Fly Selection

How do you select a fly for a day of steel heading? Do you just grab one blindly out of the box? Do you pick the same one every time? Or do you follow the old adage, bright day bright fly, dark day dark fly? What about if the river is ultra crowded? Or low and clear?
These are the usual factors, I am going to take into consideration when selecting a fly to swing for steelhead. A lot of this can be applied to other situations such as Puget Sound, although with actively feeding fish, “matching the hatch” would probably top the list, here its not even on the list.
1. Water conditions: What is the clarity of the water you are fishing? In dirty water, I am almost always going to pick a fly that really stands out and gets the fishes attention. Size, color, flash all factor into this. Color being the most important to me. Every river has a different color to the water. Flies that stand out in brown/tea stained water may be different than those that stand out in glacial water. Before I start fishing, I am going to select a fly, tie it on and drop it in the water and observe. If it doesn’t have the desired look back to the box I’ll go.
2. Light conditions. Light conditions change throughout the day. That will be my biggest factor in making a fly switch while fishing. Under low light conditions I am again going to see what stands out the best, if the sun comes out I am going to most likely go to something more subtle. Remember, light conditions for a fish may be different than for you. Fast broken water gives the fish less a chance to see your fly than a big flat pool. Vary accordingly. Again, look at you fly in the water…observe how things change.
3. Angling pressure. Are you following someone down a run? Did three boats just go by chucking pink worms through the run? Probably not going to throw pink here! Basically the higher the pressure, the more subtle the fly is going to get. More natural in color, less flash, and possibly smaller. When migratory fish such as steelhead and salmon first enter freshwater they may have never seen a fly or lure before. The lower in a river system you are, the more likely you are to be able to get away with a big, bright fly. As fish spend more time in the system, they see more pressure. So you need to adjust.
These are the three main factors that I always consider. After time you will be able to add past experiences in similar situations that will make this process easier. Sometimes, just a gut feeling will tell you to fish one fly when reason may say something else. I never ignore these feelings. The last and biggest consideration that should go into this is…CONFIDENCE! Confidence should come from making a choice depending on the previous factors. If you don’t have faith in your fly, everything you do will reflect that and the odds will be against you. When in doubt, pick an old standby that’s been good to you in the past, and fish it hard.