in the fall good runs of steelhead returned to the river to winter over
this is actually a little bigger than i thought he was and we got them upside down here i
i try to hold them upside down it just seems to uh calm and soothe the fish down
that are running with that we're all that that's actually probably
from uh from spawning or a lamprey but this is a really nice fish
probably what about six or seven pounds i want to hold him there for you since he's your fish
take a nice shot of them listen as top guide rob heal gives us some tips on mending line
one of the areas that i see a lot of anglers struggling with
is line mending or line control after the cast
the biggest i think the biggest fault or mistake that a lot of guys make is immediately making an
upstream mend it's not always an upstream men that you have to make line mending is
designed to give you a better drift in the fly in this situation right here in front of me i have a
very slow current from where i'm standing out to the seam that i'm fishing if i make an upstream
mend what i'm actually doing is slowing the fly down because i'm dumping all this line
in the slack water right here in front of me in some cases you may have to make a downstream mend
or lead the fly to keep it drifting at the same rate of speed as the current remember
we want when we're when we're fishing with an indicator and a nimb for an egg like this
we want that drifting as naturally as possible that cast to that seam
right now i don't have to do anything with my line and it's drifting down that seam almost perfectly
if you pick out the bubbles around the indicator and your indicator is going at the same rate of
speed as the bubbles then you've got a pretty good drift if it's going considerably faster or
considerably slower than the bubbles then you have to do something to the line
so remember that line mending is not automatically upstream you have to affect
the drift if you have to lead the fly with the downstream men do so and also recognize
the situations where you don't have to do anything to the fly after the cast
if i leave that goal right now i've got a pretty good drift there's a little downstream end
just to help the fly along spawning occurs in the spring when the water temperature runs between
40 to 58 degrees fahrenheit once spawning is over the steelhead will then drop back into
the pools to rest and feed this is usually about the time that opening day arrives
they continue to drop back till they are finally back into the lake
here we go again it's very important to keep a tight line when fighting a steelhead
any slack in the line will be met with disastrous results
you must also follow the fish wherever it chooses to run standing in one spot to fight a fish is a
mistake and will also result in a lost fish on the butt of your rod it's very important
let's talk a little bit about flies that we use for steelhead the primary
fly most steelheaders use and we'll have in their box are egg patterns now for instance
water will dictate what color of fly you're going to use for instance if the water is clear
gin clear where there's no there's nothing coloring it up at all you might want to go
with more natural colors like a white here or yellow cheese colored here those are
the colors you go for now once the water dirties up a bit for instance after a rain
you're going to want to use something a little more colorful and that will be your chartreuse
patterns here and i got fluorescent orange spots in them here they'll work about the best now here
that that's basically what you got for for your egg patterns i also have what they call them uh
in the states crystal meth uh you gotta have pretty dirty water to use them uh they sparkle
a lot and in clear water they'll spook the fish so the crystal meth do work though in turbot water
we now join colin for some steelhead action in the early fall
there he goes
complete concentration on your indicator is needed at all times
a strike should be applied at any movement this movement can be anything from a slight slowing
of the indicator to an aggressive and sudden submergence sometimes you just get a feeling
this is the time to strike it may be a rock or it could be the best fish of your life
that fish was lying exactly where you'd expect them to be
it's right in the edge of the current there on the inside this side eh not the
they're they're uh fairly predictable in what they're doing out there
there's the odd occasion that fish aren't where you would think they should be but uh most of
the time they're right there yeah that's where i hook mine just on the inside edge i missed one
two casts before
and you were right very aggressive take i mean there was no doubt about it
it was nothing subtle about it
nice three four pounder
it's late fall and we're back on the saugeen river we hope to fool some of these wary fall steelhead
conditions are going to be tough though due to a sudden drop in temperature
and the impending snowstorm that has been forecasted
the steelhead in the great lakes are not purebreds in fact they are a genetic mix of strains from
the west coast after years of interbreeding and adapting to the great lakes ecosystem
they have evolved into their own unique strain in essence they are jacked up rainbow trout on
steroids which is why anglers go to great lengths to catch these chrome beauties
steelhead relate to seams and rivers a seam is where two currents of differing speeds
meet the fish will lie on the slack water side of the scene
a steelhead is basically a rainbow trout but what we do is we identify the difference between
the migratory species of rainbow trout which live in the great lakes then travel into the
rivers and i know this is early they all spawn in the springtime but these fish are
actually coming in in the fall and that goes way back into genetics i'm sure that's what it is
and there's also a springer on a fish but the migratory rainbow trout is actually the steelhead
or what we identify as a steelhead rainbow trout as you know can be resident on a river as well
so the way that we can differentiate between the two between these two different types of species
of rainbow trout is to identify one as a steelhead and the other is just a resident rainbow trout
the storm has forced us off the water and back to our bnb for hot cider and a warm fireplace
we'll wait out the storm and try again later
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visit our website at thenewflyfisher.com
from all of us here at the new fly fisher thanks for joining us and we'll see you next week
you