Certainly I am not the first person to have tied up such a fly to chase steelhead. The first time I saw this sort of design was this winter on Vancouver Island. My usual fishing buddy had some hot orange metal tube flies with an orange marabou tail that he was heaving out into heavy
flows. This fly gets down and dirty in a hurry. After seeing some successful hook-ups on some sulky winter steel I decided it was an irresistible pattern and hit the bench.
I was looking to find a way around using expensive weighted tube fly bodies yet still create a fly that was aerodynamic and sinks well without a heavy tip. Of course dumbbell eyes have been around for a while, but I was looking for an even cheaper solution.
My prototype involved pink lazer wrap and a marabou tail. It did not sink nearly as well as I had hoped despite being tied on a #2 heavy iron, but on a small local stream, a 14 inch cutthroat decided it was edible. After that successful test, I decided two things first, this was a pattern worth exploring more, and second, I needed to find a way to add more weight. I did not relish the first solutions that came to mind. Wrapping heavy lead wire would take too long at the bench, and I was nearly out of lead wire any way. Metal beads are relatively expensive and did not give enough weight unless I was willing to consider some truly large beads which would not look proportional on the fly. Rummaging around in one of my goodie bags I found a chunk of lead tape that I had picked up a few years ago Perfect!
From there I tied up another pink one, as well as an orange one. The first steelhead to fall to this pattern went for the orange one. The weather had been clear but below zero for several days, and a snow storm was on its way bringing slightly warmer temperatures, but more importantly cloud cover. The day the storm hit it seemed like the stars were aligning for a great steelhead day. It was a few days after the full moon, there was a big high tide early that morning and the water level was still slowly falling, but still quite above the one meter mark at the gauge.
I headed out with mitts and toque, prepared for some weather. Snow was falling hard when I reached the long run that I had been frequenting for the past month. I tied on the orange one and gave it a flop up stream to watch how fast it sank. It went down easily, so I decided that I likely did not even need a sink tip today. I switched over to a long mono leader and worked out some line. The fly had three layers of lead tape on a #2 hook, but despite that mass, it was easy enough to cast with only a 360 grain skandi floating head.
The run was gentle and even, probably just over eight feet deep on the far shore with large cobbles and boulders. And so the rhythm began cast, step, swing, cast, step, swing. No dice. Step by step, I now stood mid-stream in water just below my waist. Placing casts against the far shore and swinging dead slow under the limbs of the cedars and across the main flow was the name of the game.
The snow was on and off, coating the cedars and alder in white. With the cold temperature, I figured it would be a slow day. The water was so cold it hurt my fingers to handle my running line. I made a few more half hearted casts, tickled a rock with my fly, checked its sharpness, then figured Id bring out the camera to take some pictures of the snow. So I made another cast, flipped a large mend up stream, stripped off a couple more pulls of line and turned to face up stream with my rod under my arm facing back down stream.
I have no idea how long I let the fly dangle in the current, probably five minutes or more. However long it was, I had enough time to snap off a dozen pictures, watched a bald eagle land on the snag of an old Douglas fir that leaned out over the pool up stream, and then replace my camera to the inside pocket of my vest which was under a layer of wool plus my rain coat. I had just touched my hand to the cork of my rod when I got a suspicious tug. By the time I was half turned, and still with only one hand on the bottom grip of my rod, my reel was screaming. The first run was nothing compared to the second. I was glad that I had 200m of gelspun to back me up against what was a salt-fresh 36 inch buck. Success! Back to the bench to tie up a few more.
Round two to testing took place a few weeks later on the Stamp-Somass system. The river had been low and clear for the past week and this day featured torrential rain that felt more like hail at times. At least it was not freezing. With the rising water I decided to go with a 500 grain mid-belly line and a ten foot sink tip. Did some dead drift presentations through some pocket water on the way down to the first pool. Managed to catch a rock, but it got away. Tied on a fresh fly, this time in pink, and headed to the small gravel bar which gave a good casting angle to the narrow tailout.
The first few casts caught the swirling upwelling currents which pulsated from the depths of the pool. Finally I got my timing right between pulses and plopped my fly within a foot of the far bank. It was just one of those casts that deserved a fish a typical swing through the tailout with the take at the bottom of the swing, and the fish did the rest. A few minutes later a nice wild doe was at my feet.
So, back to the bench yet again to tie up a few more.
Materials:
Tail Polar bear under golden pheasant tips
Weight Lead tape
Rear Hackles - Marabou under guinea fowl
Body Holographic tinsel under lazer wrap
Tying instructions:
1 Cut your polar bear hair and remove the fluffy under coat, then roughly even out the tips before tying in. Over top, add some golden pheasant tips.
2 Trim strips of lead tape and layer them over the hook shank. Secure with several wraps of thread.
3 The marabou can be as sparse or as full as you like. I prefer only 2-3 wraps. Then I add 1 wrap of guinea fowl.
4 Tie in your lazer wrap, then cover the entire body with holographic tinsel.
5 Tightly wind the lazer wrap and secure snugly with lots of thread and build up a solid head and thats it. You can always spice things up by adding some flash in the tail.
Now that the winter season is pretty much over, I guess it's time to yet again hit the bench and refill the box.
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