Top 5 Streamers

[Bogey]

Hi guys,
Sorry if this has been discussed in other threads...I searched it a few different ways and did not see anything. What are your go-to streamers? Looking to both tie and fish so list out the ones that are easier to tie first...

 

[Dave_W]

Streamers are easy to tie and easy to fish. I tie almost all my streamers these days so that they swim hook-upward. Marabou and rabbit strips work great and have no match for movement in the water. Experiment with these materials and you will be pleased with the results.

Some good basic streamers to get you started would be:

Woolly Bugger
Clouser Minnow
Shenks' White Minnow
Any sculpin pattern (Shenk has a good one; there are many)
Muddler Minnow
Deceiver

(Note that the muddler and many sculpins utilize spun deer hair heads. Spinning deer hair takes some practice.)

 

[ryansheehan]

1. Black Woolly Bugger
2. Green/Olive Woolly Bugger
3. Brown Woolly Bugger
4. White Woolly Bugger
5. Red/Orange Woolly Bugger

You get the idea. I don't fish streamers that much compared to nymphing anymore but I went through a steamer phase. I'd be curious how nightstalker answers this one

 

[ryc72]

I’m gonna go off the run a little bit and put the best streamers that most people have never fished...

Reece’s masked bandit/Kures micro zonker. Small pine squirrel baitfish pattern. Just awesome. Probably the most consistent streamer I fish. Awesome on the swing or strip or being dragged by an indicator in faster water. Fish of all size chase this fly.

Umpqua hell razor leech. Discovered this recently on a trip out west and it caught countless cut throats...okay maybe 8. But because of the jig style hook I feel like I had much better hook ups and I didn’t have a single fish come unbuttoned which is rare when streamer fishing. Can strip swing or dead drift.

Umpqua pine squirrel leech. Can strip swing or dead drift. Had the best success swinging and if not on the swing lots of takes on the dangle.

Baitfish patterns by Thomas Williams of stoneys custom flies...
https://www.stoneyscustomflies.com/
Not cheap but absolutely awesome flies. Almost too pretty to fish and it’s really painful to lose a fly. Ugh. Some awkward moments too when a bud sees the fly and comments on how nice it is and you just say thanks and don’t offer one.

Moto minnow. Very popular in the pnw but you don’t really see them in pa. Not sure why. Great fly when you need to get deep. The small white ones carried by orvis is great as a lead fly in a double streamer rig.

Lots of great streamers out there...zonkers, slumpbusters, woolly buggers, sculpins, as well as countless others. but give some of those above a shot...they’ve been great for me recently. As you could tell by that list I’m not a tier (not yet anyway) and I’ve been on a pine squirrel micro streamer kick lately. For me the micro streamers produce much more consistently than large ones. For those looking for a wooly bugger alternative just to mix it up try a mohair leech.

 

[PennKev]

1.) Barred Olive Montana Mouthwash
2.) Natural Rabbit Strip Conehead Muddler
3.) Olive Slump Buster
4.) Black Nosed Dace Bucktail
5.) Black Wooly Bugger (Several other colors come close though)

 

[LetortAngler]

1.) Large Black Bugger with Grizzly Hackle
2.)Slumpbusters tied with Mink (better movement imo)
3.)Shenks White Minnow and Sculpin
4.)Zoo Cougar
5.) Truck-Stop Special

 

[Wild_Trouter]

I fish many of the patterns listed here. For me, the most versatile fish catching pattern is the Golden Retriever. Very easy to tie and is lights out on wild/stocked fish. I tie it in larger sizes if I'm targeting larger fish in specific streams. See below:
http://mossycreekflyfishing.com/2014/09/16/the-golden-retriever/

 

[poopdeck]

I didn't see what your fishing for. Streamer picks are easy. These will catch anything. I mainly fish for SMB so my picks reflect this.

1) wooly bugger, black or olive
2)
3)
4) brush fly, bait fish color
5) Muddler, standard color

I don't carry lots of gear so I keep my pickings to a minimum. Buggers work most times.

My brush flies are simple brushes wrapped around the hook and trimmed. When fish hit all the crazy fly concoctions they will also hit a simple brush fly.

