My interest grows stronger everyday for fishing streamers. I’d like to know what kind of setup you streamer fishers use?
I have the DVD by Kelly Galloup on fishing for trophy trout. He uses a full sinking line under his name made by Tinney. He uses huge flies though. About 5"-6" long.
I’ve got that part down, but am curiou about using smaller streamers like the Wooly Bugger in smaller sizes. What line do you use? Floating, sink tip, or full sink? What about the leader?
Frankly I don’t use different tackle for streamers than I do for anything else. Ideally, a 7-weight would be the perfect line for streamer fishing. But since I am not fishing streamers exclusively, I will use whatever rod/line I happen to be using for my other flies, which is usually a 4 or 5 weight. The further you go down from a 7-weight, the less pleasureable it is to cast a streamer. But they can still be cast regardless and the cast presentation is less critical than with say a dry fly.
I fish streamers quite a bit. They work very well on my home waters (spring creeks), but I don’t find I have nearly as much success with them in freestone streams. When fishing streamers, I will usually work downstream. I can let the streamer drift down into spots that would be impossible to cast to. I just use regular floating lines.
I use streamers quite a bit if there isn’t any hatch coming off and I don’t feel like nymphing.
I don’t really change anything as far as set-up goes. Althought I’ll sometimes put a thicker leader on.
I usually just cast at about a 45 degree angle downstream against the bank and let the streamer swing below me. I’ll twitch the rod tip every now-and-then just to give it a little action. I also let it just hang there in the current for a while sometimes too. You can also strip it back upstream if you want to. I’ll make one or two casts, take a step downstream, and repeat.
I forgot to mention that I use the same WF floating line I use for all my trout fishing. If I want the streamer to get down a bit further I’ll lengthen my leader a little, but I usually don’t change anything.
For my steelheading, I use 8wt floating line, 9 foot flourocarbon 3x leader, 3’to 4’ of 6lb flourocarbon tippet and swing them through my pool area. I fish either with a micro shot or a bead head wolley bugger.
as I’m entering the end of my swing, I short strep and raise the rod tip, allowing the fly to rise.
I fish streamers quite a bit, usually in a tandem setup with a smaller dropper (either a wet or a pupa imitation - favorite is the Sparkle Pupa) off the bend of the streamer. These are not big streamers, size 6-10 3X long hook.
Sometimes the fish take only the streamer, sometimes they take only the pupa, sometimes it is 50-50.
I fish them on a 6wt rod, with a WF floating line and a sink leader.
Six weight rod with a floating line with a level 6-8 ft leader and depending on the situation any where from one to three streamers along the leader is my usual setup but things change with changing conditions. The floating line is much more versatile when dealing with current. Sinking lines are okay but can not be picked up and mended like a floating line can to keep any bows of sags out of you line and let your fly sink as it travels with the current. When fishing current a sinking line will just come up in the water column because of drag on it. Swinging, dead drifting, and grease lining are great ways to fish streamers besides just down and across. Sometimes fast stripping will work sometimes not. Sometimes fish will only hit it on the swing and sometimes they will only hit if the streamer is grease lined so it will swim across the river only showing its broadside to the fish. In standing water you are kind of limited to just stripping and sinking lines will be effective in getting your fly deep.
So many techniques and variables, good luck. Now I am going to see if I can get myself a December Striper tonight.
I’ve read so many opinions on leaders. Kelly uses 3ft leaders of 12" 20lb and the rest 12lb. Sometimes all 20lb. Others use 2x or 3x. It seems in streamer fishing you aren’t concerned with presentation, so why do you need a tapered leader? Wouldn’t a straight 6ft leader turn over a heavy streamer? Even if it didn’t turn it completely over. Would it matter? You’re not looking for a drag free drift. You’ll just strip in the slack in the leader, or the currant will do it for you.
Presentation is important you just don’t need a fancy leader to do it. You can still use wet fly, npmph, and dry fly techniques with streamers with heavier leaders to get good presentations it just doesn’t matter that your streamer just moved an inch while you mended your line like it would matter while trying to fish a dry fly. When I fish streamers the leader is the last item that I think about being a factor. I think that leader length is more important than its taper, not to say taper is not important at all. A longer leader will give the streamer a better range of motion than a short one. A thinner leader will sink faster than a thick one.
I now primarily fish saltwater and my leader of choice is 18" of 30 lb test braided mono to 5-6 ft of 30lb hard mono for my tippet/leader. I have used that same leader in fresh water and had no problem with spooking fish with it.
