Early Season Streamer Fishing

I really enjoy throwing streamers.  It’s an exciting way to fish.  It’s only March but I set out for some solo streamer fishing.  I do this quite frequently.  It was overcast and I was headed to some pretty good streamer water.  The first section I planned on fishing is full of slow, deep bends.  There’s a lot of fallen trees and junk in these bends too.  I know that there has to be some total hogs in there but I’ve yet to find them.  Fishing big streamers is not for the lighthearted – or the weak-shouldered!  Tossing and stripping big bugs all day is definitely more work than tossing dries!

In the first few really sexy holes I didn’t move any fish but my first player came as I was working the stretch before one of my favorite holes in this section.  After casting up and across, my bug made it past the main current when it apparently caught the eye of a fish sitting on my of the river a few feet off the bank. I watched as he darted directly downstream and nailed my fly right in from of me.  It was awesome.  I was fishing a orange and olive articulated streamer so it was easy tracking my fly and watching it disappear as it got ambushed by this feisty brown trout.  Not a bad fish.

The next hole is a tricky one to fish as it has a, strong current that comes down the middle and a large, deep eddy on the opposite side behind a tree that extends into the water.  I’ve seen some nice fish come from the depths to chase my flies but, depending where you are, it’s tough to get your flies to do what you want them to for very long.  When you’re fishing on my side of the river the process is something like this: throw a cast dangerously close to the tall undercut bank on the opposite side and under the overhanging tree, throw a fat mend upstream, highstick it and use your rod tip to dance the fly in the current while  mending and stripping as needed to keep it in the money zone as long as possible.  It’s a frustrating hole.  I’ve gotten a lot of great chases and follows, but hooked very few fish in this hole.  The over hanging tree doesn’t make life easy.

I have a lot of favorite spots that I anticipate gnarly strikes each time I cast to them.  Some times I get them and some times I’m left hanging in suspense.  I dare not make this post much longer as I doubt anyone will read this far as it is!  I picked up a few more fish but of course those fish came along with handfuls of empty follows and missed hooksets.  I got into some decent fish but still none of the total hog monkies I know lie waiting in some of those slow, deep bends.