Sea run cutthroat with a fly rod?

[mlw]

I went to Jay's sea run class, it was great.
I'll second the Borden Special recommendation - for those who may be interested, Bob Borden started Hareline Dubbin, the nations premier fly tying material supplier, located right down the street here in Monroe, Oregon (strictly wholesale only - I would love to go get a tour, but I gather that such things don't happen.
In general, you want to cast them toward the bank, shadow or structure, and strip them back slowly, or perhaps quickly. results may vary
Here are a couple sea run cutt flies I tied a few months ago, a rolled muddler (U.V. Chewee Skin body, yellow-chartruese grizzly hackle tips), and a spruce fly variation, also with a U.V. Chewee Skin body. I used regular brown furnace hackle and wing, it is also or often tied with silver badger hackle, which I have been looking for.



Michael

 

[bigsteel]

mlw,i really like that spruce variant,,excellent work

 

[FishFinger]

is a muddler minnow a dry? i use to have one and it looked like a floating fly to me but idk.

Muddlers are sub surface, often used to imitate sculpins and small bait fish

 

[halibuthitman]

 

[brandon4455]

those are nice brad thanks for sharing

 

[mlw]

I/ll second that, well rounded batch of sea run flies - they all look good.

 

[Yohan]

hmmmmm... purple peril for SRC huh? Never would have thought, but I can see it. I'm gonna have to try that. I love that fly for steelhead (also tied in kingfisher blue)!

Ever try a popper?

 

[halibuthitman]

never used a popper, have used deerhair mice on the ugashik and they worked alright, the peril is one of those flies that should be up on the shelf with the woolybuggers, prince nymph, black ant, and stimulator... it just works everywhere on everything.. swing one on the big D and you will see what Im talking about, Ive even caught 2 lake trout on one behind a flasher in california... all of the steelhead sunrise variants work on just about anything as well.

 

[GDBrown]

This thread has been very educational and is stimulating more interest on my part for trying to swing flies. I have never fished this way and have wondered how deep is the fly while being swung and if it is deep how do you get it down there? I've always been a dry fly guy (trout only) and I'm learning to fish nymphs this year and would like to do more fly-fishing and less bait-fishing. I see you guys post about catching steelhead on flies and I would like to be able to do that.

GD

 

[halibuthitman]

ok.. so here we go,...... beads, as soon as a salmon spawns in the river... beads, I have caught more dolly's and sea runs with beads than anything else, so heres a quick overview of matching the hatch with bead selection, at the end is a cream and salmon articulating bunny leech... for when the salmon begin to die... you switch to this flesh fly... then back to more traditional flies the rest of the year. my set-up lacks the corki strike indicator, should be adjusted for depth same as the shot, using a peg-it, or toothpick if your rollin old school, red hooks really increase your hook-up ratio-also included a shot of the bugger varitaion I created.. been killen em- good luck

 

[brandon4455]

i see your new creation is in the mix.. did you ever test it out on steelhead?

 

[halibuthitman]

ive lost 2 unidentified fish in bigcreek on it... and have caught about 25 fish on it in A.K... reds seem to love it-

 

[brandon4455]

ive lost 2 unidentified fish in bigcreek on it... and have caught about 25 fish on it in A.K... reds seem to love it-

tyeah,i saw that on your blog. it's a beast looking fly it must be pretty cool to catch fish ont somthing you designed

 

[Yohan]

You have to be a very patient person to swing for winter steelhead. It is fairly difficult and not the most efficient way to catch them on the fly. Me personally, swing for summers and nymph for winters. Anyways, to swing you'll need a floating line with interchangable sink tips (or a full sinking line). A 12' type III sink tip would probably be a good all around winter steelhead tip, but I'd recommend having a couple different sink rates in different lengths. What you want to do is cast straight across river or quarter down river, make ONE mend and let er go. The mistake I kept making when I was learning how to swing is making too many adjustments (mends) when the fly was suppose to be swinging. As far as how deep the fly is when swinging is multifactorial (sink tip rate, fly weight, speed of curent, etc.) and only experince can answer that. The best thing to do is go to the library and check out a fly-fishing steelhead book and then go try it out, but if you want to CATCH winters, instead of just fishing for them on the swing, I would peg a bead or nymph egg patterns. Anyways, I'll add to this later I gotta go...

 

[n8r1]

I'm resurrecting an old thread here, but are there any particular tides that work best when targeting sea-runs in the estuary? High? Low? Incoming? Outgoing?

 

[n8r1]

I'm resurrecting an old thread here, but are there any particular tides that work best when targeting sea-runs in the estuary? High? Low? Incoming? Outgoing?

I think that I may have found the answer to my own question. Here's some info for anyone else interested:

Tide levels can play an important role in determining whether or not an angler will be successful in catching searun cutthroat trout on a given day or not.

A swift incoming or outgoing tide is often crucial to success when fishing for searun cutthroat. A moving tide tends to move baitfish and shrimp, and provide opportunistic feeders like the searun cutthroat with the perfect opportunity for a meal.

When reading a tide table, choose a day to fish when the low or high tide coincides with the early morning or late evening. Generally speaking, large tide swings are good because it gets the current flowing and helps move food around.

Even when in the saltwater, searun cutthroat like to hide around structure and obstacles and ambush prey as the tide brings it by them. An early morning on an overcast day an hour after high tide may be the perfect opportunity to cast for searuns.

If fishing an estuary area, or where the river flows into the salt, an incoming tide can help bring searun cutthroat into the estuary mouth to feed on crustaceans and baitfish. These can be great times to stalk bluebacks across the sand flats and around structure at river mouths.

 

[troutdude]

That's some GREAT information. Thank you!