I tie my muddlers with weight, be it a cone head or lead wraps, and a very loose head. I find there are better options up top then a muddler. A muddler on the bottom is the key to muddlers. Since I don't like weight on the line I add it to the fly and keep the head really loose otherwise it's to difficult to sink.

 

[Swattie87]

The Golden Retriever is a nice looking fly, kinda reminds me of an Autumn Splendor pattern, which I carry and like. That being said, really they're both just Woolly Bugger variants.

I only have 3 streamer patterns in my boxes, in varying sizes, variations, and colors of course:

1. Buggers
2. Sculpins
3. Clousers

I have some Crayfish and fancier Slumbuster style flies somewhere, but I took them out of my boxes that I regularly carry on the stream...They take up too much space, are more expensive to buy/tie, and don't work any better than an equal size/color Bugger IMO.

Edit: And let's be honest. If you're fishing for Smallies in cooler weather, and you need to be bouncing a heavily weighted Crayfish fly off the bottom at a snail's pace to induce a bite, this can be done much more effectively with a jighead and trailer on spinning or baitcasting tackle.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

As a heavily dedicated streamer fisherman I can tell you that you can't narrow it down to top five.

Get a good minnow net and dig around , try to notice a trend in your streams fish population. Some streams have more of one species of dominate forage fish.
Those should round out the top 2 of a pattern you toss.
My favorites include
Blacknose Dace
Shiner
Chub

Must toss sculpins
Whitlock near nuff in olive and brown size 4-6
Also densely tied and bulky articulated sculpins in black and olive

Woolly Buggers in Olive, Black, white, Brown size 10-4x2xl
It can catch anything that swims. Size up and down depending on species. Weight them or not depending on conditions.
Easy to tie, efficient with materials and no wrong way to fish it.
Dead drift, nymph, drag top or bottom, strip, twitch, swing, and catch everything from freshwater trout and bass to salt water stripers and redfish.

I didnt even mention gallops, daniels, shenks minnow, clouser minnow.....
So so many.

Main thing. When you do it, you live and die by it. Some days it's numbers but some days it's slower but your average size of fish goes up.
You might catch 2 all day, but they could be monsters .

 

[Tigereye]

Surprised no one mentioned zonkers.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

A zonker pattern is my shiner


Like this one:

http://ckoflytying.blogspot.com/2012/09/whitedeath.html?m=1

 

[redietz]

Limiting this to streamers I'd use for trout (and including bucktails as streamers)

1) Black Ghost with marabou wing
2) Black Nosed Dace
3) Warden's Worry
4) Wood Special
5) Muddler Minnow with marabou wing

The list would be completely different for smallmouth, I'm sure

 

[Out4Trout]

1. Thin Mint Wooly Bugger
2. Black Wooly Bugger
3. Olive Wooly Bugger
4. Yellow Wooly Bugger
5. Oh Yea, did I mention Thin Mint Wooly Bugger

 

[tomgamber]

Buggers, clousers, leeches and I do like Shenks minnow.

 

[krayfish2]

Clouser minnow
Circus peanut
Sex dungeon
Tube patterns
Sculpin

Honorable mention: wooly bugger

 

[Swattie87]

krayfish2 wrote:
Clouser minnow
Circus peanut
Sex dungeon

I think you meant:

Peanut Clouser
Sex Circus
Minnow Dungeon

Easy mistake, could happen to anybody.

 

[pete41]

and if you make it to Montana in the fall-light spruce flies imitate sculpins [in the H2O] as well as any fly [really] -only drawback-wing rap- so not ideal nightfly -have to keep checking-but you can rack up some impressive catches size and numberwise. If you are after the BIG ONE other ties might give you an edge but not as many numbers.

 

[Acristickid]

Not sure you would even need 5. I try to not to Over complicate things.

For trout- a black or olive slumpbuster, black or olive articulated with a conehead.

For saltwater a chartreuse clouser


Good luck to all fly anglers.

 

[krayfish2]

Swattie wrote:
I think you meant:

Peanut Clouser
Sex Circus
Minnow Dungeon

Easy mistake, could happen to anybody.

No, no. Let's not confuse streamers with my personal life