Dry fly Steelheading?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

A friend of mine, Evan Jenkins, was up in British Columbia maybe 20 years ago.

He met an old guy from England who had migrated there and did a lot of Steelheading.

He said the right way to catch Steelhead was with a dead drifted dry fly.

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About 30 years ago I was lucky to have been able to camp on the Dean River in BC for two weeks.

We were taken there by Dean River veteran Joe Shirshac and Mac Holloway.

With us were Chris Pasley and Jack Sturdevant.


We fished sink-tips for the first week then Chris discovered that they liked dry flies.

We even cut up our wet flies to make for big Royal Wulff dries.


Chris rose a nice fish he missed and called be to watch.

The next cast a wild Dean River Steelhead rose up slowly to take his big dead drifted dry fly.

It was crazy, like dry fly fishing for giant trout.

We were at about 17 mile and conditions were perfect.

This was the best trip of my lifetime.

[PV_Premier]

Trinity fish will eat dead drifted dries in winter. It’s weird, but they do it.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I have friends who fish with Herb Burton in the winter for Steelhead on insect hatches when things are right.



This use to happen on the Lower Yuba River. Squala stones, Brown drakes and BWOs.



In Feb/March you can have resident trout and steelhead feeding on insect hatches when the conditions are right.



Many years ago Bill McMillan wrote an article on catching Sea-run Cutthroat trout feeding on Blue Wing Olive mayflies in the winter

on overcast days on the NW coast.

[John Sv]

Thanks Bill for sharing. It is your stories and experiences, and other’s stories too that keep me coming back!