It seems that general rule of thumb is to use shorter leaders on sinking lines and longer leaders on floating lines due to the fact that you want the streamer to be more in line with the sinking line so the fly will swim near the lines depth and less in line with the floating line so the fly will sink a bit.
Had the opportunity to fish with a guide who wrote the book on streamers with Kelly Galloup. Bob Linesman from Mio, MI. Had a eight hour float with two of us below Mio in the trophy water on the Ausable River.
Some of the things I learned were:
Certain times of the year are best, April May, August and September.
Cloudy days and slightly off color water are good. We had sprinkles, wind, and very good conditions.
We used full sink lines with 3-5 ft. 12-20 lb leaders with no taper.
6-7 wt 9-9.6 ft rods.
Large streamers, try different colors to see what is working. Tan, White, Yellow, Cream, Olive. We used coneheads, articulated, and muddler styles. Think rattlesnakes, Bow river buggers, marabou muddlers, zonkers, madonnas.
Bring your arm strength, I cast more in an afternoon than the other 40 times I fished the Ausable this year. :shock:
Cast, strip, strip, strip, twitch the rod tip for action as you retrieve.
It was sight fishing with fish chasing like bass after a plug. Don’t slow down when they come after it, speed up! This is tough to learn if you are a dry fly guy.
This method moves and catches a huge number of LARGE TROUT. Conservatively, my partner and I had 100 strikes or follows, boated a number of 12-18" fish and lost or missed a couple of honest 20+++ inch fish. One was easily 24. Snapped 12 lb leader (don’t mess with the drag after the guide sets it) in the first run. :x
Downside…My shoulder still isn’t right, and my buddys elbow still hurts. Bob told us he has clients that have taught themselves to cast with both hands so they can keep up the pace of casting for 5 or six hours. Not for the faint of heart! After an hour I had to take a break every few casts because your form goes out the window with fatigue. I would not have believed the number of huge fish that attack or follow the fly however. Have to strike back HARD!!! Raising the fly rod will not set the hook. Gotta whack them like on the Bassmasters. Very different than I imagined even after reading the book.
Overall, I would do it again, I won’t try to cast as hard and will rest and alternate with a partner. I have tied 4 dozen new streamers for April.
Pete,if I remember correctly Kelly G. also was rather specifically targeting trophy fish esp. browns…depending on where you are headed you might have to scale down a little…streamer size e.g.
Pretty much what the DVD said. Your guide was in the DVD too. I wondered about how hard it was to cast that style. Is the full sink line heavy, or the combo with such big flies?
I guess when I think of streamer fishing. I’m thinking more of using Wolly Buggers on lighter lines. I’m content with 12"-16" trout. I don’t need to catch the lunkers Kelly goes after. I don’t think the Arkansas River has any lunkers. From what i’ve been told anyway.
Lines and rods aren’t heavy, but casting that much is fatiguing very quickly. Need a fairly still rod to strike and fight a large fish. Gotta have some backbone to strike back. The force require to drive a #4 or #6 hook into the hard jaw of a bigger fish is fairly substantial. I missed three or four that inhaled the streamer in the first 30 minutes because I didn’t lean into them when I struck. Not a gentle motion or lift, but whacking them!
Extremely exciting, but different for me as I generally wade and fish smaller dries. Both my buddy and I were dumbfounded by the recklessness some of the fish exibited in attacking the streamers. Incidentally, Bob Linesman taught us more in that trip than I have ever learned from a guide, and we fish with a guide every year once or twice to learn or relearn things about the river and the fish. Not a negative on the other guides we have fished with because they are great and very informative always.
I have been fishing the AuSable since I was five, and flyfishing it since I was eight, and every guide trip I learn a bunch, but this was exceptional. My father for years insisted that the majority of big trout are predators that eat nothing but fish. He caught some huge browns over the years with #2 muddlers worked downstream into log jams. Twitch and drop back until it hit the logs or hung up. He would lose a couple dozen flys for each fish hooked. But any one he hooked was always a nice fish. Bob certainly reinforced that belief on the trip.
I’m worried that the local rivers around Buena Vista won’t work that well with Kelly’s style. That’s why I was going to back off to small streamers like the Bugger. I’m using the same rod Kelly uses so at least I got that right.
I had a friend show me a technique he called “dip and strip”. He cast downstream in a fast moving trough and then held the tip of his rod down into the river causing the current to take the line and the streamer to the bottom. Then strip, strip, strip. When you feel resistanse, stip hard to set the hook, then lift the rod out of the water. Works well.
Gary
