FS Digest

I just started fly fishing in august, I caught my first steelhead on conventional spinning tackle yesterday but i’m ready to catch one via fly. I have a 8wt fly rod and reel combo. I’ve been trying a Indy rig with a strike indicator and a egg pattern and a wooly bugger. but i need some more tips on what i gotta do to increase my chances of catching some steelhead on the fly. so let me know any tips or hacks or anything that will help me. open to all ideas. thanks

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by Speedy3572

FS Digest

For starters, fishing with strike indicators and eggs often mean you are drifting it below the surface of the water. You want this drift to be completely dead(no movement from anything besides the current of the river) and you begin this river upstream and watch as your line comes downstream to you and and past until it has no more line. At that point, flick it back upstream and repeat. The tricky part is keeping your fly from getting stuck on the bottom and keeping it from riding too high, this is simply figured out with trial and error with weights

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by Ryanloughney19

FS Digest

cant you hold your drift back a bit to have the bait kick out forward ahead of your weight and indicators?

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by Goldkenshin

FS Digest

You will have to mend your floating line to keep it tight with the indicator so you have a good hookset. Also, if you are using a woolly bugger, a few twitches during the sift wouldn’t hurt but always try dead drift a couple times before this so u don’t spook fish

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by Ryanloughney19

FS Digest

Good advice above.

I'd like to add. Try a rubber legs vs the bugger and downsizing eggs never hurts. If your state allows 3 hooks put 2 eggs under the rubber legs.


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by SpreadNSpit

FixorFish Loc: SW Oregon

Since all 5 of the above posts have no indication of where they live (come on, guys...go to your profile and at least add a state, better yet, a city...we can't begin to guess..27k members on here) I can only help with a PNW tip.
Not unlike mentioned above, rubber legged foam critter IS my indicator, usually a#10or#12, with a dropper of an egg fly (that I sometimes add some scent (oil or water-based ProCure.... cheating ? IDK) or a San Juan Worm, sometimes beaded.....or my all-time favorite, an egg-sucking bunny leech in black or purple. A friend tied up some ESBL's with small beadhead integrated into the fly....gets it down. I have even used those same leech flies under a bobber.
Steelhead in Oregon may be finicky, but on occasion, I make this setup work to success !

I have to caveat the above, now that I think about it.... I'm not sure if I have ever used this setup for WINTER STEELHEAD (we have 2 runs in Oregon), but more for fall-fishing for the last of the summers. Maybe go with the multiple egg thing. Same fellow ties some killer egg flies with wispy white "skein tissue" that moves.... they work.
Good luck and let us know where you are, might get better advice.

craig42 Loc: Petaluma, ca

A winter steelhead on a fly is called a fish of a thousand casts here in Northern California. Put a slow moving fly on their nose. I find water that I could swing a fly and keep it just off the bottom without snagging. Generally this is water 3-6 feet in a laminar flow moving slowly, I adjust my cast across or slightly up stream to cover as much water as possible. The last quarter of the swing is when your presenting good and is where the take will happen. They often follow and grab when the fly stops directly down stream of you. It's all about presenting.......Steelhead like to eat many different bugs. My confidence fly is a General Practitioner named for our early doctors that were so deadly.

StlhdSlayer Loc: Portland, Oregon

Merry Christmas. I’ve been hucking flies towards steelhead for about 35 years. I’ve used just about every fly known to man to try and entice them. That being said, I’ve found that I have my best success with an egg pattern (size 8) followed by a small nymph (size 12). Typically 2 small BB 18” above the egg, all under an indicator. I use a corkie pegged with a toothpick all the way up to the fly line. Hope this helps. If looking for more tips, send me a PM and I’ll send some more tips. Good luck and tight lines