Anyone have any pattern suggestions for flies to try on steelies that are fresh in from the salt. I'm talking about fish that have only been in the river for a few hours. Saw lots of them in S.E. Alaska, and had a hard time getting them to take any of my flies. I caught a handful on a big gawdy streamer that we use for kings in the fall. Do shrimp or scud type patterns work better. Thanks for the help.

I returned yesterday from 8 days on the Situk, the same river you fished (I believe). We did well on fresh fish using very small (dime-sized) multi-colored yarn balls. For bright fish, we used more blue (didn't have purple) plus the usual array of cerise, salmon, chartreuse and orange. In the latest Wild Salmon and Steelhead Dec Hogan writes about purple and blue flies imitating the squid and/ or prawns steelhead were feeding on prior to ascending the river so this gave us greater confidence.

However, I'd be exaggerating if I said that blue yarn was the magic bullet. My buddy and I did a whole lot of sight casting to pods of ghosts and most of the time we were drifting right by their noses with no result. Every 10-20 casts one of the ghosts would suck down the fly and we'd be off to the races.

There was a lively debate with one of our guides as to whether we would do better with these fish using less weight and casting more upstream to get a more a more natural drift down through the fish or to go with more weight and use the classic across-and-down swing. We certainly missed detecting more bites with the 'up and down' approach but we felt we got more more bites, too, and we were able to present effectively to unspooked fish that were cruising parallel to our boat. The alternative swing presentation required us to row back upstream and guesstimate where the fish were before swinging across the pod.

I think what Snagly is refering to as "yarn balls" are actually what we know as "Glo-bugs. I've always had good luck with prawn
& tube tied candle fish imitations. They are
used to feeding on these baits in the salt &
will continue to feed on them into the rivers
& work especially well from the shore in the
bays. Find any good point of land in a bay & fish the incoming tides. Hope this helps. DryFli

Ric's right in saying that a 'yarn ball' looks like a glo-bug, only the yarn balls (flies) we used were customised on the river using four or five 1" lengths of yarn slipped under an egg loop on a number 1, 2 or 4 Gamakatsu Octopus or equivalent Eagle Claw Lazersharp (a lot cheaper and tend to straighten out on snags, meaning you lose less gear but the weaker/ duller hook causes more heart palpitations when a big'un climbs on). (One guide made the point that he was anti-Gamakatsu because it is a stainless steel hook and, therefore, doesn't rust out as readily as a non-stainless hook.)

The dry yarn was trimmed back pretty savagely using 'braid blades' or some other form of ultra-sharp scissors. Then the lead was added to the rig and the set-up wetted down by whacking the yarn fly into the water several times. Before fishing the fly was retrieved for a final sculpting, with particular attention paid to trimming any 'tails' off the yarn so it was perfectly spherical.

A lot of work, I'll admit, when you can buy a commercial glo bug in roughly the same size for 40 cents. However, the guides are convinced 4-5 different colors make a difference (and they mix up the colors depending on water height, color, sunlight and temp). Who are we to argue with the locals even if some of what they do seems like Voodoo if the result is more hook-ups?

[This message has been edited by Snagly (edited 05-09-99).]

[This message has been edited by Snagly (edited 05-09-99).]

Snagly

Did you float the river during the morning and early afternoon, then chase the chromers late in the afternoon and evening?? Also, how many steelies did you and your buddy whack for the trip, and did you have any over 20lbs??

I use "yarn balls" too. Also had good luck on blue. I snell a hook on, and put my yarn right under the loop. I refuse to tie or buy glo bugs when I can make the equivalent while I am fishing in less than a minute. You can slide the loop back and change colors in a matter of seconds. I played the same game with the ghosts, and a lot of times, you had to put it right on their nose to get them to bite it. It's intense, and drives a guy nuts. I am interested in the prawn or candlefish patterns. Any idea where I can get ahold of these patterns. Thanks for the info.

Slick and I tried to float at odd hours -- either starting very early or very late -- to minimise overlap with the 10 or so other drift boats (plus 3 motor/ jet boats) on the 14 mile stretch of water fromt the 9 Mile Bridge to the take-out. Our earliest alarm was set at 4:00 a.m. for 5:00 a.m. on the water (cold, but saw some compensating wildlife including several moose, beaver, martin and mink). We were so exhausted one day that we slept till 8 a.m. and didn't make it to the river till 10 a.m. We were virtually alone, and had a great fishing day, too (in part, we believe, because the pools were well-rested by the time we got there).

Most days we would be putting in 14 hours on the river (e.g. 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.), with fresh fish targetted the last two hours or so when we were down river. The chromers were hit-and-miss, with some times there being none visible and other times pods of up to 50 fish in 2-3 feet of water. (Talk about shaking hands when you cast!) Some nights we were so late off the river that we couldn't spot the fish till we were on top of them. I saw a (honest to goodness) 45"+ chrome steelhead that way one evening: looked like a cross between a bright king (except for the giveaway 'stabiliser' fins and pointy head)and a shark. Damn near fell out of the boat trying to grab some brush to slow our drift so we could throw a fly at it. No dice.

We averaged about a hook-up a person per man hour spent on the water. Of course, nothing ever happens steadily: it's 3 or 4 in 20 minutes and then nothing for a couple hours at a stretch. We fished long days, too, and benefited from being 'FOLO's' ('First On, Last Off' the river). Given that most of the time we were casting to where we knew there were fish, we were frustrated a lot of the time! In short, someone with more experience as well as our Iron Man persistence could have done much better.

Slick landed the biggest fish, 38.5" and around 18-19 lbs plus the next two largest at 36-37". I lost two giants, both of which I think I fould hooked by the way they fought. (One winter fish felt like an otter he was so big, and refused to move much at all, showing me his dark scaly back only once before busting off. The other was a bright fish that zipped upstream 50 feet on the take then reversed course and went absolultely crazy, taking 150 yards off the reel straight downstream and refusing to be turned. By the time we hoisted the anchor and followed him, he was well hung and gone). The biggest fish we saw -- and only dead fish on the whole trip -- taped out at 40" while our guide has landed fish up to 37lbs (47")in past years. (Photos and mounts upstairs at the Glacier Bear Lodge in Yakutat.)

(By the way, it IS possible to accidentally foul hook fish on a yarn fly, hence my nickname.)

[This message has been edited by Snagly (edited 05-09-99).]

Hawk, I don't knoe how hard it is to get back issues of these two magazines but you might try anyway. Western Flyfishing has a great Prawn pattern in there July-october '96 issue & American Angler has aa awsome mylar tube Candlefish pattern as well as a "green Weenie" (shrimp) pattern in there July/August '97 issue. These are the three best pattern that I have seen for these flies. The "Atomic Prawn" in Western also works killer for sea-run cutthroat which is what it was originaly designed for. Good luck. If you can't get these let me know & I'll mail you some photo's. DryFli

Snagly, Thanks for setting me straight on the "yarn Balls". I had know idea there was such a thing. Sounds so easy I can't wait to try it. Beats the hell out of sitting in front of my tying bench all night when I could be on the water. Thanks again.