After years of searching for the “perfect” pattern, Alan Penner reflects on the elements that truly make a steelhead fly successful
Part 2: A fly for steelhead
SOMETIMES YOU just get lucky. With no great planning, foresight, or skill of your own, something significant happens for which you can take little credit. You showed up — that is your major contribution. If wisdom prevails, the moment is received with gratitude and humility, foregoing the ego’s internal proddings for credit and acclaim. On the first day I picked up a two-handed rod to fish for winter steelhead, I had one of these moments. A gift I did not earn. In preparing for that day, I don’t recall checking the forecast, looking at water conditions, scouting likely runs, or doing any of the things that are now routine. The day was free of obligations (a rare occurrence at the start of a teaching career) and I went fishing. Preparations be damned. Overflowing with newcomer naivety, not knowing what I didn’t know, I stepped into the first available run and began fishing. By day’s end — inexperienced and ill-prepared — I had hooked four winter steelhead and landed two.
Despite initial success, Alan’s search for ‘the fly’ was on.
ALAN PENNER
I gained a lot of confidence that day, but it didn’t stick. I couldn’t — green as I was — fully understand how many variables had favorably lined up. I fished persistently in the following months and years with minimal success, and my confidence trickled away like sand in an hourglass. I began looking for a fix and inaccurately assessed fly selection as the problem. I believed that with the right fly, my fortunes would change. I started the search with simple tube-flies adorned with rabbit fur; crosscut and zonkered. They were easy to tie — suitable for my developing fly-tying skills — but difficult to cast and brittle in cold weather.
When the intruder platform took the steelhead community by storm, I jumped on board. I burnt through an abundance of material, time, and effort teaching myself to tie them. Confident I had found “the fly”, all I had to do was learn to tie it just right and steelhead would move to eat it. I tied them with heavy lead eyes, and many were donated to the riverbed. I tied them large — some as long as five inches. I tied them small, sparse, with fur shoulders, with composite shoulders, black, blue… I tied and I tied. I was enamored with these flies but the restless drive to keep searching continued unabated. I tied prawn flies, marabou tubes, Bunny Leeches, Hoh Bo Speys, Foxee Dogs, Fish Tacos, flies unnamed, and flies forgotten.
I began looking for a fix and inaccurately assessed fly selection as the problem
Pink, blue and black are great steelhead colours but style, tone and movement is important too.
I was stuck in a positive feedback loop. Prioritizing fly selection amplified my belief in a single pattern to rule them all. Flies cycled endlessly in and out of my box and on and off the end of my leader. This fly selection consciousness lingered in my brain until hard-won experience initiated a shift. I grew aware that only a handful of flies from this pattern parade were consistently being used. Some patterns — to my eye — just felt right, looked right, and swam right. Others didn’t. Some I tied on with confidence, left them on, and fished them well. These flies — with more time in the water — began to produce and reinforced my faith in them. Simultaneously, I observed other steelhead anglers experiencing consistent success with their own patterns. Some akin to my chosen few and others more disparate. Evidence was piling up. New knowledge was altering the landscape of my long-held convictions. Reality suggested that the “one fly” did not exist. The truth was that a diversity of steelhead patterns worked equally well. “Pick a fly with confidence, fish a fly with confidence”, became part of my evolving steelhead mantra.
In the learning journey there comes a point where goals are reached, questions are answered, and insights are gained. What is next? That was my question, and already I had an answer: standards — points of reference to guide a person in choosing a fly confidently. My science-teacher brain was searching for a little rigor in an otherwise quasi-scientific process — not an infallible method akin to plugging variables into an equation, but something a little less harebrained than selecting a fly solely on aesthetics. I found hints of such methodology hidden in the lore of the fly-fishing community. Not direct scientific data, but wisdom gained through generations of astute observations and experience. This helped me piece together the following criteria to help choose a fly with confidence.
“Pick a fly with confidence, fish a fly with confidence”, became part of my evolving steelhead mantra
Flies should have the profile of the prey on which steelhead feed, such as squid, baitfish and prawns. This is why mobile materials such as Lady Amherst pheasant tail fibers are popular with tiers.
: ALAN PENNER
Profile Perhaps the factor I pay attention to the most when designing a fly is profile. Oceans are vast, prey is scattered, and silhouettes are more relevant than anatomical details. A flash of movement to catch the eye, a tear-drop shape in the distance, and a steelhead must think and react. Whether a baitfish, squid, or crustacean (often prawns or shrimp), the hunt is on for its next meal. Eliciting a similar response is the angler’s hope. To make hope a reality, copy the real deal. Flies designed to form a tear-drop shape while swinging increase the odds of activating intrinsic responses. Although steelhead do not re-enter rivers to feed, predatory instincts persist. Observation and anecdotal evidence indicate these instincts can be activated, even if eating is not their current raison d'être.
Presenting a well-thought-out fly correctly completes the circle.
To make hope a reality, copy the real deal
Movement Feedback I’m looking for when sharing a newly designed fly is, “boy, that looks buggy” — a compliment acknowledging its lifelike appearance. Arranging feathers, fur, and flash in a manner that is scintillatingly alive is always the goal. Antennae, tails, legs, and fins are designed to move and are seldom static. Fleeing creatures move them vigorously and good imitations mimic this motion. Flies that look alive are comprised of meticulously selected materials, deliberately placed in exacting proportions. Parts should move independent of each other, responding individually to nuances of current. My recommendation: swim a fly before buying or tying multiples. If it swims like prey and looks like prey, it must be prey. How a fly moves matters.
