Dry Fly Summer Steel.....

[Jim]

While fishing summer steel yesterday we were free drifting a long slot and a little red corky that somebody had probably broke off was drifting freely about 40' away, when...wham! A steelhead came out of nowhere and slurped it down. I am not an avid flyfisherman but I tell you what....if summer runs could be caught on a dry fly I would be there! Anybody fish for them with drys???
Has anyone ever seen this before?

Thanks,

Jim

[GBSkunk]

I've had some success swinging dry flys across the surface. Sometimes they come up and sip it in, other times they come completely out of the water and crash down on top of it. It's a blast!

I've never tried dead drifting dry flys for steelhead before. Trey Combs talks about it in his book. Very difficult way to hook a fish.

[Pete]

Keep your eyes open for writing by Lani Waller, not the first proponent of dry fly steelhead, but very successful at it. There is a small, but unbelievably devoted cadre of dry fly steelheaders. I'm most familiar with them on the Deschutes where, given the right conditions, it's deadly. It's a short step from the dry fly to the "waked" dry ... it may be less effective that a gob of eggs, but the thrill of steelhead exploding on a dry (or sipping it) and smoking your reel is, at least in my experience, the most unbelievable thrill! Talk about feeling adrenaline coursing through your veins!

[chuck 'n' duck]

Two years ago, I set out to catch a Deschutes steely on a dry fly. I camped three days at Macks, and tried every morning and night. On the third evening, a buddy and I were working a nice run upstream from Macks. A massive caddis hatch had started just before the shadows began to cast across the water. My buddy was using a purple spey fly, and I let him work through the run first. After he was midway through, I tied on a Rusty Bomber, and proceeded to begin quartering casts downstream. Three casts into the run, my Rusty Bomber was skating across the surface among the dancing caddis ,when the snout of a fish came up and just sipped it off the top of the water. The tight line set the hook instantly, and I was into my first dry fly steelhead. Definately one of the most exciting memories in all of my fishing experiences.

Unfortunately I have not used my fly rod much since then. In about two weeks, however, I will be back on the lower river giving it another shot.

CnD