Streamer Fishing Equipment

[Fly Fishing Pete]

I have had very little experience streamer fishing. I was out tonight, and after striking out on scuds and midges, I tied on a small black wooly bugger and immediately had success. Never realized how much fun it was and want to get into it more. I had my TFO 4wt that I bought at Lilley's, 2lb test flourocarbon leader and 7x tippet...not ideal for streamers I quickly found out after breaking off a bunch of fish.

What weight rod would you suggest for Taneycomo streamer fishing? What about leader and tippet? How about types, sizes, colors, etc. of streamers?

Thanks!

[westbranchfly]

Do you want to fish low or high water?

[Fly Fishing Pete]

Low

[Fishingmill]

I've streamer fished at Taney late at night and early morning with success throwing wooly buggers and clouser minnows. Anything that looks like a small baitfish or scuplin would probably work. I've read some guys have success on leeches, but I've never had any luck with these. You should be using a lot heavier line than 7x for streamer fishing. I would recommend 3x to 5x flouro. At night, you could probably get away with 1x or 2x.

I've never caught a lot of fish using streamers (not like how you can catch fish every minute using scuds in the outlets), but the fish I've caught on streamers are big and aggressive.

[Gatorjet]

Was that you by Short Creek last night!

[Fly Fishing Pete]

Yessir!

[Matt Madura]

I'd recommend a 6wt rod. Streamers at night you can get by with much heavier lines. 2X leader 2x-5x Tippett. I'm a leech guy at night myself. But there is tons of info on his forum on nighttime streamer fishing.

[Lancer09]

For the small low water stuff a 5 or 6 is fine.

During the day I tip with 4 lb flouro. At night I fish 6. Mix the flies up until you find what they are wanting.for numbers I'm mostly fishing small leeches and sculpins.