Streamer 101

[Fly guy]

So I am still pretty new to fly fishing I feel and want to learn more about streamers and how they are fished. I mainly fish dries and nymphs but want to figure out streamers. I have a few buggers and leeches and zonkers but have not caught more than two fish on all of them put together. This being the case I am positive it's the way I am fishing them over anything else. I want to know what the term swinging a Streamer means also when stripping streamers should I cast upstream or downstream? Towards the bank or middle of the current? Pretty much everything you guys can tell me on fishing these flies more effectively and efficiently. Also can I fish streamers on a floating line or is a sinking tip or sinking line the way to go? Any and all help is greatly appreciated as I fish by myself 9 times out of ten.

[duckydoty]

I fish small streamers on Taney a lot. Small meaning 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. Most of them are pine squirrel sculpins and white mink sculpins or leaches. When fishing them while wade fishing, I will usually wade out to about knee deep water and cast directly across to the other bank intersecting the current at a 90 degree angle. I will vary the retrieve from a fast strip to a slow strip to dead drifting or swinging. Fast stripping consists of pulling in 4- 6 inches of line on every strip just as fast as you can strip the line in. Slow stripping would be long slow gentle pulling in of the line with pauses between the strips. Dead drifting would be just casting the fly out and letting the line drift with the current. The swing of the drift is when the fly finally catches up with the loop of the line in the current and straightens out. This is when I catch a lot of my fish. While stripping, swinging, or dead drifting, it is best to hold your rod tip right at the surface of the water and follow your line down stream as it flows in the current. This will allow you to feel the take quicker than if you were holding the tip above the water and the fish has to take up that extra slack for you to feel the bite. When the water is off at Taney, fishing with a floating line is very effective due to the slow current. If fishing with 1 unit running or somewhere else that has stronger current or deeper water, you may want to use a sinking line to get the streamer deeper.

[Fly guy]

Thank you I finally get what swinging means. I have read about it being a good tactic but never understood what was meant by it. Thanks for the info.

[Al Agnew]

Great advice from Duckydoty.

I prefer casting streamers either across current or angling downstream. There are all kinds of ways to retrieve them, and you never know how the fish are going to want them until you experiment some. In general, if I'm casting toward a bank, I want to land the streamer as close to the bank as possible, even if that means it lands in just inches of water. If it's pretty shallow right along the bank, as soon as the streamer hits the water I'll give it a couple of quick strips of 6-12 inches. What I figure is that any fish lying close to the bank is probably an actively feeding fish, and will hear it hit, and when they see it immediately take off the movement will attract them. If they're lying a little farther off the bank in deeper water, I'm wanting the streamer to get into their area fast. After those first couple of strips, I usually let it sink some, depending upon how deep the water is at that point. I'll usually give the line an upstream mend to let the streamer sink without the current catching the line and dragging it downstream too soon. From there, I'll just vary the strips in the length of each strip, the pause in between strips, and the speed of each strip.

You should do some experimenting with streamers in clear water where you can watch what the streamer does with different line movements. See if you can use rod movement and line mends to change the direction of the streamer, because a following fish will often take if the streamer suddenly zigs in a different direction from how it was formerly moving. Watch how fast the streamer sinks in slack line. See how it stays level, or hops up, depending on how high or low you hold the rod tip when stripping and how hard your strips are. See if you can make it jiggle and wave by wiggling the rod tip.

[Fly guy]

I appreciate the info from both of you I'll have to give it a go sometime soon.