James’ steelhead tricks
The Perfection Loop
THE KNOT you use to attach a fly has a bearing on how the fly looks and swims in the water. In BC, we like a Perfection Loop (see diagram), a knot that allows the fly to move freely and naturally — independent of the leader — as it swings in the current.
What makes the Perfection Loop superior to other loop knots is how neat and compact it is. Other loop knots rarely sit straight and can catch in guides (rod rings), weaken the line, and look messy. The knot on a Perfection Loop stays small and the loop sits dead straight — in line with the leader.
1. Make a loop with the tag end
2. Loop once more and bring the tag to the middle of the two loops
3. Pass the second loop through the first loop
4. Hold and pull in both directions to tighten
5. Cut off excess tag end
One on an intense red pattern.
Colour Creatures are not monochromatic, and the same principle applies to fly selection and design. Magnified or held in hand, creatures display an array of colours only an artist’s vocabulary could describe. When you really look closely, it’s astonishing. Their colours can be vibrant, muted, neon, pastel, dull, warm, cool, deep, dark, pale, light, vivid, soft, brilliant, or intense.
Only in death do their colours fade, falter, and dissipate into uniformity. Effective flies imitate the living, not the dead. Designed with this intent, they feature nuanced and contrasting colour combinations emphasizing the illusion of life. When fellow anglers inquire about the colour of my fly, I tend to reply with monosyllabic answers: black, blue, purple, pink — not with the intent of obfuscation but to avoid embarrassment. To answer accurately would require my pink fly to be described as a combination of bubblegum pink, magenta, fire truck red, and fluorescent orange with accents of black and white. Not a standard riverside exchange. If the fly you tie on the end of your line cannot be described with a varicoloured vocabulary, an alternative might be in order.
Water and weather conditions also influence colour selection. This is where the old saying “dark day, dark fly; bright day, bright fly” comes from. The evidence to support this saying is strong but not absolute. It is a good guideline; a starting point, and if you hold to it absolutely, you will experience success. But really, presence is the key factor.
What kind of presence do you want your fly to have? Are you trying to tone it down or make it stand out? Are you trying to shock the fish into responding or appealing to its curiosity? Sometimes, conditions dictate a different question: how can I get the fish to see my fly?
Colour theory offers some guidance to answer all these questions. Think back to your days of early education and contrasting and complementary colours. Now picture the colour green, or aqua green, or steelhead green — if you think like a steelhead angler. Opposite these, on the colour wheel, are the complementary colours orange and red. A fly tied in these shades will pop against a green water backdrop and be highly visible.
Maybe you want this, maybe you don’t; the choice is yours. Understanding colour theory can help you make calculated choices, but don’t overthink it. A streamside colour wheel hidden in your wader pocket is not required. If colour theory befuddles your brain, choose black — it fishes well in all conditions.
If colour theory befuddles your brain, choose black — it fishes well in all conditions
Size For winter steelheading, a five-inch fly is large, and a one-inch fly is small. Personally, I have the most confidence fishing flies somewhere in the middle, between two and three inches in length. I have used larger and smaller with success, but only situationally. High, dirty water is appropriate for large flies; low and clear water is appropriate for small flies.
Alan prefers a fly to be roughly 2-3in long.
Weight When possible, I use as light a fly as I can get away with while still being effective. Lightly weighted or unweighted flies swing better. They are easily influenced by subtle currents, tossed and swayed, undulating evocatively, which further enhances the lifelike factor. If a deeper presentation is required, I resort to sink-tips first and heavily weighted flies last.
A leader piled in coils because a fly won’t turn over creates a disconnect between angler and fly
Castability “Cast it well, fish it well” is another tenet of my steelhead mantra. A good swing is initiated by a good cast, a good cast by a good fly, and a good fly by thoughtful engineering. In a season of ten thousand casts, the fusion of presentation and fly selection is important.
A leader piled in coils because a fly won’t turn over creates a disconnect between angler and fly. This problem is eventually remedied by the pull of current, but not before time under tension is lost. This direct contact controls the fly, guiding it through the run at a preferred angle and speed. This is when the fly “hunts”. This is what you want for the greatest part of your swing. Good casting certainly takes the lead in unfurling a line, but the fly’s secondary role should not be overlooked. Act accordingly and pick flies that shed water and track true.
My advice, in summary, is to fish with confidence. This can be tricky, as confidence follows success and, when you are starting at zero, you have none of the latter. So, what do you do? You start. You prepare. You work on perfecting the variables within your control and put time in on the water.
As the Stoic Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. On one of my greatest days on the water, my luck was blind, and it took years of trial and error to figure out what I did right. Hopefully, you can learn a little something from my meandering path towards “enlightenment”. At the very least, I hope your confidence level ticks up a notch.
PHOTOGRAPHY: LAEL P JOHNSON VIDEOGRAPHY: JAMES CARTER
IN THIS SERIES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pacific Rivers Outfitting Company
Pacific Rivers Outfitting Company manager Willie (left) and sales associate and guide James (middle) are based at the store in Chilliwack (British Columbia), while Alan, a local science and PE teacher — and equally fanatical steelhead fisher — runs a series of evening fly-tying courses at the shop.
