Summer steelhead fishing is heating up around the state and it’s a great time to catch a steelhead on a dry fly. The Willamette, North Umpqua and Deschutes rivers are great places to skate or wake a fly. Fishmadman steelhead and salmon waking/skating/dead drift dry flies are the coolest series of surface patterns we have come across. Check out their website at: http://www.fishmadman.com/ for some fantastic information on how to fish and tie these patterns.
Fishmadman flies are tied on tubes making them light and easy to cast. They weigh less than larger “hooked” waking fly patterns. They wake or dead drift in all water types. You are able use and swap out your favorite hook, or even change the hooks position to optimize hook sets. Because you are typically using a shorter shanked hook and the hook is independent of the fly you eliminate problems related to leverage on longer hook shanks, thus you land more fish.
We are stocking seven of these super cool fly patterns, five of them offer a unique rigging option that forces the fly to the surface keeping it waking in all water types. The Riffling Hitch Tube forces the fly to the surface like a kite string tied to the center of a kite.
The other two patterns patterns are “bomber stlye” flies that are designed to fish dead drift or skated.
Give these tube skaters a shot on your next steelhead trip!
Skaopper Tube Fly
Steelhead Beetle Tube Skater
Greaseliner Tube Skater
Quigley’s Dragon Gurgler Tube Fly
Grantham Sedge Tube
Tube Bomber Blue
Rusty Brown Bomber Tube
