Fly-Swatter:
I use articulated patterns - many of which are Kelly patterns, but I also really like tying mike Schmidt’s flies, and Chad Johnson’s flies. My favorite being CJ’s sluggo
Typically, I use them when the water is up and off color but sometimes I just feel like fishing streamers. I’ll only fish the big ones in water that I know can hold big fish, but hopefully that goes without saying.
Keep in mind too that just because it is an articulated fly, doesn’t mean it’s 6” or 8” long. Though I do have some double deceivers and whatnot in that size range, they arent used much. I do, on the other hand, throw articulated flies in the 2-5” range frequently. You may be surprised at the number of 10” fish that will slam a 4” fly haha.
I basically just scale down everything that the Michigan and Montana guys are tying. I love tying them and fishing them. Also all these patterns are great for bass and other species, so don’t be afraid that you’ll have a box full of big trout streamers you never use.
There’s a great Orvis podcast with mike Schmidt that talks about a lot of this and I suggest giving it a listen. He offers a great perspective on a lot of “big streamer” topics. One of the big take always for me when I listened was that it’s really just another form of matching the hatch- say your stream is full of 3-4” creek chubs. Welp throw a 3-4” chub looking thing and see what happens. Say your creek is all brown trout with some small baitfish, but it holds some BIG mean Browns- you could throw a baby brown imitation to target the Big boys or throw a small baitfish (and likely have better numbers.)
Basically there is a point where too big is too big, all bravado aside, but too small isn’t necessarily going to entice the bigger fish you may be hunting. So finding what is “big” enough to draw out the predatory fish (and minimize your catch of dinks) but accurate in size to the main forage available in your water is really the biggest thing to consider.
To that point, I experienced this very thing a while back. I was streamer fishing and I came up to a bridge that I know some big trout have been taken. I was throwing a small articulated baitfish pattern about 3”. Nothing. I cycled through a few similar sized flies to see if I could get something to chase- it wasn’t until I sized up and tied on a big meal ticket (very cool fly btw) just shy of 6” that I had gotten the interest of a very large brown who followed it to my feet and spooked. Now, I haven’t seen a ton of small baitfish in this river, but there are a ton of small trout, so in this case, the bigger fly probably matched the more available forage base of small trout better. I proceeded to fish the rest of the day with 5” flies and had 2 more big fish follow - I never got one to commit and got skunked that day, but it was a really cool to see these large fish I knew were around (but rarely see) come out to inspect the streamer.
Sorry for the rambling post but as for hooks- I use a lot of Gamakatsu B10S in sizes 8 all the way up to 1. Typically the front hook is 2 sizes larger than the back, e.g. 1 front 4 back, 2 front 6 back, 4 front 8 back. That’s not a rule, just generally works / looks about right. Certain patterns (for instance a barely legal or a laser legal), I use the same hook for both the front and back. I like the B10S for most of my streamer ties, but some flies work better on something with a longer shank, a 3X or 4x long standard streamer hook, if there are a lot of materials to tie in, or if it’s got a thinner profile.
I don’t think anybody asked for all that, but there is some related info- haha
I’ve been stuck in the office all day, and I’m bored as all heck, can ya blame me?
Also, nice video and tie. I dig that- do you notice any difference between using bigger or smaller beads at the connection point? Jw cuz I used larger beads for a while, and switched to smaller beads recently- I haven’t noticed a difference in action necessarily, but the smaller beads cut down a little bit on weight.
it’s got just the right flexibility vs stiffness to keep ya swimming all sexy, and it’s cheap (like 10 for a spool here in the SE). I won’t use mono under any circumstances as it will go bad on you eventually.
