Q&A AI
Which dry flies work best for summer steelhead on the Deschutes River?
While the videos provided focus primarily on bait and lure fishing for steelhead, I can certainly share some insights on fly fishing for summer steelhead on the Deschutes River. Dry fly fishing for steelhead can be incredibly exciting, and there are a few patterns that tend to be effective on the Deschutes during the summer months.
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Skating Flies: These are designed to skate across the surface of the water, creating a V-wake that can entice aggressive steelhead to strike. Popular patterns include the Bomber, Waller Waker, and Muddler Minnow.
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Traditional Dry Flies: Classic patterns like the Adams, Royal Wulff, and Elk Hair Caddis can sometimes draw strikes from steelhead, especially in the evenings or when insects are actively hatching.
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Foam Patterns: Flies like the Chernobyl Ant and various foam-bodied stonefly imitations can be effective, particularly in the faster riffles and pocket water where steelhead might be looking up for large terrestrials or stoneflies.
Remember, the key to successful dry fly fishing for steelhead is often presentation. Make sure your casts are delicate, your flies land softly on the water, and you're mending your line to achieve a natural drift. Also, be prepared to cover a lot of water and make numerous casts, as steelhead can be quite selective and sometimes it takes just the right drift over a fish to elicit a strike.
If you're new to fly fishing or targeting steelhead on the Deschutes, it might be helpful to connect with a local fly shop or guide who can provide real-time advice on what's working best. They often have the most up-to-date information on river conditions and hatch activity, which can greatly influence your success with dry flies.
Related videos
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Video00:00
02:38
You NEED These Baits For Steelhead! by Fisherman's Warehouse → what's up everyone Austin Wilson here and uh we're gonna we're gonna talk about steelhead fishing so steelhead fishing is one of my favorite species of fish for I absolutely love steelhead it's pretty much a sea run rainbow they're they're very acrobatic they're very they're a very hard fighting fish um they're very fun but they're a very tricky fish to catch too so uh it's kind of a challenge what I really like to do is I'm I'm in a drift boat you can't fish for for these fish from the shore it's just a little bit more work you needed covering water walking down the bank and and whatnot but the one technique that I absolutely love is plug fishing most time I'm fishing a maglip either a 3.0 or a 3.5 and the 3.5 is more for my I guess wintertime steelhead I like the the 3.5 is a little bit bigger presentation I'm fishing for a little bit bigger fish so I want a little bit bigger bait um in the summertime like right now I like the 3.0 it seems to be a great size for the smaller the smaller steelhead colors wise I really like Chrome uh and blue and Chrome uh it seems to work really well in in this the clear uh fast water and you know if I have any kind of overcast I I switch over to Gold so I have a green
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Video03:24
05:32
You NEED These Baits For Steelhead! by Fisherman's Warehouse → smaller fish obviously you want to downsize if there's a little bit bigger fish you can up up uh up size and go a little bit bigger but it seems like the one-third is a really good size for catching bigger fish and smaller fish at least in our Rivers down here um and a lot of times I'm taking the trouble look off this bait and I'm putting a single gamagatsu sidewash hook on there um it seems like a sticks fish and I'm able to land a lot more fish with that sidewash so these are the two baits if you're fishing from the shore they're great you can pretty much throw them out there and you're gonna let it kind of pendulum down you're letting the current kind of make that bait flutter and you're working it down river um and a lot of times when it fishes around same thing with those maglips they're just gonna they're gonna smash it and it's gonna be a fun bite another bait that I don't have in front of me right now for the summertime fish is a night crawler these summertime fish love a night crawler and I'm pretty much either on the bank bouncing it down with a little leader and a pretty much a slinky and I'm bouncing it down in the riffles uh with a night like I said Nightcrawler they love them or I'm in
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Video02:16
04:30
