Sculpins!

[Mike]

I once gutted a 19 inch, apparently wild brown trout from Logan Branch. It hit my Heddon Flatfish despite the fact that its stomach contained seven large sculpins. They will gorge themselves on sculpins.

 

[mike_richardson]

Last summer i had watched 3 monster browns in a hole on my way home from work. I tried everything from june until august to get these guys. Finally one day i said forget it and took my bait fishing stuff to try some things now body would put in front of them. I had caught a tiny crab and a sculpin. As soon as the crab hit the water a 16 inch brownie nailed him. I lost this fish. Next was the sculping. i whipped him up stream and kind of jigged him. Every big brown went after him and missed. I got this 18" brownie near the end of the retrieve. I"M A BELIEVER!!!!

 

[troutslammer]

crawfish move at night and so do the big boys

 

[FiveWeight]

Bruno,

Great link. Thanks for posting it.

 

[steve2u42]

so, when looking to pick up some sculpins, how do i know what to buy? I have not started to tie flies yet.

 

[TLoomis]

sight_nymph_17109 wrote:
Anyone ever see that 'wet fly / sculpin' thing that Joe Humphreys uses?

I got him to give me 2 of them up at Paradise one day. It's on a streamer hook. Start tying marabou near the bend. Big clump pointing back, wrap the remainder around the shank, tie it off. Keep moving forward and squashing the stuff back so it's pretty tightly packed. Spun deer hair head trimmed to a bullet shape. All black or all brown. They got some very nice action in the water.

This is a KILLER pattern. I watched him fish this pattern in olive on BFC in the narrows. Trout loved it

 

[jdaddy]

Hey Steve, if you check Mikes website that I sent you, he has Shenk's sculpin for $1.75. There is a photo of his sculpin in the section "Streamers". That is made for the limestoners around you.

Question on the double hook articulated sculpins (and other streamers). Are they ok in "single hook" or "single fly" reg areas? Logic would say no, but sometimes my logic is faulty.

 

[PatrickC]

steve2u42 wrote:
so, when looking to pick up some sculpins, how do i know what to buy? I have not started to tie flies yet.

There are several types of large sculpins streamers available. One textbook rule of thumb is that the color of the sculpin should match the color of the bottom of the creek bed.

Frankly, I worry about that very little. I want a good sculpin imitation in numerous colors. I love the Butt Monkey sculpin patterns. They look good and sink well. You can add a bullet sinker to your line in deeper water situations as needed. You can get most sculpin patterns articulated and non-articulated. I get both. If I'm using a really long pattern, I like the articulated patterns because you get 2 hooks in that fly. You may miss a few more fish with long patterns that do not have a 2nd hook. I have a tendancy to switch colors pretty rapidly to find out what gets their attention that day. Once I start rolling fish consistency (even if they are small fish), I pretty much stick to that color and then thoroughly work the runs and holes, especially along undercut banks and around big rocks/logs, and boulders.

Vary your retrieve, but make sure you are spending some time stripping them as fast as you can...when sculpins are not under cover, they are moving fast to keep from being dinner. If you have never casted big heavy sculpins before...make sure no one is around watching you when you start 🙂 Trust me, you'll understand all to soon. Allow that heavy fly get to the end of your back cast and try not to let that rod get back much past 12:00. If you can master that, you load that rod better and get yourself in less trouble. You'll have to settle for a little frustration initially.

Oh yea, and don't waste your time with light weight tippet material for these big boys. Get yourself a 24-30" length of 12-15lb Maxima and attach that directly to your fly line. There is NOTHING subtle about this type of pattern. Light weight tippet is not going to help elicit strikes in this situation.

I encourage you to give tying a try. Steelhead season is coming up. Try tying some sucker spawn and Glo-bugs initially. These patterns are easy and will teach you some simple fundamentals. From there, tie a woolly bugger. Once you master a woolly bugger, you will have most of the needed skills to tie Butt Monkey sculpins. You will be surprised how few of those initial 3 patterns you will have to tie to get your sea legs for tying. You can find tons of flying tutorials for these patterns on You-Tube.

Patrick

 

[salmonoid]

A nice sized brookie (about 10") coughed this one up (literally) in Potter County. At first, I thought it was a catfish, which would have been extremely strange in the stream we were fishing, but quickly realized it was a sculpin. I don't ever recall catching fish with other fish in their mouth (except maybe in an area someone was fishing minnows in, and the fish were hook-robbing), but this year, I caught two myself and my brother caught the fish that held this sculpin.