For most of us, spring means warm weather and abundant hatches. From Pennsylvania to California, you'll start to see stoneflies, dark-toned mayflies, and caddis coming off. Spring offers so much action and plenty of thrills between seeing that first rise to watching that trout engulf your perfect presentation. But with so much buzz spring can demand a large variety of flies to choose from and the right tactics to present them — which is why we've prepared the top techniques for spring fly fishing and the best trout flies.
Everyone loves “meat” flies. I’m no exception -- I love swingin’ meat to t-rex sized fish.
When I first got into streamers, I loved the idea of going after those dino sized trout you can’t get with a 22 sized BWO. But now, let’s face it, it’s an addiction. Years ago, I never thought of using hinged streamers. In fact, I was just only introduced to the streamer life about 2 years ago by a good fishing friend.
For the sake of keeping his name private, let's call him John. John taught me the ins and outs of these beefy flies. I consider him to be a true streamer junkie. No, he didn’t live out of his van, but John is as dedicated as they come.
From what I can tell, a lot of new fly anglers have yet to try articulated streamers. Or at least they buy the streamer and it sits in the fly box as a collector's item. Instead of me ranting on about my best streamer tactics or techniques, I figure I’d let more experienced anglers tell you theirs.
I asked these streamer enthusiasts what their top 3 tips were for fishing streamers.
Here’s the question I asked:
“If you could only pass on 3 tips for fly fishing streamers, what would they be?” I received the following responses.
Tyler Tasci
1. Strip with the rod - it’s all about feel
2. Keep stripping - often times fish with half-ass it or just nip at it. If they don’t engulf it, don’t set! Keep stripping and they’ll come back to finish off their kill.
3. Strip to your feet - many fish will eat less than a couple of feet away from you, don’t stop stripping till the fly is at your feet.
Aaron Pryzbylski
1. Keep casting and keep moving. Cover a lot of water.
2. Vary your retrieve. Slow, fast, short, long, spazzy. Sometimes just let it swing.
3. Don’t be afraid to fish dirty water! Use a dark color fly and pound the banks!
Courtney Morris
1. When streamer fishing, make sure you have different weights of streamers.
2. Change your retrieve rate till you find what is working
3. Change flies for color as a last resort. I’d recommend changing flies only after you have tried the same fly fished with different retrieve styles.
TIPPET
Selecting tippet for streamers is much different than selecting for microscopic mayflies.
Bigger flies naturally require thicker tippet. Thankfully, using thicker tippet will not discourage shy fish from striking.
Look, fish can easily see tippet. But, large fish won’t bother to study what their meals are attached to. If they did, their lunch would get away. Do you typically see h-angry fish swim up and calmly eat a distressed minnow? No, that minnow gets slammed! That minnow’s lights get knocked out.
This aggressive behavior makes it easy to get away with thick tippets like 0x-3x. Plus, you are going to need these stronger tippets for what you are going to catch.
Thicker diameter tippet also helps with casting. See, streamers catch the wind when you’re shooting it through the air. This causes the fly to spin and twist the line.
Twisting in your line can cause weaknesses.
To combat this, you can three things.
One, use thicker tippet.
Two, tie a swivel into your leader. A swivel will prevent weaknesses and allow your line to spin freely.
Or three, shorten your leader. Less leader means less room for twisting. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways in addition to what I mentioned. But, these are some basic methods.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TROUT SET
I see this all the time.
A fish takes and the inexperienced angler shoots the rod up to set the hook. Then the streamer pops out of the mouth and they lose the fish.
Because the hooks are bigger than average trout flies, lifting your rod up to set the hook will make the hook point pull up and miss a secure area in the mouth.
There is one easy way to ensure a great set.
Streamer fishermen use a simple technique called a “strip set.” Basically, you let the line set the hook.
To strip set, point your rod at the fly and strip the line until it is tight. You’ll feel the line tighten as the fish pulls back.
Stripping the line allows your hook to set itself straight into the mouth.
It goes like this: strip, strip, strip, strip, *strike*, strip, fish on.
STRIPPING LIKE A MINNOW
Articulated streamers dart and swim just like the real thing.
But, you also have to make it act like the real thing.
While they strut their stuff, you have to make sure that they do it in the right direction.
Stripping towards fish can put them off. Baitfish don’t have the guts to swim directly towards larger trout, they flee. Large trout aren’t accustomed to pewny saplings attacking them so it may put them off the feed.
Make your streamer imitates a panicking baitfish or sculpin swimming away from the larger fish.
SWINGING MEAT
Swinging meat across currents is deadly. Many streamer junkies do this to cover a ton of water. Streamers swung down and across gives predators something to chase or, even, puts it in front of their face.
