Mainely Fishing and Feathers: Streamers

I fish for a lot of different species over the course of a season. Based on where I live the easiest access tends to be for stripers when they are around, as well as smallmouth and largemouth bass. Every year, I end up taking a at least one or two forays for steelhead, perhaps a few trips north for brook trout and landlocked salmon and more recently I've spent time for pike and am looking forward to trying my hand at musky in the coming season.

Because of all of the different species I target, I really need to tie a wide variety of flies. Tying for a destination trip is pretty easy. I know the time of year and basic techniques I'll be using, so it is a simple matter of accumulating enough of the go to patterns to ensure I've got something to tie on. It is really the local fishing that requires the most diversity and options, because I really don't know what I might be targeting with my next trip, or whether there will be hatches. Shouldn't be an issue, winters in Maine are long enough to tie up plenty of nymphs, emergers, dries...anything I could ever need.

Only there is one problem, for about the last 18 months, every time I sit down at the vice I have streamers swimming in my head. Some of this is certainly just a phase. It has been just a couple of years since I began targeting steelhead with a spey rod and for whatever reason I'm still not even able to look at a egg pattern. More than that, I've just got this recurring daydream of an oversized streamer pattern getting chomped by a fish intent on killing it, not just swallowing it if it happens down a feeding lane.

Most who fish streamers can call upon memories of giant shadows appearing behind the fly as it approached the rod tip. Occasionally one will even make a desperate final dash at the boat or shore, sensing the window on it's free lunch closing. Who knows how many times that scenario plays out away from us when the streamer swims by a predator in a bad mood. I just seem to be addicted to urgent strikes against a tight line these days.

Another thing I love about tying streamers right now is the amount of innovation going on out there. My favorite tyers in the game right now are streamer guys. Kelly Galloup is well known to anyone who is targeting the biggest trout in the river. I love his articulated patterns in particular like the Sex Dungeon and Boogie Man. There is no way I would consider a trip to Montana without an assortment of those patterns tied about twice as big as anything I would have used 5 years ago.

http://www.slideinn.com/blog/

Kevin Feenstra is an outstanding guide and designer of some amazing streamers for steelhead on Michigan's lower peninsula. I've been out to fish with him the past couple of years and have more confidence swinging his Acquatic Nuisances, Halloween Leeches and Thunder Chickens than anything else. Already looking forward to another trip next fall.

http://www.feenstraguideservice.com/index.html

Brad Bohen is another interesting guy out in Wisconsin. I went to a Thursday night tying group where Jeff was tying something called a Hang Time. It is a musky fly, that has some qualities that make it a really versatile fly for pike, bass and I'm sure other species as well. One thing I love about this fly is that you can tie it any size between 4" and 12", adding tandem hooks, anything you want. It also requires a ton of steps which is a unique opportunity. I often forget a step somewhere along the way and as a result, get a fly with a different profile or action. All of those steps also give great opportunities to experiment with color blending which we did all last year with some interesting and promising results. These flies suspend in the water and have great action without much movement. I absolutely love fishing them for bass and pike.

http://zero2hero-aftonangler.blogspot.com/

On the saltwater side Jonny King is adapting a bunch of patterns that I've used for years, but mixing natural and synthetic materials in a pretty cool way. The striper fishing has been so poor the last few years that it has been difficult to convince myself to deviate from bread and butter flies that I know are effective, but I've finally taken the plunge and begun tying some Kinky Muddlers, which won't be wasted as they should be excellent smallmouth bass flies as well.

Here are a few pictures of the streamers I've been tying over the last month or so. Keep in mind, I tie "fishing flies" so my apologies to the creators.

Kinky Muddlers: