Autumn Chrome: 5 Tricks to Help You Catch More West Coast Steelhead On The Swing

All the waiting, all the casting, and all the bad weather go out the window when you land a gorgeous steelhead on a swung fly. All photos: Kubie Brown

Fall steelhead are special creatures. After spending the majority of their lives in the ocean, they return to the rivers whence they came, offering anglers a short but brilliant window to try and catch them. Chasing steelhead can become a complete and utter addiction, especially when you’re trying to catch these elusive fish on the swing.

Swinging for autumn steelhead is both challenging and extremely rewarding. It’s a game of dedication where you often spend hours and even days continuously working the water seemingly pointlessly, only to be suddenly and violently brought out of your reverie by a hard grab. Hooking into a big fall steelhead is the stuff that dreams are made of, yet truly living those steelhead dreams can be more difficult than you think. If you want to have consistent success and don’t want to spend a lot of long, fruitless days just casting in seemingly empty water, here are a few things to keep in mind.

The Right Rivers

No matter how famous a steelhead river may be, there are always going to be times when the fish simply aren’t there. This can change and vary with the season, weather, and even the time of day. So before heading out to the coast to try and land a big fall chromer, you’ll want to make sure you’re fishing the right river.

A little research goes a long way whenever you’re dealing with migratory fish.

Steelhead generally move upstream in small pulses rather than in a massive wave of fish like salmon. Some fish will move into the lower river and stay there for weeks, while others will blast up to the edge of their spawning grounds to wait out the winter. Knowing what the fish are doing and where they are holding is key to success on any West Coast river and that often means doing a bit of research before you choose a spot to fish.

Many rivers on the West Coast have both dams and fish ladders that keep track of how many steelhead have been passing through. This fish count information is usually posted on state fish-and-game websites with current numbers and annual averages of fish numbers readily available with the click of a mouse. If you’re fishing in an area that has no available fish counts, you can still check with local fly shops and/or fish-and-game services to see if there are steelhead in the water you’re planning to fish.

Additionally, river conditions can also help you choose which river to fish. In extremely low or extremely high water, smaller rivers and streams won’t draw or hold as many fish until river conditions stabilize. When this happens, it’s usually a better idea to stick to the larger, main rivers rather than any popular tributaries until flows go up or down and conditions improve.

The middle of the day is time to throw on a sinking tip and a bigger, gaudier fly.

Go Big During Bright Days

Most anglers only fish for fall steelhead during the traditional low light hours, and I was no different. During the first couple hours after sunrise, I’d fish hard and then spend the day mucking around camp, tying flies and catching a few trout while I waited for the next low-light window before sunset. Then one day, an older angler showed up at the river I was camped on with a sinking-tip line and a box of large Intruder flies. It was the middle of the afternoon on a bright sunny day, and I watched as he proceeded to work his way down the run, sticking three steelhead along the way. That was when I realized I needed to change my strategy.

Fall steelhead are conventionally more aggressive and willing to take smaller, more traditional wet and dry flies during low light hours when the fish are on the move. But during the brighter part of the day, steelhead move into deeper, slower moving water to rest and hold until the next low-light window. While it can be challenging to tempt these deep-dwelling afternoon fish with smaller flies, you can still get them to strike by fishing larger flies on weighted lines.

Once the sun hits its zenith and fishing has slowed down, switch out your light Scandi line and for a heavier Skagit line with an appropriate sinking tip and tie on a larger, gaudier fly. Swing these larger flies through the deeper, slower holes and tanks with a lot of upstream mends and slow, crawling presentations just as you would when fishing for winter steelhead, and you’ll be surprised with how many grabs from fall fish you can get.

Fishing small pockets of slow water amid the fast stuff can be very productive.

Fish The Fast Stuff

Every steelhead angler loves a nice, slow run. It’s the kind of spot where the current moves at a walking pace and the water deepens out into a nice languid slick that practically screams, “There are steelhead in here!” However, if you’re only swinging your fly through these seemingly perfect runs, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to swing through faster water.