You NEED These Baits For Steelhead! by Fisherman's Warehouse → there's no really seam lines or hard you know current breaks or something like that I just I kind of just uh typewriter so I'm going back and forth and I'm slowly going down river just keeping those plugs still working but they're slowly going back and so that plug is going to eventually run into a fish and the fish you know it seems like they've never seen it before and they come up and just smash it and it's in the rod holding the rod holder just doubles over and you know you're screaming at your buddy to grab that Rod to get it and the fish are getting airborne and it's just a blast um but another way so say if you didn't you weren't in a boat um it's a great way to catch them is a little Cleo the little Clio is a is an awesome bait um it's great for for fishing rivers and I use two colors for the most part when I'm fishing these rivers and it's the same as you know the the maglips I use the the silver for the Chrome or the gold you know the gold on overcast days and the silver on bright sunny days so uh these two baits these this these two sizes are one you know one third ounce you can go to a you know you can go bigger or smaller it depends on your size class fish if you're fishing
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Video04:27
06:43
You NEED These Baits For Steelhead! by Fisherman's Warehouse → the in the boat in the a drip boat and I have a jet diver and pretty much like the maglips I have the jet diver hooked up a roughly four foot leader and I'm slowly rolling down river and that jet diver's catching water and bringing it down and that night crawlers back behind it it's a great way to catch the summertime steelhead it's a blast especially like you can grow you can run into a big fish um you know the half Pounders four Pounders are great size fish they fight super hard line wise I'm using anywhere from you know eight to 15 pound test um 15 pound test is what I'm usually running with a 3.5 maglips and then anything smaller I'm on a little bit lighter line um a lot of times the line size doesn't really matter because your your bait is you know they're going to see the back of the bait they're not going to be in front of the bait you know hitting it because their plug is in front of them so the line size doesn't really matter too much it just helps you know if you have heavier line it's hard time that it's a bit has a hard time getting down to where those fish are at so the lighter line it's easy that line cuts through the water a little bit better and is able to get deeper so I'm not putting any weight on these
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Video11:10
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Getting Fish to BITE during the HOTTEST DAYS of the Year! by DC Fishing → that's two dang good ones that's two good ones right there look at that middle of summer it don't matter you just gotta downsize look at that that's three pounder right there look at that boom all right so here's what i did i melted i burned up good god it's hot out here i'm talking about smoking hot dude oh let me get the water oh it's hot all right so water temps 94. okay it's summertime you know i get out here and i want to throw all these big baits i want to throw top waters and big worms and i ain't saying you can't catch them on stuff like that but for some reason these fish they want to downsize they're lethargic okay you got to get them to you got to convince them in the bite i mean you can get around them and you can catch them on a few different baits jerk bait swim bait stuff like that but i always have a drop shot tied on so how i'm rigging this i have a weedless weedless hook and um just a quarter ounce weight and 12 pound gold label by seaguar okay make you a litter river alone well actually this ain't real long but fg not big time i used to tie like a alberto i guess you would call it fg big fan of it he ain't breaking dude so that's the simple setup quarter ounce weight
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Video08:16
11:34
4 Baits that ALWAYS CATCH Summer BASS! by Mike Iaconelli Fishing → nine to one and i love fluorocarbon 15 to 25 pound i love the 17 and 20 pound 100 fluorocarbon all right on to number three and it's not summertime fishing without at least one finesse technique right one spinning rod technique and my favorite in the heat of the summer there's a lot of really good ones but my favorite has to be here it goes you know it a drop shot a drop shot and i love the drop shot because like the jig i can fish it deep mid depth i can fish it in current oh my gosh a drop shot is so good in current where there's water running water moving it's probably the least effective in heavy cover but deep and current it's a great lore that weight maintains bottom contact it keeps the bait off the bottom just a great bait fish imitator and when the fishing's tough in the summer right when they're not hitting that crankbait out of a reaction or you throw that big jig and they won't bite it a lot of times scaling down is a good method there's a lot of baits you can fish on this drop shot a finesse worm uh you know a little four inch stick bait but one of my favorite summertime lures is right here it's a berkeley power bait water bug comes in a four and a three inch one of the great things
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