Help fishing a Sculpin

[Jlafko3]

Hey everyone, I think I have finally tied a great articulated sculpin pattern. I have thrown it a few times as a trial run and had some success on it. It generates a good amountof interest from fish and that gave me some confidence in it. However, I feel like I could be doing something better on my presentation. If anyone has some tips or methods on how to present it to fish I'd be really appreciative! Thanks!

Ive been throwing a 5 inch articulated sculpin, 3 segments in the body, with one stinger hook in the tail and it has a helmet on it. Just to give you an idea of what I'm exactly throwing.

 

[sgrim]

What are you doing with it? I don't fish them that often but I try to get it down on the bottom and scoot it along in short bursts.

 

[Dave_W]

Jlafko3 wrote:
Ive been throwing a 5 inch articulated sculpin, 3 segments in the body, with one stinger hook in the tail and it has a helmet on it.

This is quite a large streamer fly for trout fishing regardless of what it imitates (I recommend small sculpins, but that is a topic for a different thread).

When fishing streamer flies of this size...expect to put in a lot of time without catching a lot of fish. However, you will move a lot of trout with big stuff and draw a lot of strikes. On a good note, you have a hook at the rear of the fly. This will help with hook-ups, however you will still get many hits and few hook-ups. When you do finally get a hit from a big trout, you're more likely to stick him (bass will also show a lot of interest in a big streamer like this and you will hook more of them).

I recommend fishing a big streamer like this down and across with a lot of action. No need for a sinking line on typical PA streams. On bigger waters - think the Yough or Lehigh - a sinking line will work well.

One final note: flies of this size will likely work better when things warm up a bit. Water temps are mostly still in the low forties and this is cold for streamer fishing IMO. With temps up into the 50s, you will likely move a lot more fish with large streamers such as this.

 

[ryansheehan]

Cut the last 3 inches off and dead drift it :lol: In all seriousness, I don't ever throw flies that big for trout. When I do fish streamers 90% of the time I dead drift them adding twitches where necessary. Occasionally I will swing and strip down and across. Just out of curiosity how much success have you had in your trial runs, any big fish?

 

[timbow]

While down and across is a very popular method, it’s really not the best approach when trying to imitate a wounded sculpin or baitfish. When a fish is wounded or fleeing from a predator it will almost always point its head downstream and and flee. Try casting slightly upstream and pause a few seconds to let a big belly form in your line. This will get your fly moving head first down stream then you can jerk strip or jig it with your rod pointed downstream. Even on most pa streams I mostly use a full sinking type 4 sinking line. I prefer flies that are neutrally buoyant and a sinking line help get them under the surface and still maintain that buoyancy that gives the fly movement. Big streamers are also much easier to cast with a sinking line.

Yes, you will move a lot of fish on big streamers and many/most will never fully commit, but it can help you locate the biggest fish in the river and you can come back and try a different method later and you will know where to focus.

As far as the stinger hook, they really aren’t necessary. When a good fish wants to kill your fly it doesn’t do it by nipping at it’s tail, it smacks it in the head to stun it. While you will get some fish that do nip the tail, I believe this is more of a territorial posture and is almost always a smaller fish and that’s not what your after if your throwing 5 inch hunks of meat. All the stinger will do is irritate you as it tends to foul on itself often.

 

[Jlafko3]

Thanks for relying guys! This is my first time fishing a streamer this large for trout. When I used streamers in the past I threw a size 6 or 8 wooly bugger. I figured I'd add some good size meat into my box for big fish in big water.

I've used that sculpin pattern on about 4 trips, The biggest fish I landed was a 15 inch brown from the Little J, I saw a few big time swing and misses from some fish pushing 20 or more though and that got me pumped up.

As for methods I also found a cast upstream and slow twitch/jig was effective in deeper water. However I mainly used a swing and twitch method for most of my streamer fishing.

I was just curious if there was a certain way to fish a sculpin, I know how they swim in and out of rocks on the bottom and was curious if that was a good method to try to imitate.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

As someone who fishes big streamers for big trout, especially big sculpins I think you’ll be ok. I disagree with those who said the stinger is no good. Probably the most important hook in the fly. Yes the fish when they want it will eat ithead first but the stinger will pull the nippers. Especially places like the letort.

Keep it on the bottom, twitch it in quick twitches and let it rest. One the best things about the helmets is this. If your fishing upstream and let the sculpin rest on the bottom it will turn itself to looking upstream. Trout go crazy for this. I’ve had huge trout up to twenty two inches eat the fly laying right on the bottom.

Another huge tip I can give you is to change directions. I have literally seen huge trout decide to not hit the fly. Change direction and they come hammer it. I changed directions 5 times once on a brown that was only half interested into an insane eat.

As for dead drifting, I kind of hate this technique. It works but I’ve never seen an alive baitfish just dead drift through current. I think when people are dead driving wooly buggers it’s more like a big nymph then baitfish.

I have been fishing big streamers in the cv area for More that 5 years now. Believe me they work.

As for casting the big sculpin heads. Keep ur rod tip high and just underhand swing the sculpin and you can literally place it in the water with no splash.

 

[Jlafko3]

Thanks for sharing my man, I plan in tossing that fly more often then not this year. Do you notice a difference in attention when you change the color of your sculpin? I have a few of them tied up in an Olive color and a couple tied up in a gray and black. I think I want to add a couple in shades of dark tan to dark brown. And last thing, when you use your helmets on the sculpins, do you use a bigger helmet then is "recommended" for the size fly? Because when you look at and ulpin the head in the biggest and widest part of the fish, and I don't feel like the helmets they recommend for a size of hook do the profile justice.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

I don’t notice so much attention in changing colors. I usually tie mine in three colors, olive variant, gold variant, and white. I like the all white because I can see it. Really just make your sculpin the color of the creek bottom and you should be ok.

For helmets, I use the biggest size they hv on all my patterns. I want my fly on the bottom period. Be careful casting them though especially with a light line weight rod. Should at least use a 6 weight as these get heavy. I e broken plenty of rods with these. Minimize casting as much as you can.

Any other questions feel free to ask here or pm. If this place wasn’t so difficult to put pics up I’d throw some up.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

Here’s a sneak tip as well, you can glue the helmet back far enough on the hook you can get rabbitir marabou in front the helmet. This does a few things.

Hides the helmet as some of them are glossy and I don’t like that.
Secondly it basically acts as a bead behind the hackle on a soft hackle and will actually hold a nice shape around the helmet. I can’t say I invented this method but I def haven’t seen anyone do it.

 

[Hook_Jaw]

That size is fine depending on the body of water your in I use many streamers 4-5 inches articulated mainly best for me early morning or at dark or stained water.

Bigger water like Penns, Little J, Pine, Bald eagle those are a good size to throw but can sometimes have more success on a smaller pattern depends on what your after also if your trophy hunting 5 inches is fine to me.

 

[allan_s]

Talking to streamer junkies from out of state who travel to large river systems, think Arkansas, they were surprised when I told them that there was such a large following in PA in places like Penns. It is a covering water game for 2 foot plus trout as they see it and they fished streamers in PA waters they mostly stuck to 3-4 inch streamers max.

But to each his own. I think the streamer guys have the best marketing scheme in the business and it is fun to throw monster streamers.

I have caught some large pa trout streamer fishing and have caught more and the same size fish on an articulated streamer 5 inches as I have on a roughly a size 2-4 streamer. Except i catch more in the 15 inch range - which I prefer on the smaller one.

 

[pete41]

And for a change of pace try some dark spruce flies in a 6,8,10...nothing imitates a sculpin scurrying for safety better...based on my observations in Montana anyway.