We’ve been beating the drum lately about the fact that flies that imitate salmon parts work really well when targeting rainbow trout in Western Alaska. We’ve also mentioned that dead drifts aren’t that important, but getting your fly down is.
In the process of going through the 1,273,489 pictures from our summer season at Alaska West, we stumbled upon this simple illustration of how to fish flies that imitate salmon parts.
See that gob of eggs with some flesh mixed in? See how big it is? See how it’s on the bottom? Can you imagine how it’s not drifting evenly with the current, but just tumbling downstream?
OK, good. So the next time you’re chasing rainbows and thinking about imitating salmon parts, tie on a nice meaty fly. Apply lots of weight to your leader. Huck it in there. Don’t worry so much about a perfect dead drift. Got it?
Great advice. Might need to tie up a slab of eggs like that. Need a 12 weight to cast it on though.
Gotta admit that when you start hucking lures around that are imitating a big old glob of eggs, it seems to me that you are over complicating things by going with a fly rod setup.
The observation though about getting it down on the bottom and not just float along is spot on though!