On their upstream journey, steelhead will exhaust themselves. Their constant battle against the current means they’ll take any chance they can to rest. While this causes the fish to stack up in those perfect-looking runs, it also means they pull over in faster water for a quick break. Some of my best steelhead have come from small pockets of slow water along the edges of rapids and in the pillows and eddies around boulders in faster currents. Fish holding in these short pieces of slower water are usually refreshed and quick to strike but getting your fly to them means fishing strategically.

When you’re casting to steelhead in faster water, short swings are good swings. Position yourself slightly upstream and across from your targeted area, and then get as close as you can to your chosen spot so you can make a short cast across the top of the slow water. Drop your fly into the faster current, make a quick mend to allow your fly to sink, and then raise your rod tip as high as you can to keep any excess line off the water, preventing the faster currents in front of you from bellying your line and dragging your fly rapidly downstream. It can take a bit of finagling and extra mends to get your speed right, but once you do, tighten your line and swing your fly through the soft pocket with a short concise swing, adding a few inches of line with each cast until you get a strike.

Aggressive fish will chase down a fly moving quickly past them, and then the fight is on.

Show and Go Presentations

The traditional way to swing a fly for fall steelhead is by casting your fly down and across the stream at a 45-degree angle and then mending upstream to allow the fly to sink. Then you tighten your line and swing the fly across the river at a leisurely pace before coming to the hang-down directly downstream. While this is an efficient way to swing flies, it’s not always the most effective, especially when the steelhead are acting aggressive.

When you see steelhead breaching the surface of the water like angry sharks or surging upstream like rampaging silver rockets, you’ll often have more luck hooking into fish using a “show and go” swinging presentation. Cast across the river at a 90-degree angle and then mend downstream causing your line to belly in the current and your fly to shoot downstream like a missile. The sight of a fly rocketing downstream past their face can cause aggressive steelhead to turn and chase it down like a cheetah hunting a gazelle, leading to some brilliantly violent strikes.

When you’re using the show-and-go method, stand a few yards above and across from your target and cast well upstream of it, so your fly has time to sink and get on the steelhead’s level. For this presentation use a larger, flashier weighted fly and/or a tip that will sink quickly. While it may seem counterintuitive to swing so fast when popular opinion dictates slow presentations, giving a steelhead a quick impression of fleeing prey can draw a lot of strikes.

More subtle patterns work best in low, clear water, when more colorful flies can spook fish.

Fish Natural Colors in Clear Water

Every steelhead angler has a natural affinity for crazy color combinations. Whether it’s blue and black, pink and orange, or purple and red, almost every one of our fall steelhead flies looks like it was tied by a Grateful Dead fan on acid. However, while we all believe that these ludicrously colored flies help our bugs stand out to fish that aren’t feeding, in the low and clear water of the fall, you’ll often have better luck fishing with more natural colors.

Like all salmonids, steelhead can become unnerved and finicky in low, clear water and will move away from and even spook completely when they see brightly colored flies. However, small, more subtly colored flies with minimal flash don’t have that effect. Some of my favorite low, clear color combos include olive and white, brown and tan, and black and gray. These more neutral color combos allow your fly yo stand out to the fish without making them shy away.

Tempting, hooking, and landing a West Coast steelhead is one of the greatest achievements in fly fishing.

All It Takes Is One

Swinging flies for fall steelhead is one of the most magical things in the fly-fishing world. Out in the quiet realm of the river, you cast and swing methodically in an almost hypnotic state, knowing that somewhere in front of you, a silver titan waits to do battle. It’s the kind of fishing that leaves you on edge, with your entire being focused on the coming moment of the grab while still somehow enjoying the placid beauty of an autumn day.

Fishing for fall steelhead can get in your soul, and even when you don’t hook a fish, you’re willing to come back for more. On those rough, cold days when the rain is dripping down your back and the icy water has begun to make your legs go numb, you know that with a bit of dedication, and with the right tricks up your sleeve, you’ll eventually be rewarded and come tight on the one you’re after.