I hooked my second steelhead ever on my fly rod yesterday. Like a beer soaked newbie, I was drifting the boat into a tailout with the fly line played out about 30 feet, when a nig native munched a bunny leech and headed in the opposite direction- no chance of getting an anchor down. Within a few seconds I verified it was a fish and not a rock. A few seconds later I was down to the backing- oops, POP! There goes my fly line, shooting head, and bunny leech (not to mention the fish, and my inaccurate sense of control).

I'm using a Hardy St. Aidan and a Cortland 8/9 wt rod that was given to me for my birthday last year. I don't like the rod and intend to replace it, but I think the reel with the disc drag is adequate for smaller streams. On big rivers I've been told that a reel with a good drag system is referable, but I like the Hardy.

Which leads to my question, line replacement. I'm thinking a system for the Santiams, Mckenzie, and Upper Willamette.

Is a good steelhead taper the smoothest system for larger waters? Is the Express system as easy as it sounds? Floating line, just shorten the head for smaller situations.

Deke Meyer has a section in his book on shooting tips and express heads, but I thought I would get some other feedback. I would rather put my own system together with looped ends, but thought I would find out how much smoother the factory taper is.

Any affordable rod suggestions would be great, too. I was thinking maybe a ten footer, 7 or 8 wt., gl2 or comparable?

Thanks, Harold

If by express heads you mean shooting heads I would recommend the factory made ones. The loop to loop system doesn't shoot through the guides very well, at least in my opinion. I found they hung up where the two loops connected. I think there was a section in Deke Myers book though that explained how to splice a shooting head to a running line. This might go through the guides a lot smoother. I never had the patience to try it. Hope this helps.
-Steve

I didn't know that they made the St. Aidan with a disc drag. My ancient click-and-pawl St. Aidan has landed many steelhead on rivers of all sizes and I have never felt it was in any way inadequate. Steelhead fly fishermen here in the northwest have been making their own custom lines at least since the 'sixties. Lines that are tailored to the conditions that you normally fish are easy to make. For years I've used (from back to front) 100 feet of .032 diameter floating running line looped to 15 feet of floating belly one weight heavier than the rod's rated weight and, finally, a selection of Type IV or Type VI heads ranging from 12 to 18 feet depending on the depth and current speed being fished. The loop-to-loop connections are not a problem because the only time they are brought inside the tip guide is when landing a fish. When casting, the rear end of the belly is brought back within a foot or so of the rod tip, the thirty or thirty-five feet of belly and head are brought up with a roll cast and double-hauled with no more than one or two false casts to make the shoot. This keeps the false casting to a minimum and the line and fly fishing most of the time

You can keep it very simple by picking up a Rio Versi-tip which is pretty much a floating line, type 2, type 3 and type 6 sinktips which are 15'.

Or you can make your own like Preston described.

If you will be getting very little use out of a floating line, take a serious look at the Rio Anadramous Dredger. It is one Hell of a line...it is running line spliced into a short belly section then looped.

It comes with 24' 200, 300 and 400 grain heads. You can buy the Rio 15' heads in the type 3 and type 6 and then you would be covered for every situation that you are presented without aside from floating line applications.

Given that you are fishing a St. Aidan, a spare spool may be very hard to come by. All my single-handed steelhead fishing is done with one reel and one spool. One reel is loaded with a SA Steelhead Taper and the other is loaded with the Anadramous Dredger (along with the extra 15' tips)...it covers me for everything I need for steelhead.

Well here's what I do - and this is the ultimate winter setup that will get you down in high water and stick your fly exactly where you want it in streams almost too brushy to walk down.

I started with a 10.5 foot Lamniglass bobber rod blank - forgot the number now but basically a standard steelhead weight, and put a long fly handle on it with slip ring mounts. I use a 1598 1/2 Pflueger Medalist with the drag bunged down all the way and a good raised rim for palming those fish - wouldn't have lost your line with that reel :p A couple hundered yards of 30 pound dacron backing helps also! For line I use a size 12 floating saltwater taper and cut about 10 feet of it off, so I have all the weight in the first 20 feet. Then with a piece of hollow dacron squidding line and a special needle (got this stuff with instructions at the fly shop in Lacey) I make loops, which I superglue onto my fly line and my shooting/sinking head. I Use Deepwater Express - out of each 30 foot piece I make a 5 footer out of the belly, a 10 footer out of the back, and a 15 footer out of the tip. The loops are essential for quick-changing your heads to match water conditions - I'll sometimes change these drift-to-drift just like I change lead when drift fishing. The loops never even enter the guides except when you are just about to land the fish, and actually with the length of rod I use only the 15 footer does that. To the other end of the heads I nail knot a 6 inch piece of 40 pound mono with a loop, and tie my 2 foot leader to that. The 15 footer plus your 12 weight saltwater taper will give you about a 16 weight line in 35 feet, is real easy to roll cast 70 feet and will shoot 100 on one backcast, and will hit the bottom of the Hoh at 3000 cfs - the stuff sinks a foot a second! Now you see why I went with the bobber rod blank - short of a Spey rod nothing will handle this concentrated weight of line effectively, and I like to cast one handed and hold my loops in my left hand. With this rig I can fish everything from Goodman Creek to the Hoh in any kind of water, and it is damn near as effective as a drift fishing rod - actually a bit like drift fishing with a 15 foot slinky I have aced out bait fishermen in water with 6 inches visibility using one of my sponge flies soaked in bait butter, and have coaxed fish out of a gin-clear glide that you could see over 100 feet away and that would run for the rapids if they saw anything brighter that a size eight black and grizzly wooly worm. This setup is a fish killer, but is also pretty killer on your arm - had to kind of back off from using it very much after I injured my rotator cuff (did that loading an anchor in the boat on a cold day ) But if you can handle it this is the way to go

...and I thought I could b*stardize flyfishing!!!

Thanks alot for the input. I've been away from the computer all weekend in Central Oregon, and I actually got to do a little fly fishing in between skiing and watching my 10 month old son. I landed a 17 inch Dolly on the Metolius, and I couldn't believe how hard that fish pulled; on a 5 wt rod, it was like fighting a steelhead.

I'll copy some of this to my desktop, and hopefully get a chance to sort through it this week. Oh, and the St. Aiden's not a disc, my mistake. One of my local fly guru's said that there's nothing wrong with the reel; I should have used a Bimini Twist to attach fly line to backing instead of relying on the original nail knot that was used before. There was probably nothing wrong with the nail knot except it had never been checked. The reel was given to me with used line.

HT

Bimini Twist for attaching your flyline to backing???...that is beyond major overkill.

A standard through the line nail knot and you are all set, for all species in the area!!