Streamers Tv Download
Tina Popielarczyk
Hitting the river with big flies, heavy rods, and sink tips - the streamer junkie chases moments not numbers. Our range of flies ensures that boxes can be filled with confidence flies that run the gamut of articulation to micro streamers. All of which are designed to elicit strikes from trophy trout on down.
For the streamer game to work, we need weight in the system. Streamers are a subsurface tactic, so somewhere on the rig or in the fly, we add tungsten, brass or lead to get the fly through the surface and down to the fish.
In fact, all fishing casts are about weight. With conventional tackle, the weight of the lure, bait, bobber or split shot pulls line off the spool and sails to the target. But in fly fishing, the casting weight comes from the fly line itself. Understand, fly line was designed to cast light or wind resistant flies. And it weighs enough to push those light flies to a target.
With the Mono Rig, we can stay tight to the streamer after the cast, we can dead drift it with precision for the first five feet, keeping all the leader off the water. Then we might activate the streamer with some jigs and pops for the next ten feet of the drift. And for the last twenty feet, as the streamer finishes out below and across from us, we may drop the leader to the water and employ long strips. All these options are open.
Like everything else in fly fishing, staying close is the easiest way to learn the game. At short range, you can get the timing down. You learn to feel the tug of the streamers on the rod tip. You learn to keep the tip loaded and fire the flies to the target. Stay close. Get the streamer out there, get it down in the water, and then activate it.
Often, I like to fish what I call a crossover technique (a mix of nymphing and streamer fishing). I cast mostly upstream and dead drift the streamer for a few feet. Then I lead it faster or jig it slightly before letting it dead drift again. Sometimes I finish out the drift with a swing, but just as often I pick it up when the flies are across from me and cast them upstream to the next piece of structure.
So, use small arcs and rod loops in the casts for short distance too. At the end of the drift, pick up the fly and keep the rod tip flexed throughout the casting motion. A short arc upstream is all that is necessary.
Send the rig forty or fifty feet up and across some pocket water, then work the flies back on a tight line through every nook and cranny in the current seams. The precise control over angles, depth and direction is what fly fishing dreams are made of.
After stripping the line in, let the streamer dangle about five feet below the rod tip. Now hold the rod to the side. Rock the flies back and forth a little. Then flip the streamer to the target with the rod tip, letting the weight of the streamer pull the extra line through the rod guides and feeding it with your line hand. It can be done with an underhand or overhand motion. And variations of this can send the streamers fifty feet or more.
Many streamer strategies use the belly of a fly line in the water as part of the technique. A downstream curve is formed in the fly line, pulling the leader and streamer along a curved path, hopefully imitating a baitfish. The same can be done with the Mono Rig. 20# monofilament does belly in the current if you let it. Nylon floats. But you have more control over the belly in a Mono Rig versus a fly line.
The setup cast keeps you in control on the river. It allows for repositioning and redirecting the line, leader and fly to the next target. The setup cast gives you a chance to regroup and rethink, too. It keeps you in rhythm by keeping you out of trouble and lending new options to an active angler.
This is great stuff! I totally agree about finding something versatile that you can adapt to solving the puzzle of fishing a run well, and throwing strikes in front of the fish. I tried your mono rig for the first time yesterday and was astonished at how much water i could cover well. Question, I have been swinging flies for steelhead using a OPST commando head with their Lazar running line. I am wondering if the Lazar line alone might work well for the butt section for a nymphing setup. Thoughts? -Steve in Olympia, WA
I wonder if you could add a little bit of additional information about how you set up the cannonball. How big a piece of T 11 do you use? Does it go above the sighter? How do you tie it in to the mono rig?
I used T11 and made tips ranging from 6 inches in length to 30 inches. I swapped them out with loops. I placed them after the butt section in the Mono Rig, so no sighter. I then went straight 2x to the streamers, or I went with a short piece of 0X and then 2X.
Hey Domenick,
As others have stated, You offer such a fresh perspective on fly fishing and trout in general, I am learning so much just from reading your blog.
Ive been wondering lately, Do you think that on certain streams, guys that use rapalas and spinners have an advantage as far as getting reaction from fish? There are a couple rivers around here (northern wisconsin/UP) that guys end up doing real well for big fish that are holed up in tight cover by using spin gear, while myself and other fly guys end up getting frustrated. Ive recently considered fishing these streams with conventional gear. I tie all my own flies and my own leaders ect, and i havent picked up a spinning rod in years since i got into fly fishing.. somehow i feel like it would be a sin.. I would love to target these fish with streamers but i just dont think anything out there has the same effect as a blue fox or a mepps or a rapala.
any thoughts?
