Grande Ronde Trip

[whiskeyjin]

Really love the all your because sparse and great proportion.
Hopefully great time your trip with this set and let us know.
Thanks for sharing Shaq.

Regards
Jin

[beulahnw]

Shock, Orange and Purple work great on the surface as well.

Bruce Berry~

[Shaq]

The Spade. This simple looking fisher may find a place in my perminant box

[raspberry-patch]

Nice flies and hope to get a good trip report out of this!

ps .... I will be missing Spey Nation (I am in another country-continent (work)) this year.

[inland]

The last fly is a skunk variant. Spade is another fly worth tying.

There isn't one fly you have tied that won't work as well as anything else out there.

When are you going? Adjust to water color and flows through presentation. If the water is smoking high (doubtful but not impossible) and dirty...going deep and big could provide an advantage. But not always and you will never know if you automatically adjust to conditions. I prefer to stick with the same and let others do the adjusting.

If the conditions are more normal the dryline, especially under low light situations on that river, and your flies will most likely OUTFISH the tips and flures. Mid day and sun on the water...you are probably going to find fishing tips an advantage. But not always and certainly fish can be caught under these conditions with the dryline using on/in/near surface presentations.

Don't get too caught up in 'what works'. This leads to dogma, or fully buying into 'conventional wisdom' 'cause you heard or read it somewhere. IMO the best way to view steelhead success is 'at least it wasn't the wrong presentation/fly/yada/yada/yada'. As there were probably 65 million different flies that would have worked on that fish. And another 132.3 presentations. Just because you caught, even if you did so fishing a different fly/method right after another angler (or following yourself) unsuccessfully covered said water, it still doesn't mean you were right. You just don't know what is really happening out there.

The only reason I went on with the yammering post is your comment about the fall favorite being too simple. These fish will take AHE W's 'red' and 'blue' shank 'flies'. Flies are mostly tied to catch the fisherman. Nobody knows what is going on in the heads of these fish. They do what they do and they sure do take the fall fav.

William

[Shaq]

William,

The comments about the Fall Favorite were more born from my own particular ideosincrisies about tying rather from what a steelhead may or may not hit. I'd personally rather take the 15 minutes on one fly to fish than spend it tying a dozen fall favs...

On the Spade, could you provide me with a recipe of the spade, that's what I cam up with on a google search.

Thanks

[inland]

Shaq,

Do a google search, Ronn Lucas has the right pattern for the spade. The Fall Favorite has a tinsel body. I don't think it takes me 5 minutes longer to tie most classic steelhead hairwing wets vs. the fav. A few do for sure.

If the conditions are close to good you should have a great trip. Those fish are as surface friendly as any in the world. Fishing waked dries and hitched wets are not to be overlooked...

William

[Nooksack Mac]

Shaq: The Spade is a small, simple soft hackle designed by Bob Arnold of Seattle and the North Stilly as a non-threatening wet for low water, late summer conditions. The basic fly was tied on No. 6 Sealey hooks no longer made. The tail is brown deer body hair (for floatation, to elevate the hook bend), black chenille, floss, or yarn, and a hen grizzly collar hackle. People loved it, but couldn't leave such a simple concept alone. Bob's book "Steelhead & the Floating Line: a Meditation" (1995, Frank Amato Publications, Portland, Oregon - the kind of regional treasure that some of us keep under lock and key) shows, on Plate 2, 15 variations of the Spade in color.

A point about standard practice: It's normal with steelhead hairwing flies to add the collar or throat hackle before the wing. (If using the foldback variation for a more securely attached wing, add the wing first, then the collar, then fold back the wing over the collar.) I'm not saying that this is objectively the "best" way, or that the steelhead will notice or care. In some cases, a darker collar over a bright wing makes for a more subdued effect, FWIW.

[Shaq]

Thanks for the help guys! Turns out I found the "Spade Skunk" for that last one.

OK, Hopefully I got this one right, I found a bunch of patterns for this search.

Steelhead Coachman

[24-7]

As much as I like them all Shaq...this Steelhead Coachman takes the cake

dave

[beulahnw]

Shaq: Around Maupin Hazel's Steelhead Coachman is known as "The Man". Good...ex that...Great Choice!

Bruce Berry~

[beulahnw]

Shaq: I forgot to write the name of the skater I posted for you earlier. That is Gerath's Curb Feeler. It...like all "foam domes" kind of throws like a whiffle ball. A 25 to 50 grain underlined Skagit and a 14' Floating Poly leader and tippet will make it feel like you are casting a #14 dry fly!

G.R. fish respond to these nicely even late in the season when the air temps plummet. Take a few...seriously you will jump out of your boots when a Kamikazee fish decides to interrupt a perfectly good casting, stipping, shooting and stepping session.

[Joe M.]

Also, refer to pp. 437-439 of Trey Combs "Steelhead fly fishing" -- he calls Arnold's original Spade "in effect a black Burlap". He wanted a subdued black fly that was fast to tie.

Tail: grey-brown deer hair
Body: black chenille
Hackle: soft grizzly

On page 308 he describes Alec Jackson's versions with the ostrich chenille (also seen this with peacock), which he ties in a variety of other colors. Also, I think Raspberry Patch put up a nice series of Jackson style spades a while back: http://www.speypages.com/speyclave/s...ghlight=spades .

Joe

[Shaq]

Golden Demon


Had trouble with the proportions on these. Of the 6 I tied for the trip, every one had something wrong with them. I think they'll fish though

[Shaq]

Silver Hilton



Wings too long I think. Another I seem to have a block on.