to see some pretty up close pictures of their salmon flies. Just copy them as best you can from the picture. That’s what I did when I was fishing the Pierre Marquette for salmon up there in Michigan. It worked for me!
Just a note, the best fly I found was one that was called a sloats tail. Really, any black streamer with silver ribbing worked pretty well. I never had much luck on the classic ‘wet’ flies, but I did try a few. That black streamer really worked well for me though. Purple was a good color too. Most of the flies were bucktail of different colors with a few colored feathers for the hackle.
http://www.graysofkilsyth.com/salmon_flies.htm
TT.
You don’t need a book, just look around online for inspiration. What kind of hairwings do you want to tie? Classics? If so, most of the materials arent terribly expensive.
You’ll need:
Flat mylar tinsel, small
Oval Tinsel in silver and gold, small
Floss (like danville 4 strand, or uni-floss), variety of colors, including red, orange, black, and green
Squirrel Tails, Gray and Fox
Hackle, something webby. I’d say its worth getting something like a whiting American cape in grizzly, maybe a smaller hen neck in black, and then just buy a bag of the cheap strung neck hackle if you need any other particular color (red, yellow, orange, etc).
Feel free to make substitutions: yellow hackle fibers can replace golden pheasant crest in a tail, jungle cock eyes can be omitted outright, you could use metal wire instead of oval tinsel for a rib (though that will affect the overall look somewhat)…
Hooks…no sense in getting carried away early, just go with a 3X long streamer hook, size 2-8. If you like the style and want to tie more, they always look great on the upeye salmon hooks. Mustad 36890 are probably the most cost-reasonable ones I’ve come across.
Do you have a Half Price Books in your area? The one’s here (Indianapolis) all carry a fair assortment of tying books and all for less than half price. I’ve also noticed that some of the fly tying books are coming out in Kindle editions but the images don’t appear to be of the best quality. (You can get a free Kindle reader from Amazon for your PC, and other smart devices.)
I think I found some patterns online and I tied some up. I had to substitue thread for floss in a few places, and bucktail for black squirrel tail but it still looked fishable. I will post pics and let you know how they work after tonight. I have alot of the materials and hooks for these flies because that is what I like tying and fly fished the most for so when I got all my materials I made sure I had some for salmon and steelhead. I will be getting some floss and hopefully a hen cape in grizzly and black. I have most of the strung hackle colors mentioned except yellow and will be getting one of those too. Thanks for the help
This is a pattern that I tied up for a few guys that fish the Onatrio tributaries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7fuuFf82WU
You want fly patterns for Salmon Fishing, there are tons of them either in Ron Lucas Sr. & Friends, Just Old Flies and stuff, and in Fly Of The Week. Still working on fly patterns in other sections, mostly in the “Features” articles. Currently I am converting all the “Panfish” articles into PDF format for transfer to either CD mailing, or to email attachments.
Email me at parnelli@comcast.net and I will burn a CD of almost all for the Fly Patterns have run on FAOL over the past 13 years. I even have the FOTW with a “Category” section as well as a “Fly Tyer’s” section. I also have the Fly Tying Directory found on FAOL that explain what each fly tying term means.
No money is accepted, just pay forward! ~Parnelli