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Easy to Articulate:
Fooling Wary Steelhead
by Kevin Feenstra
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Fishing can be difficult for a variety of reasons, both tangible and intangible. Bad fishing is blamed on the barometer, cold water, approaching bad weather, etc. Anglers never run out of explanations. The truth is that most of the time we don’t know what makes fishing tough occasionally. There are a couple of things that you can do to tip the scales in your favor.
First, you can slow the presentation of your fly to a crawl to attract sullen fish. Second, using two hooks and a variety of mobile materials, you can tie articulated flies and use them creatively to bring strikes on both the tough days and the good ones.
Many Great Lakes anglers prefer to bounce nymphs along the bottom in search of steelhead. A smaller dedicated group swings wet flies or streamers to steelhead. Each style of fishing has its advantages — nymph anglers tend to
catch more fish, while streamer and wet fly fishermen enjoy some of the hardest and most satisfying strikes in freshwater fly fishing. The beauty of fishing an articulated fly is that a single well-designed pattern is versatile and can be used as either a nymph or a streamer.
Most nymph imitations are fished to drift motionless in the water. The angler hopes that a perfect presentation will fool the fish into thinking the fly is drifting food. Even when presentation is not perfect, the articulated nymph will catch fish. Articulated nymphs have built-in action, they appear to be alive and swimming throughout their drift downstream. The lesson: Articulated nymphs will catch fish even when your presentation is
not perfect.
When swinging steamers for steelhead, articulated flies have even more advantages. The fly is cast at a downstream angle and swings across the current in a quartering fashion. If there is a good bite on a given day, steelhead will attack your fly at any point in the drift and on a really good day steelhead will destroy your fly soon after it hits the water. Of course, there will be those days, as discussed earlier, when steelhead will be less active. On the tough days, steelhead usually won’t hit a fly until the end of the drift, when it is hanging in the current.
ARTICULATED FLIES
Because they are made of two connected hooks, articulated flies are larger than standard nymph patterns. Take a look at your favorite steelhead stream. Our streams and rives are complex in design and steelhead love to feed on a variety of foods, large and small, in each stream. If you find a medium-to-large size food source that steelhead like to eat and that naturally moves slowly, then you have found a perfect subject to imitate with an articulated fly. Articulated flies imitate many food sources — shiners, salmon fry and darters and insects such as hellgrammites and Hexagenia nymphs.
After you have decided what you are going to imitate, consider a few dynamics of tying articulated flies. The rear hook of the articulated fly is there for one reason and one reason alone, to add action to your fly. Its purpose is not to hook fish but to attract them. Use light-wire, inexpensive hooks for the rear of your fly to increase its action in the water. You may want to even consider clipping the hook point off at the bend for better action.
A heavy front hook will cause the fly to have more action while it swings. When you tie materials on the front hook, make it bulkier than the rear hook so that your fly will create a disturbance in the water and cause the rear section to wiggle.
Here are some of my best articulated patterns:
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JOHNNY DARTER
Rear hook: 4xl straight-eye streamer hook, size 8 or 10
Rear hook tail and body: Tan or sand grizzly marabou tied in as tail and wound halfway up body. Then a clump of Australian possum is tied in as an overwing; tan Antron is dubbed on the front half of the hook.
Attachment: 20-pound monofilament tied as a loop between the two hooks. Front hook: # 4 Daiichi Boss egg hook or equivalent Eyes: Tan or opaque monofilament eyes Body: Clump of Australian possum tied around hook to create bulk. Fins: Two small grizzly marabou feathers splayed on either side just behind the eyes.
Comments: Darters and sticklebacks are a common forage species in many rivers. This fly is a very good generic version of both.
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AUSTRALIAN POSSUM HEX
Rear hook: 4xl straight-eye streamer hook, size 10 Rear hook body and tail: Dirty yellow Antron dubbing interspersed with three clumps of Australian possum Attachment: 20-poundmonofilament
Cover up: A clump of Australian Possum hiding the junction between the hooks
Front hook: # 6 Daiichi Boss or other egg hook
Eyes: Black monofilament
Legs: Partridge hackle
Body: Dirty yellow dubbing
Shellback: Brown Antron or Z-lon
Comments: A common nymph throughout silty rivers of the Midwest. Because they are very active swimming nymphs they are great candidates for articulation. Deadly when fished as a nymph but more effective as a swung fly on smaller rivers.
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BETTER THAN SPAWN (BTS)
Rear Hook: 4xl straight eye streamer hook, size 10. (Use a cheaper gold Aberdeen panfish hook; effective and cheap. Rear Hook Tail and Body: White or tan grizzly marabou, tie in as a tail and then wind forward.
Attachment: 20 –pound monofilament tied as a loop between the two hooks, crimped or glued to secure. A small tuft of Australian possum fur is placed over the joint to make the body look fluid. Front Hook: Size 6 Daiichi Boss steelhead hook or equivalent egg hook. Eyes: Black monofilament Body: Pink ice dubbing Back and fins: Light purple or pearl Krystal flash pulled over the body and split to either side as legs.
Comments: Many Midwest rivers are full of Chinook salmon fry in the spring. Steelhead love to eat them and the BTS imitation is deadly. I use a similar Hex imitation called a Better than Hex (BTH). In the BRH, the rear hook tail and body are tied with gold grizzly marabou and the front body is tied with pale yellow dubbing. |
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HELLGRAMMITE
Rear hook: 4xl straight-eye streamer hook, size 8 or 10
Rear hook tail: black or olive rubber legs
Rear hook body: black angora or black stone mix angora dubbed forward interspersed with clumps as overwing.
Attachment: 20 –pound monofilament
Cover up: Clump of black Angora
Front hook: #6 Daiichi Boss egg hook or equivalent
Eyes: black monofilament
Shellback, legs, and antennae: black or olive rubber legs tied in as a shellback and pulled over the body, splayed behind the eyes with two used as antennae in front of eyes.
Body: Black angora dubbing
Comments: A large clumsy nymph that lives on the bottom of some streams. Effective fished as a nymph and deadly on the swing as well. This fly works on the swing even in rivers with no hellgrammites.
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Kevin Feenstra is a well-know fly fishing guide on western Michigan rivers. His story appeared in the spring 2004 edition of Midwest Fly Fishing™ magazine.
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copyright Midwest Fly Fishing™ Magazine 2003
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DAMSELFLY
Rear hook: 4xl straight-0eye streamer hook, size 10
Rear hook tail: 2 olive and black rubber legs
Rear hook body: An olive marabou feather; a tuft tied between the legs and wound forward
Attachment: 20-pound monofilament
Cover up: A clump of yellow or olive rabbit fur hiding the junction between hooks
Front hook: # 6 Daiichi Boss egg hook or equivalent
Eyes: Black Monofilament
Shellback and legs: Four olive and black rubber legs pulled over the body and splayed behind the eyes as legs.
Body: Olive Antron dubbing
Comments: Though not common in many trout streams, where damselflies are available they are definitely on the menu. Many Midwestern steelhead streams are not year round trout streams and as warmwater habitats they contain insects such as damsels and hellgrammites. This is a very good bass and panfish fly.
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