The basic technique is to cast out downstream 45° to the bank. Do a quick mend and follow your line as it completes its swing. Hold on tight because they don’t hit streamers lightly. You’ll fill the hard take and then do a quick strip set to make sure that thick hook is set properly.
PINCH YOUR BARBS
Big flies require bigger responsibility. I’ve seen many horror stories and have had many close calls, myself.
Whipping around heavy flies requires the right equipment and timing. A strong breeze can put your accuracy off and shoot your streamer into your back. For safety reasons, pinch your barb and have some sort of eye protection.
Not only that but makes it easier to take out for you and the fish. Although, there is a trick to barbless flies and that is to keep the pressure on. Any slack in your line will give them some wiggle room. But don’t beat yourself up if you lose a few without the barb, it’s natural.
CASTING
Smooth and steady. Changing directions abruptly is only going to whip the heavily weighted streamer right into your head.
Have a fluid motion to your back cast and forward cast. But watch your streamer as you cast. If you shoot your fly too soon, you will lose momentum, decrease your accuracy, and probably tangle your rod up in the line. If you shoot it too late, your fly is on the ground. We are always taught a tight loop is the ideal. Take that idea — and roundhouse kick it out the window.
In this case, with so much weight on the end of the line, you’re going to want to widen your loops. Widening your loops keeps your fly from running into your line and from hitting your rod (possible damages).
The trick is to drop your rod tip a little bit on your forward cast.
The Belgian cast is a great way to keep your streamer from away from your head and makes for more accurate casting.
Rarely do I hear fly anglers rave about soft hackle flies.
That is partially due to the lack of fishermen that use them and I bet it has to with the lack of attractiveness in these flies. “Wait, are you telling me people don’t fish these just because they look plain and boring?”
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
And it’s true! Flies have to look good enough to not only catch fish but to catch fishermen. With many soft hackle wet flies being dull in color and no shiny golden bead, it can be hard to tie one on over our go-to fly. But what did your mom always tell you? “Never judge a fly by its cover.” Yes, she really did say that.
Although they look ugly, soft-hackled wet flies are like that boring guy in the office that is secretly a badass and fights crime at night. We all know who that is.
Soft hackles are amazing for two reasons. One, they allow you to cover a lot of water and two, imitate the tricky behavior of emerging insects. I was actually told multiple times to hold tight onto my rod because if I didn’t it would be ripped out of my hands. That goes to show how aggressively fish attack soft hackles.
Let It Swing
Soft hackles are simple to fish. The whole idea is to cast your line downstream to the side and let the flies swing across the stream and down.
Letting your line swing across the stream allows you to cover more water. Although insects do not swing across currents, fish don’t seem to care. As your flies swing across the currents, you follow the line with your rod until your line completes its swing. That’s it! That is it in its basic form. Next, comes the techniques that make it work.
Letting your line swing across the stream allows you to cover more water.
The 45° Angle
Swinging soft hackle wet flies has 1 rule. (The way I was taught.) That rule is to always keep your rod at about a 45° angle.
The purpose of this angle is to give your rod the ability to flex and bend as the fish takes. Essentially, the fish will set the hook on itself because the rod will apply backward pressure. When fish take your fly you won’t have to set the hook. No need for bulky indicators or sighters. Fishing soft hackles and wet flies is all feel. And trust me, you will feel them slam your fly.
The angle is critical. A 45° angle perfectly bows your line onto the surface to ensure maximum hookups. Have your rod tip too low and you’ll rip the fly right out of their mouth. Too high and you’ll miss every strike.
Notice the bow? That’s the key to a solid hookup. I remember when I first learned how to swing soft hackles. I kept asking, “how will I know when a fish takes” and my friends keep replying with “you’ll know.” They were right. The first trout to take one of the flies on my wet fly rig exploded out of the water and fought like a mad dog.
One of the many reasons as to why fish tackle soft hackles so hard has to do with what they imitate. As I wrote earlier, soft hackles imitate emerging insects. Insects like caddis and mayflies. Don’t forget, some mayflies and caddis can swim quite fast as they make their way to the top to emerge. Many larvae swimming to the surface are quickly chased down and eaten. Most times, the trout explode to the top and create a vicious splash in the process.
Because wet flies are constantly moving and remain close to the surface, trout take them for these swimming larvae and are hit hard.
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Let It Rise
“Okay, so you let the fly swing and then what?” You wait. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let the fly complete its swing. The line will straighten out and in the process, your fly will do something extraordinary.
Your fly will rise to the surface like a swimming larva. BOOM. *hand motion* That’s the sound of the anti-vegan-trout-that-only-dines-on-caddis hitting your fly.
This is why fly fishing soft hackles is so effective and in many circumstances, it is the only way of fishing that nets you fish.
