I have fallen in love with swinging flies on light Spey rods and switch rods for Northern California trout and steelhead. I came a bit late to this scene, but not for lack of trying. My mother was born and raised in Oregon between the Clackamas and Sandy Rivers and the coastal rivers of the Tillamook Bay area, and I spent many years at our family’s beach house in Lincoln City and my grandmother’s house in Salem, fishing the Sandy, Clackamas, the many waters that dump into Tillamook Bay, and sometimes the Deschutes. A Spey rod was the tool I used, because my 9-foot 8-weight rods with Teeny lines couldn’t reach the water where the fish were holding, and the 14-foot 9-weight Spey rods could.
But my first encounter with Spey fishing in Northern California was a dealer’s clinic put on by Jamie Lyle on the Truckee River. The late Bill Lowe introduced dealers to Spey fishing and to the new, lighter-line rods that one of the rod companies had designed for swinging flies on smaller rivers. I thought was this was ridiculous . . . that there is no river in Northern California where I would need a Spey rod to fish.
I wrote off the whole movement to switch and light Spey rods in the early 2000s as a gimmick promoted by rod and line manufacturers to sell even more gear to people who already owned all the rods they needed. And, as a guide, I knew that steelhead and trout in the lower Yuba, Feather, and Sacramento Rivers ate eggs and nymphs, not swung Popsicles, Purple Hiltons, or Macks Canyons.
This fad didn’t go away, though, and it didn’t help when clients started showing up for float trips wanting to fish 11-foot 6-weight and 7-weight switch rods out of the drift boat because they were told they were the ultimate indicator nymphing rod. So around 2005, I tried to give two-handed rods a second chance.
I bought an 11-foot 7-weight switch rod, but I was not impressed. For starters, there was no uniform grain-weight standard for many of the new Spey/switch rods and lines, so not every 7-weight line would cast on every 7-weight rod. I had to go to a Web site called “Spey Pages” and look up the rod and which lines would cast on it. Then I took the rod out on the Yuba one day while I was home for Christmas and swung an olive Woolly Bugger across a run for a few hours. I hooked some really sizable fish, but I don’t think one bent the rod past the tip. I walked away thinking, “I tried, but this thing is a telephone pole.” I put it in its tube and left it at the beach house up north that winter.
What changed? It turned out that during the time while I was looking down my nose at Spey and switch rods for fishing my home waters, manufacturers really dialed in the lighter-line rods and lines in the 4-weight-to-6-weight range, making Northern California fish and waters much more approachable and fun to fish with switch and light Spey rods. I finally realized this about three years ago. The whole switch and light Spey thing obviously was not going away, and I was getting bored staring at indicators in my own recreational fishing, so I bought a few 6-weight switch rods and resigned myself to figuring this thing out.
Actually, I had never doubted that fish on the lower Yuba, lower Sacramento, or lower Feather Rivers would eat swung flies, because I grew up swinging soft hackles on the lower Yuba during caddis hatches. I just knew that fish probably would run away from the steelhead and salmon flies I had been swinging on Spey rods my whole life, rather than eat them.
I was wrong, provided that the flies being swung imitate baitfish in some way or other. If you spend any time on the tailwaters of the Central Valley, it should come as no surprise that the trout and steelhead that inhabit these rivers eat massive amounts of salmon eggs during the fall run of chinook salmon. It should also be no surprise that many of the eggs that don’t get eaten turn into small baby salmon. Also, if you spend any time on these rivers, you know there are other species of fish — I like to call them “nontarget species”: pikeminnows, suckers, bluegills, bass, Sacramento perch, and many others that breed and make babies that inhabit the same waters as trout and steelhead.
I have found that on many valley tailwaters and even some of the trout waters that are open year-round, as the insect populations become less active during the winter months, these baby nontarget species and emerging salmon fry become hot menu items for both resident and migratory fish. They provide a big meal, and as trout and steelhead metabolisms slow during the winter, a big meal goes a long way.
The availability of these smaller fish became apparent a few winters ago on a late February float through the low flows of the Feather River, where I scooted up next to one of the fish traps as a Department of Fish and Wildlife crew was checking it. They showed me the inside of the containment box: it was a ball of small fish. Some were out-migrating salmon smolts, some were small suckers and pikeminnows, and all of them were perfect bite-sized morsels for late winter and spring steelhead.
That same February, I was wade fishing the lower Yuba at Daguerre Diversion Dam and was walking out to a run through calf-deep water. I saw a few small fish that I assumed to be smolts and a few sculpins scoot out of the rocks in front of me. This confirmed that smaller fish were going to be on the menu for Yuba trout, but I wasn’t sure the sculpins and little fish were going to be mixing it up within the same water as the bigger fish.
Then, that spring, I was floating the lower Yuba with a client and his wife, and we were fishing a riffle with stonefly nymphs and caddis pupas under indicators. The wife pulled up her flies to recast, and they seemed to have a glob of moss on them. Because she was in the back of the boat, I just said, “Let me know if you need help with that” and kept my eyes forward. Then I heard a scream and turned back to see her holding her flies out with a sculpin hanging off her stonefly nymph. She is a very accomplished angler and not at all squeamish, but when she grabbed what she thought was a clump of moss and it squirmed in her hand, it naturally freaked her out. Not only does this make a great story, it also confirmed that these sculpins and smaller fish were in fact in the riffles and runs, along with the trout we were targeting.
