Erie Steelhead flies

[JackM]

I am going to go to Erie soon, I hope, and was looking at some flies to tie in advance. When performing a general search for "steelhead flies" I turned up quite a bit of brightly-colored wooly buggers and leaches, in flourescent colors of green, pink, yellow, purple, etc. Many were in sizes 8 and bigger. Does anyone have luck with these types of flies? I was under the impression that smaller and more subtly-colored flies were the ticket for Erie Steelhead. What are your thoughts?

 

[Padraic]

Jack,

I think you're right. those big, colorful fries seem to be popular in the Northwest. Maybe they would work here, but I've always heard that the small dark nymphs & globugs are good Erie flies.

Padraic

 

[sandfly]

Jack,
I like to carry eggs,estaz eggs, sucker spawn,buggers, stone flys with all colors especially purple in it. Also some of the western patterns do work depending what type of fishing you are doing, chuck and duck or real casting and swinging of the fly.A lot of bright flasy flies in smaller sizes work now, later the more somber flies work...pm me and I can give you an exact list of what works..

 

[BigBronco]

I fished Erie last Friday and did very well on white zonkers and wooley buggers of all sorts of natural colors. Something that seems to work better for me is to use a weighted fly instead of weighting my line.

 

[JackM]

Thanks for the responses so far. I'm interested in additional thoughts as well.

 

[sandfly]

here are a few

 

[sandfly]

more yet

 

[JAD]

Jack their just an over sized Rainbow Trout use your same under water stuff , you will be fine.


JAD

 

[JackM]

I'm a sucker for gaudy-looking flies. So having had some slight indication that bright colors could be effective, I tied some simple white wooly buggers with a little extra color:

 

[Maurice]

Put a couple big splitshot ahead of them and swing it in a deep hole and you ought to be able to snag a few with those... :lol:

Jack, keep it simple and use normal colored ones...unless the water is murky. Eggs and nymphs will out produce buggers and wets ...inside the mouth.

Maurice

 

[ryanh]

I thought you just got to keep it "in front of the ears" :lol: . I got a 6inch long rapella that just cant miss. You should hear that baby wizz on a double haul.

I usually end up throwing everything in my box through the course of the day. An Alaskan favorite is the Egg sucking leach. I always have a bunch of those. I figure it is dark, has lots of action, and an egg. To a trout it must look like an egg mcmuffin floating by.