I was fishing the famous march brown hatch on Penns Creek this past April. Penns Creek is notorious for picky trout. We got there just in time for the March Browns. They were coming off by the thousands. But, the only thing that consistently worked was swinging soft hackles.
Crippled March Brown Emerger – Penns Creek 2017
Trout were gorging themselves on the emerging march brown nymphs. As the nymphs would swim up to the surface they were getting sacked and this would cause a huge splash. I figured all I had to do was toss a fly out there and it would be no problem. Easy. Fishing in a bucket. I found out quickly that that wasn’t the case. I tried nymphs, I tried drifting parachutes and catskill-style dry flies, I tried CDC emergers, I tried everything and still nothing. Things changed when I switched to a 3 fly rig of soft hackles.
I swung the flies across the seams and riffles, and WHAM! I managed to hook into a couple decent sized trout. Soft hackles were the real MVP that took me from a 1 fish day into a 4 fish day. If my reaction times were quicker I would have landed several more.
Letting your line swing across the stream allows you to cover more water. Although insects do not swing across currents, fish don’t seem to care. As your flies swing across the currents, you follow the line with your rod until your line completes its swing. That’s it! That is it in its basic form. Next, comes the techniques that make it work.
Setting Up The Rig
More flies = higher chance of catching a fish
A simple equation I learned back in calculus during high school. Generally, you will want to set up a wet fly rig with 3 flies on it but, depending on your state or local fishing regulations, you may be forced to only fish 1 or 2 flies. The easiest way to set up a rig is to use tippet rings. But, you can easily drop sections of tippet from your fly.
These are just two methods you can use if you choose not to use tippet rings. The first way to avoid using a tippet ring is to drop one off the eye of the fly.
Improved Clinch Knot off the eye improves hookups.
Method 1: Improved Clinch Knot off the eye improves hookups.
I prefer tying additional tippet off the eye because it gives the fish more access to the fly. Tying in from the eye pushes your fly perpendicularly to your line and keeps the bend open to strikes. The second way is to tie tippet off the bend of the hook.
Improved Clinch Knot from bend of the hook.
Method 2: Improved Clinch Knot from the bend of the hook.
Notice how little of the hook is exposed. Try imagining how cumbersome it would be to hook a trout with the two sections of tippet blocking the fish's mouth. For this exact reason, I prefer to tie all additional tippet from the eye. If you’re using a fresh, new leader you’ll want to snip 3 feet up to where the line gets thicker and it’s roughly a 3x. (Thicker if you’re fishing for dinosaurs.) Save the excess to use as tippet.
Tie the Improved Clinch Knot while the ring is still on the snap swivel.
Next, use a simple Improved Clinch Knot to secure the tippet ring on the end of the trimmed leader. The tippet ring will be the bedrock of each fly you build into the rig. Each tippet ring will have a dropper fly and the next 12-16 inch section of tippet tied to it.
Dropper Flies
You’ll want to tie on a 12-16 inch piece of tippet onto the ring.
This is shorter than the usual 20-inch section people recommend but for a good reason. A shorter section will prevent your rig from getting caught in multiple micro-currents (They put drag on your flies and make your presentation less natural.) Take a thicker section of tippet and tie this onto the same tippet ring. So say you are using a 5x tippet for the rig, use a 2-3x size tippet for this section. You’ll need about 6-8 inches of tippet.
This 6-8 inch section of thicker tippet is what you will tie your 1st dropper fly onto. Use the following adaptation of a Clinch Knot to attach your first fly. This knot allows your fly to move freely within the loop. It helps create a more natural presentation.
Use a loop to give your flies freedom of movement.
How to Tie the Non-Slip Loop Knot.
The Non-Slip Look Knot is a simple little knot for giving wet flies and streamers freedom of movement. Using one allows the flies to have a more natural presentation in the water as it swings across the current. As it swings the fly can slide and twist along the loop to imitate the exact action drifting insects would have in that same current.
https://vimeo.com/217425231
You can choose to end your rig here as a 2 fly rig by tying your second fly to the remaining section of tippet or you can continue to build it into a 3 fly rig.
Use a 3 Fly Rig
The 3 fly rig is just an extra tippet ring and another section of tippet.
Repeat the same process you did to add the first tippet ring and dropper fly. Now, I’m assuming you’ve added the 2nd tippet ring and 2nd dropper fly. Adding the 3rd fly is easy. That remaining section of tippet you have hanging off the tippet ring is what you’ll use to tie your final fly on. Use whatever knot you like.
Fly fishermen call this fly the ‘point fly.’
You can make your point fly weighted to get your rig down or keep it light and keep your rig near the surface. It’s up to you.
