Dry fly Steelhead fishing

Spent the last week in what I consider to be one of the greatest places to fish wild steelhead on the fly. My LONG time fly fishing, bowhunting, waterfowling, friend Brad Siemens and I had previously guided on the Babine river. After almost ten years since we moved on to bigger and better things (Family and real jobs lol!) we decided it was time to go back and spend a little time fishing for ourselves. We brought along a first time Babine steelheader named Ryan, but also known as "young buck" to help show us what was lurking in the depths. Your chances of seeing a wild steelhead over 20 pounds on the fly on the Babine river, is better than anywhere in the world! My goal was to fish dry flies the entire week if the conditions permited. The chances of hooking one of those 20+ pound hawgs drops considerably when fishing dries but I have done it in the past, so why not? Upon arrival, we found the best possble dry fly conditions you could ask for! So we set up camp and got to it. I stuck to my guns and fished a dry the entire week other than one run, that didn't look to conducive to the dry on the third day. It didn't yield the big 20 pound buck i had hoped but I did land a nice little hen on an       ''Electrik Leech''. The sun was an issue with the water being soooo clear, and first and last light were the time to be waking bugs. The rest of the day was finding any run you could with shade on it. In the end my slowest day (if you can call it that? LOL) was rising 1 fish to the dry, and my best was raising 9! The highlights of the trip were spending time with Brad and especially watching him hook and land a nice buck on his favorite run while ''grease lining'' his favorite wet fly the ''Superfly"! We had some great meals cooked on an open fire, with stunning night skies. I haven't received any of Brad or Ryan's pics of our adventure yet but will share some of what I took, enjoy ;)

Our home base for the week

Ate loads of great food, like bighorn sheep steaks, chicken, mountain goat burgers, and bacon and eggs!

Oh, and farm fresh eggs from Brad's place!

A monster hen on the dry!

couple pics of Brad's favorite run named ''Callaghan's''

Brad's buck on his ''Superfly"

This kind of water screams waking flies!!

''Waked'' flies produced fish like this on average all week!

Brad lands a nice little hen for me, the only fish I took on a wet fly, an "Electrik" Leech of course!

Brad with a real nice buck landed on the last evening on his "foamback" pattern

We were sooooo lucky with the weather!

"Danish king of kings"

A client referred to me as the "Danish king of kings" this week? I don't consider myself a "king" of anything, but sure do love doing what I do!!  It took me a moment to realize that maybe he was referring to these? 

''Electrik'' Leeches

Yup, that's right, I spelled it with a ''k''. Making it my own! Lots of people have been asking what flies I use for Char and Salmon right now and I figured I had better post up a couple patterns.
I like to carry bugs in 2 colors, and 2 sizes. Dark bugs being combos of black/purple, black/blue, blue/chartreuse. For bright bugs it's hot pink,  white/olive, white/tan. I include some flash, but not an over the top amount. I like the movement of natural materials so I use marabou, schlappen, rhea, and ostrich.
The 2 sizes are tied in different styles, my ''big'' patterns, which are in the neighborhood of 4'' are tied on waddington shanks, with a loop of braided line attached in a manner that your hook of choice can be looped on. The hook size varies from one fishery to the next, but for an all around hook I use an Owner #2. The beauty of the stinger hook is that if the hook gets dull, you can simply remove it and loop on a new one. I also feel you hook up a greater percentage of those half hearted takes. When swinging these intruder type flies you want them to be running just like the Beastie Boys song, ''slow and low, that is the tempo". Most times the take will be a slow, spongy sort of feeling, and will be dismissed as bottom till you set the hook and the rods starts pumping! Here is an example of one tied stinger style in black and purple which is my favorite fly hands down! The second is the hot pink.

The other size, which I call my small pattern still measure up at about 2 1/2'' long! but are tied on either a #2 or #4 2XXlong Tiemco. These work better when the water is clear or if my clients can't chuck a half wet chicken. To get the movement I like in my flies, they're tied with materials that tend to grab air and stay a bit buoyant, so I generally wrap the shank of the hook with .030 lead wire. Char are especially notorious for following swung flies out of the current and then taking them while being retrieved. The lead helps the fly to rise and drop when a generous pause is done between strips back in, triggering a strike that will startle you! Usually this happens within the first 5 strips or so. Below are examples of the same flies tied on the long shanks.

There are a million different patterns, and we all have different ideas about size and color but this is what works for me, and I think if you have too many different ones in your boxes to choose from you'll spend more time changing them, and second guessing them, than fishing!

Anyways..... Back to my vise!
Erik