Dom, with your description of flipping streamers instead of a roll cast, when you are dangling the streamers before flipping are they in contact with the water or hanging from the rod? (water borne load or just the weight of the flies?
I agree with your all points. I almost always fish small mountain freestones where the features of the stream change every 20 feet and a double digit inch fish is a trophy. To be honest, I am fishing nymphs 90% of the time with a dry or streamer (small, size 10) the other 10%. If I use a modular rig it ends in only a foot of 2x mono, which, when I nymph is held above the water (i.e. I still only have one diameter of tippet underwater). With tiny fish and tiny streamers 3 or 4x fluoro is plenty and casting is easy.
That being said, your method of carrying 1 fly rod but multiple tenkara rods pre-rigged so everything is ready to go, is very interesting. I know very little about tenkara so I was wondering how/where the pre-rigged dry fly is stored on/with the tenkara rods? Where and how you carry the 3 tenkara rods while fishing (in a backpack?) And whether it would be possible to further reduce the 3 tenkara rods down to just 1? Thanks.
Love the article and the concept, but I have an unrelated question about a photo above. It looks like the two nymphs wrapped on the Loon rigging foam have a tippet ring attached directly to the nymph hook. Am I seeing that correctly? If so, how and why did you rig it that way?
Kelly Galloup has been in the fly fishing industry for over 40 years, and is best known for his contributions to modern streamer fishing. The selection of fly fish streamers before you represents decades worth of research and development by Kelly and his staff in order to bring you some of the most productive streamer patterns of all time. From the original Zoo Cougar to the Triple Dungeon, we carry every commercially available Kelly Galloup fly pattern and maintain a massive inventory of streamers for sale throughout the year.
Riffles possess a high concentration of trout food, which in turn can attract larger trout during certain periods of time. The oxygen-rich environment attracts bug life, which in turn attracts smaller fish, such as sculpins, minnows, chubs, dace, trout, and other species. For me, streamer fishing the riffles is a hit-or-miss proposition. Because larger fish are light sensitive at least in many of the pressured waters I fish my success rate increases when I fish during low-light periods. Dawn and dusk, a rain or snow event, or even a cloudy day can get larger trout feeding in the riffles. Larger trout are attracted to the feeding grounds of larger prey, which also feed on insects during lower light periods. I have noticed this time and time again when using a flashlight to illuminate a riffle while night-fishing. The riffles come to life with insects feeding on plant matter, smaller fish feeding on the insects, and larger trout feeding on the small fish.
The floating line lying on the faster currents creates tension on the streamer and pulls the pattern downstream. Second, the drag created by the downstream belly (tension loop) helps create more tension during the hook set. Often, the tension created by the tension loop is all the pressure needed to set the hook. You can manipulate the size of the loop to increase or decrease the speed of your streamer retrieve. The larger the loop, the larger the increase in the speed of your retrieve. A smaller loop (created by an upstream mend) creates less surface tension and will slow down the speed of your streamer retrieve. Again, this is assuming we're dealing with a floating line, not a sinking-tip or full-sinking line. Remember, faster currents lie on the surface, and a sinking fly line will sink below those currents, which will result in less tension. A tension loop will also form when fishing a sinking tip or a full-sinker, but the degree of tension is less when compared to a floating line because the sunken section is positioned in the slower currents below the surface.
Fishing streamers in a down-and-across position is easier because of the immediate tension that is created by placing the fly downstream of your position. Upstream streamer fishing, on the other hand, is similar to tightline nymphing you need to retrieve line fast enough to stay in touch with your drift. For a dead drift, you need to retrieve the line at approximately the same speed as the fly is drifting toward you. If you want to move your fly faster than the current, then you need to retrieve faster than the speed of the drift. This is where shooting through an O-ring is an absolute must. Shooting through an O-ring allows you to maintain control of the fly line. I learned this important lesson in line control while listening to a Lefty Kreh lecture in my early twenties. Lefty said that too often when shooting line during the presentation cast, anglers have a tendency to let go of the line. As a result, there's a delay in line control as you attempt to regain control of the line. In my case, this is because I'm often looking to where my fly landed, so I might completely miss grabbing onto the fly line to begin the retrieve. When fishing upstream in a riffle section, immediate line control is essential, because both the fly and line move downstream at a fast rate. If, for some reason, you let go of the line and cannot grab back onto it after the presentation, it's difficult to regain control.
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