Three Reasons Why Dry Fly Steelheaders Fail:

Dries catch big fish too!

The number one reason that steelheaders don’t catch fish on dries is that they fail to tie them on in the first place. The second reason they fail is that when they do tie them on, they lack the needed confidence to fish them hard. Your typical angler will fish a tip for days without a pull but never question the act of fishing a wet fly and tip. That same angler might fish one or two fishless runs with a dry and switch back to wet in hopes of being more effective. Then, by giving the tip and the wet fly more time in the water, they fulfill the prophecy and make fishing the wet fly seemingly more effective. The third reason is bound up in preconceptions about water temperatures.  Some anglers draw the line at 50 degrees, others at 45 but all these lines are arbitrary, unfounded and misleading. Likewise, many anglers who fish in BC seem to think that come October 1^st that steelhead no longer eat dries! I laugh aloud at that one.

Pom Skater one of the most effective dries.

Last season I fished the Sustut and Skeena in mid October through the heart of a brutal cold snap. Water temps were dropping hard but when we came to a legendary tailout on the Skeena, I couldn’t bear to see it fished through first with a tip. It just seemed wrong. So, being a gentleman, I volunteered to fish it through first with the dry. My companions were happy to oblige. The ice had just melted out of the guides minute before and the water temp was 36 degrees.  They watched me gently chug my go to Pom Skater across the greasy water for three casts and on the fourth we all saw the buck’s big nose gently rise and drop, barley leaving ring. And while those were far from the best dry fly conditions of the season, it proved to be my best fish of the season. The one thing I can say with some certainty is that if I hadn’t tied the dry on and fished it with confidence, I never would have caught the fish pictured on a dry!

~ Kenny Morrish

PS:  If you want to fish with Kenny I believe he still has some spots available on the trips he is hosting in BC this season.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 6:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized and the tags Advice Canada Dry Fly Flies Photo Rainbows Signature Tier Steelhead Technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.