Winter Steelhead Technique — Dead Drift fishing primer

I have this friend, see, who’s on the verge of committing to year-long, exclusive use of a fly rod. He loves to fly fish for trout. You should see his eyes sparkle when he talks about fly fishing for sea-run cutthroat: Daybreak mist on the water, silvery streaks exploding on his fly.

But when winter steelhead season rolls around, he looses confidence in the fly rod. Out come the eggs and spinners. He wants to catch fish, he says, as if that was sufficient to conclude the discussion.

But now he’s teetering on the edge, seriously exploring the option of fishing flies for winter steelhead. He asked for my advice. Here’s what I said, abbreviated.

Dead-drifting usually involves using some sort of nymph or egg pattern, fished under a strike indicator, trying to achieve a drift-speed about the same as the river current. Whether you believe that winter steelhead feed actively or not, they do take stuff into their mouths, and sometimes they even swallow. Curiosity? Aggression? Hunger? Who knows? That discussion is topic for future story-telling and conjecture.

Nymph and egg patterns totally rock wherever steelhead are concentrated in sweet spots because you can put your fly right on Mr. Steelhead’s nose. Side-drifting flies under a Thingmabobber is effective when prospecting long river reaches from a driftboat, because you can let your fly drift alongside the boat, guiding your fly into areas where you think steelhead are most likely to lay. This is how a lot of guides fish eggs, and it’s also a most excellent technique for fly fishing.

Winter steelhead will, on occasion, eat every type and size of nymph they encounter. Big stoneflies; little mayflies; cased or swimming caddis – they eat ‘em. So your flies can be the same nymphs you fish for trout, or you can draw attention to them with a fluorescent bead.

Egg-style flies are also effective and there are a zillion different egg patterns out there. Some of these flies are little, some are big; some are designed to look like an egg, some are simply a bright colored blob of some sort. I tend to fish larger egg patterns flies in murky water and smaller eggs in clear water. Fish a nymph and an egg on the same leader (if it’s legal).

My favorites include the glo bug, lowly glowly, trilogy egg, and the Strung Out Fat Albert. The Thingmabobber is an effective, easy to use strike indicator and fishes well.

–Jay Nicholas