Gear for Swinging
I’m now a few years into swinging flies on two-handed rods for trout and steelhead. It is my favorite way to fish from December through April on many valley tailwaters, but definitely on the lower Yuba and Feather Rivers. I have found that the ideal rod for these rivers falls into the switch rod category, although I never “switch” to fishing it as a single-handed rod. I fish the rod exclusively as a light Spey rod, swinging flies with a downstream presentation. There also is an emerging rod category called “micro” or “trout” Speys that are gaining popularity across Northern California and even in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho on some of the most famed trout waters in our country. Most of these rods range from 10 feet 6 inches to 11 feet and range from 3-weights to 6-weights.
I prefer a 4-weight to 6-weight rod, at most 11 feet long. I tend to favor the higher line weights if there are steelhead in the mix and the lighter line weights if I am just targeting trout. I prefer to throw a sinking leader or head along with a weighted fly, so whatever rod I choose, it needs to have some backbone.
Matching the line to the rod is critical and a job best suited for the company that designed the rod or someone who is familiar with the rod and various line options. Like most elements of fly fishing, line design is continually evolving, and finding the right line can be challenging. I fish a setup that is composed of a running line and various Skagit-style heads. Skagit heads are designed to cast heavy flies and tips in confined spaces, which usually is the situation in which I find myself on Central Valley rivers during the winter and early spring. There are shorter “switch” versions of Skagit heads by various line manufacturers that are great options for valley anglers, because a traditional Skagit head is sometimes a bit long for some of rivers when a tip is added. A great way to scale down this rig is to add a sinking leader to the front of the Skagit head, instead using a true sink tip. Most days, I fish a switch Skagit head and a sinking leader. The switch Skagit heads on the market are around 19 to 22 feet long, and with a 7-to-9-foot sinking leader, anglers have a very manageable setup for the valley rivers. I usually carry a wallet of polyleaders from floating to fast sinking and tie my flies in various weights to adjust the depth and speed of the swing.
Flies for Swinging
When swinging flies during the winter and spring on valley tailwaters, fly selection is not incredibly important as long as the fly matches the size of the most prevalent baitfish. I prefer patterns that are in the two-to-four-inch range, ride hook-point up if weighted, or are unweighted and fished on a heavy head and sinking leader to get down, since the unweighted fly moves and drifts a bit more freely. That said, a fly weighted with lead eyes will get down into the strike zone in faster water more quickly than an unweighted fly on a heavy leader.
I prefer olive or olive-over-white flies that imitate small fish, though I have had fish eat flies that combine traditional steelhead colors such as hot orange, pink, and purple with shades of olive and brown. Many anglers who swing flies for steelhead in the Great Lakes tributaries have really dialed in this style of fly tying. Adding traditional steelhead colors into baitfish patterns is a staple of Midwest steelhead fly tyers such as Greg Senyo, Mike Schultz, and Jerry Darkes. This style of fly emphasizes the “String Leech” style, usually scaled down from the traditional Pacific Northwest style. A few commercial fly companies have even added categories to their offerings called “trout Spey” flies.
For the rivers I fish, I keep my selection of flies pretty well stripped down, but I am always experimenting with color combinations and materials in hopes of finding new or better triggers. I believe that in valley tailwaters, a trout or steelhead usually makes a quick decision to hit a swung fly. Something in the way the fly moves or looks triggers a predatory response. I don’t believe that trout and steelhead on the rivers I fish are keyed in on these smaller baitfish to the degree that they are looking to feed only on small fish all the time. Smaller baitfish are not as prevalent in the drift as, say, midges or Blue-Winged Olives during the winter months, but they are prevalent enough that when one comes across a fish’s field of vision, the fish knows what it is and jumps on it. I look for flies that can trigger this response.
Tips for Presentation
In order to trigger a response from a fish, the fish first needs to see the fly, which means the fly needs to be presented in a way that allows the fish to identify it as prey and to feel it can close the gap to eat it. Presenting a swung fly on valley rivers requires a bit of thought. The standard approach of traditional swung fly fishing — start at the top of the run, cast and swing the fly, take a step, cast and swing — is not always the most efficient. I like to concentrate on the water where smaller fish may get concentrated or where sculpins may get washed down. This usually means concentrating on the outside seams of runs or the inside bends of riff les, where faster-moving currents run along slower-moving currents. I like to cast with a slight angle downstream, mend or stack slack relative to the depth I want my fly to sink, mend or stack slack through the swing to slow the swing speed, and then come tight just as the fly crosses the seam — even let the fly dangle and bounce back and forth across the seam with a slight retrieve. It is very much a cross between traditional swungfly fishing and streamer fishing. Reading the water to find the lies where smaller baitfish, sculpins, or smolts may cross in front of holding fish is critical to being successful, just as knowing the lies where trout or steelhead will be feeding is critical.
The style of fishing that I wrote off as a fad has become one of my favorite ways to fish. Swinging flies on light Spey or switch rods for trout or steelhead is not always the most efficient or effective way to catch fish in Northern California. However, I believe that the success rate drastically increases during the winter and spring months across the northern part of the state, and on certain rivers, success with a swung fly may even eclipse the success that anglers enjoy when fishing nymphs.
