This is my first season fishing for steelhead on a fly. This may be a stupid question but here goes. How can I tell if my line is deep enough? I want to be deep but not snagging the bottom. So how do you folks know you are in the right place with your fly?

Thanks,
LS

Not to dodge your question, but experience goes a long way in finding out many things. Get your gear (with different fly lines, sink tips, heads etc.) and have a go at it. Experiment with different tips and see how they perform in your chosen water. No doubt you will suffer countless fishless days. Keep taking notes on flows, weather, timing. After several seasons, things will start to come together, if you last that long. There really is no shortcut. A guide trip might cut some of your "experience" time.

DaveD

Make sure you have one intermediate and one heavy sinking head (type 3 and type 6) for different water types. Here is what I use to determine (and systematically change) the depth I am fishing at. Pick a head that you think will get you down. Unless the water is very low or I am fishing a very small stream, I start out with a type 5/6. Cast 45 degrees up stream and make a mend if you need to (careful though..mend too much and it will be difficult to detect a strike). I typically find bottom sometime during this inital drift (hopefully early in the drift). By incrementally changing the angle of your cast downstream you can adjust your drift to run the fly at shallower depths, because your line will begin to swing under tension sooner (shortening the time the sinking head can "free-fall"). This will allow you to run at a slightly different range of depths just by changing your presentation angle. Use a lighter head in the same spot and you can cover another range of depths. Ideally you can then cover from bottom to top if you need to (tip...fish high or low (don't bother fishing middle water). In winter, deeper drifts generally work better.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the tips!

LS