Streamer Season is upon us! Dick Magill Chronicles

Streamer Season is upon us! Dick Magill Chronicles

The Chronicles of Dick Magill on the Headhunters Blog. Thanks Richard for the blog today. Yes, many have been streamer fishing and it has been as consistent as we could hope for. Bight and sunny skies the past week have not deterred the fish from enjoying the streamer. The same ahead of us as we look for some rain and overcast skies! Thanks Dick Magill!It may not feel like it quite yet, but the long hot days of summer are behind us. Shorterdays paired with cool nights will bring the river into prime form. When this happens fishbegin gorging themselves in preparation for the long winter months. Figuring out whatthey are eating during this feeding frenzy is a sure fire way to catch some of the bestfish of the year.As the insect activity begins to wane large trout start predating on small bait fish withmore frequency. Now you may be asking yourself, “ What kind of bait fish call the upperMissouri home?” It’s a fair question. Unlike many bodies of water in North America, theMissouri River between Holter Dam and Cascade does not have a large bio diversity ofsmall fish species swimming amongst the trout. Instead large trout predate on juvenileversions of the adult fish calling the river home. Some of these non-trout species includebut are not limited to Yellow Perch, Walleye, Mountain White Fish, Burbot, Sucker Fish,Common Carp, and Northern Pike. The only fish swimming in the Mo that I wouldconsider a bait fish would be the sculpin. Trout love a good sculpin snack too. With theright presentation a good angler can take advantage of this. Sometimes eliciting savagestrikes from angry piscivores.When the trout start to key on sculpin or juvenile fish the streamer bite becomes unreal.Ferocious trout rise from the depths to swipe at the right fly often hitting them withreckless abandon. If you can handle throwing a 6wt or 7wt for hours on end mixed inwith a bit of inclement weather then you may find yourself with a new obsession. It’s notall chucking and ducking though. There is most definitely a method to the madness bothwith presentation and fly selection. A simple strip retrieve may work at times, but it’ssimply not the only way to fish a streamer.In order to get the most action out of your streamer try employing a jerk strip method.This is a technique made famous by Kelly Galloup, a streamer fishing legend fromAmerica’s high five, the mediocre state of Michigan. The technique is fairly easy and isvery similar to fishing a jerk bait with a casting rod. First find your target. A goodambush point will do. Once you deliver the cast you can either let the fly sink for amoment or you can begin the retrieve immediately. To do this, pump the tip of the rod away from the fly with your wrist being the fulcrum point. This will force your streamer torapidly accelerate then die. Use your off hand to strip in any slack created by thepumping motion. Be sure to keep the butt of your rod in line with the middle of yourstomach. This will help in getting a positive hook set as it will keep you from getting outof position.Another very effective method this time of year is to simply swim your steamer as fastas you possibly can. Again, you can attempt to do this by simply stripping quickly withone hand but that may not generate enough speed to elicit the savage reaction strikeswe’re looking for. It sounds wild but here me out. If you throw the rod under yourdominant arm after the cast and use both hands to strip the fly back, you can swim yourstreamer fast enough to force big fish to commit. When you do get a fish to eat justcontinue stripping for the hook set. After you think you have driven the hook into thefish’s jaw you can normally transition your rod from under your arm to your dominanthand. Fish on!You can fish either of those methods with a sinking line, a floating line, or a floating linewith a sinking tip. All three have their pros and cons.With a full sinking line you can get away with only using 34”-36” of 0X as your leader.Having such a short leader allows the angler to have far more control over theirstreamer and swim the fly with a more erratic action. They are also nice to have whentrying to swim a fly at break neck speed because they allow you to get down to thestrike zone quickly and stay their long enough for a fish to key in on your streamer. Amajor down side of a full sinking line would be the frequency to which you get caught onthe bottom of the river. They’re also not the friendliest lines as far as line managementis concerned as mending is nearly impossible. Two things that can be overcome withrelative ease but are defiantly annoying at times.A floating line is the “old school” way to fish a streamer. You utilize a longer taperedleader and a weighted fly to get down to the strike zone. Sometimes to do this theangler is required to mend several times to ensure the fly is able to sink in faster water.They are fine when swinging a streamer through a run, but they are not my preferredline for stripping a streamer. This is because you simply do not have enough controlover the fly when using a jerk strip retrieve.Using a floating line with a sinking tip is an interesting compromise. It gives you theability to mend a section of your line while also being able to penetrate the water columnfairly quickly. I’ve just recently started fishing the Rio Predator streamer line which is atriple density line. I really enjoy the Float/Intermediate/Sink 3. Tons of action when youwhen you throw an up stream mend then start jerking the streamer back to you.If you have any questions on rigging, feel free to call or email the shop. We love tossingstreamers and can help get you dialed in no time. All you need is a 6wt or 7wt, a handfull of streamers and a big of 0X tippet to catch a bonafide two footer right now. What’sstopping you?!