A Steelhead Gathering

Got chrome?

A steelhead gathering was conceived in the Fall to spend a few days fishing with some friends whom I have not fished with in quite sometime. Ben had just switched jobs and didn't have to work a weekend for the first time in my living memory. My other buddy Dan moved to Miami last year to take up a job with the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and never got to truly use his first two hander for steelhead. Another friend Eric, fished with us last year with a single hand rod and left the river wondering "what if". Upon realizing he could come on this trip, he immediately dropped a $1,000 on a brand new spey rod, reel, and line. Joined by two new converts and Ben it was a swing or go home type of time...

Holiday Steel

A holiday well spent...

With Christmas in the rearview mirror, Adam and I escaped north to swing for some steelhead. We were intent on landing some silver before ringing in the New Year. Over the course of three days, we experienced several types of weather but all resulted in some fish...

The Fish of 2014

Stripers...

2014 was another fine year for TRIW and our friends. A lot of nice fish were caught and some of them were downright beautiful. The year brought big time stripers with Tyler Nonn of Tidewater Charters, cobia with Kyle Sawyer and Ben Sheppard, tigerfish on the Zambezi, and Adam's first year guiding in Alaska. I held down the home front with the typical trout, carp, steelhead routine. If you happened to fish with us this past year, thanks for all the memories and cheers to 2015!

Enjoy...

My 2014 Alaska Guide Season: The Aftershock

© Barry & Cathy Beck (http://www.barryandcathybeck.com/)

As some of you know, I spent my summer guiding and fishing at Reel Action Fly Fishing's Alaska Lodge located on the Kanektok River. I had an incredible time and I'm looking forward to the 2015 season. Since being back, I wanted my first post to be a special one... So instead of sifting through thousands of photos from Alaska I thought I would start with the photos I began taking  within moments of stepping off the plane...

Players

Colors of GL steel...

With the thought of several fishless days on my mind, I eagerly anticipated a day when everything would come together. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long because of an extended weekend. Adam had a few days off from guiding and we were able to reconvene for our first steelhead action together in almost a year. The last time we swung the river together, it produced one of our best days of fishing. This particular trip did not disappoint and we were able to find quite a few willing participants...

The Stinger Missile Fly

Steel on the stinger missile...

During a winter storm in 2009, I concocted a fly for one of my first sessions ever swinging for steelhead. It is heavily influenced by John Barr's Slumpbuster, but is much larger and has a few key differences. At the time, I was learning on a switch rod with a 510 Airflo Skagit Compact and I was tying and throwing some seriously heavy stuff. Needless to say, it was not pretty. On a late November outing, Adam and I did really well for ourselves. My fly was able to pick up my first ever fish on a legit two hander setup. The brown pictured below crushed it in a very fast section of water and I was hooked. The fly became my "go to" pattern for the next few years as I learned the ways of the skagit. I started calling it the "stinger missile," and it accounted for most of the steelhead from the Salmon River in my early days of swinging flies. 

The fly needs to be fished with a heavier skagit setup with proper technique because of the weight of the cone head and how waterlogged the rabbit gets. The larger the fly is, the slower it will sink because of the rabbit strip. You can also decrease the speed with which the fly sinks by using a magnum bunny strip for the tail or bunny bou for the body. This will increase buoyancy. Using a regular rabbit strip and crosscut, the fly will sink like a rock. Therefore, it needs to be fished in deeper pools and fast pocket water. I prefer to fish it broadside with some speed. The profile entices some vicious strikes to aggressive fish.

Good luck.

Money in the Bank

A Mid-November Winter Wonderland

A planned retreat brought my girlfriend and I to the shores of Lake Ontario. We met up with some friends to stay at a lakehouse and fish the Salmon River for a few days. Faced with the first lake effect snows and plunging polar temperatures we had our work cut out for us, but our trials and tribulations were money in the bank for future steelhead trips…

Lifeline

First of the season...

Super high expectations always tend to be quickly disappointing. Such was the case with the beginning of my steelhead season. The steelhead gods were not too kind to me and they made me wait and truly work for my first fish this Fall...

Getting into the Swing of Things...

Amped would be an understatement. Winter and my last swings for lake run salmonids seemed like a distant memory but the thought of hooking into a chrome steelhead fueled a few weeks worth of anticipation and the straight five hour drive north. The icing on the cake was easily the autumnal peak that surrounded us around every inch of river...

Rhea Steelhead Muddler

For steel...

Over the years, the flies in my steelhead arsenal have gotten progressively smaller and I fish them in the middle to upper column. For the Salmon River, I've settled on flies in the 2-3 inch range as my preferred size because thats where I've had the most success. With that in mind, I am always tinkering at the vice with new patterns. This is one I am confident will produce this fall and winter. A little twist on a classic I'll call the Rhea Steelhead Muddler...

Stopgap

I've been jonesing to go to the Great Lakes tributaries to swing for some lake run fish for the past few weeks. Thankfully, I was able to resist going up for some salmon and my bank account officially thanked me for it. However, there was an empty hole inside of me that needed to be filled with something, anything to stave off the yearning for my first steelhead of the year...

Two Saturdays in September

River carpin...

Summer has a way of flying by, even for the teachers that don't have to work. My two months went by so fast, that I neglected a favorite river of mine and the many carp that call it home. Technically, my summer was over by the time I got to fish this body of water but I was able to eek out two Saturday outings with my girlfriend and her Australian cattle dog mix, Zoey. Fly fishing for carp from a SUP with your girlfriend and her lovely dog is not the best scenario, but I made it work nonetheless...

The Maryland Unicorn

Fly fishing offers an excellent case study in intermittent reinforcement. Your next cast might connect you with The One and at some level you always expect it to. But that only ever happens once if you're lucky. It's for the same reason that we cast and expect that causes some poor people to check their phones, email, Facebook or whatever hundreds of times a day. Sometimes there is a ping, but most of the time there isn't. Occasionally something awesome pops up, and that's more than enough to keep us coming back.

A Fly Rod's Greatest Hits

In memoriam...

The favorite fly rod I have ever owned recently met an untimely end. In a bit of nostalgia, I went back into the archive to relive my Loop AEG 696-4's greatest hits...

Thoughts on Fly Fishing for Carp

McTage's Trouser Worm

This summer afforded me plenty of opportunity to fly fish for carp. In recent years, that hasn't exactly been the case because of travel, weddings, and family gatherings. For the first time, I got to explore some local haunts in July and August. I've come away with several thoughts that have been ruminating in my mind over the years on carp, techniques, and gear...