Bill Kiene semi-retired
08-03-2016, 09:36 AM
I got into the fishing tackle business over 50 years ago and met some of the best Steelheaders of the Greatest Generation.
I was very lucky that some of them took me with them to the rivers of Northern California.
At that time the average Steelhead rod was a 9' #9 line fiberglass in 2 sections.
We used a large single action fly reel, mostly the Pflueger Medalist or a large Hardy from England.
For backing we used Gudebrod or Cortland Micron braided dacron line.
The favorite shooting line was Cortland Cobra that was oval monofilament but people were constantly trying many other monofilament lines to see what would work best.
Most use 30' factory Cortland or Scientific Angler sinking shooting heads in different sink rates to match the depth and speed of the water. Some made their own heads by cutting up double taper sinking lines. ST10S = 300 grains was the norm but we also use to weigh heads in grains to get exactly the weight to make our rods cast best.
Leader were simple, maybe just 2 to 3 pieces of mono and fairly short.
Flies were simple, either winged classics for longer rivers or Comet style for shorter rivers, on average.
We fished longer rivers in the fall that were rock and gravel like the Lower American, Lower Feather, Klamath or Trinity.
The short rivers were the Gualala, Garcia and others that we fished in the winter near the ocean.
We watched the Grease Line or full floating line fishing come in around the 1970s coming down from Oregon and Washington.
Next came the Indicator fishing in the 1980s, first for trout, then for Steelhead.
Now the big deal that started about the turn of the century around here is Spey casting so we are swinging flies ago.
.
I was very lucky that some of them took me with them to the rivers of Northern California.
At that time the average Steelhead rod was a 9' #9 line fiberglass in 2 sections.
We used a large single action fly reel, mostly the Pflueger Medalist or a large Hardy from England.
For backing we used Gudebrod or Cortland Micron braided dacron line.
The favorite shooting line was Cortland Cobra that was oval monofilament but people were constantly trying many other monofilament lines to see what would work best.
Most use 30' factory Cortland or Scientific Angler sinking shooting heads in different sink rates to match the depth and speed of the water. Some made their own heads by cutting up double taper sinking lines. ST10S = 300 grains was the norm but we also use to weigh heads in grains to get exactly the weight to make our rods cast best.
Leader were simple, maybe just 2 to 3 pieces of mono and fairly short.
Flies were simple, either winged classics for longer rivers or Comet style for shorter rivers, on average.
We fished longer rivers in the fall that were rock and gravel like the Lower American, Lower Feather, Klamath or Trinity.
The short rivers were the Gualala, Garcia and others that we fished in the winter near the ocean.
We watched the Grease Line or full floating line fishing come in around the 1970s coming down from Oregon and Washington.
Next came the Indicator fishing in the 1980s, first for trout, then for Steelhead.
Now the big deal that started about the turn of the century around here is Spey casting so we are swinging flies ago.
.