Tension — The Art of The Swing

When the down and across angler becomes competent with casting and basic mending techniques the next step in the progression of line control is tension management. When and how you apply tension controls both speed and position of the fly and assists in managing belly in the line, sink tip and leader. Unless you are fishing…

Swinging Egg Flies and the Fallacies of the Dead Drift

I was recently listening to April Volkey’s podcast, “Anchored”, where she interviewed Jeff Liskay. During the podcast Jeff & April briefly discussed swinging egg flies. Both agreed that it was an effective method for catching steelhead but didn’t delve into the topic at great length — but should have. Setting aside the purist debate over swinging…

Great Lakes Coho on the Dry Fly

Great Lakes fly anglers have a history of treating salmon and steelhead different than their west-coast ancestors. For decades, third-coast anglers were convinced that steelhead would only eat egg flies bounced along the bottom until they made a commitment to using west-coast streamer tactics and were rewarded for their efforts. It’s not surprising that salmon…

Skinny Water Steelhead – Swing Control and Direction.

Swinging a fly on skinny water presents the down and across angler with a myriad of technical challenges. Like larger rivers, runs, pools and riffles occur through these small waters however, by virtue of the stream size, current speeds and transitions occur in small, compact spaces. While fishing a popular Wisconsin tributary recently I ran…