Dirty Dancing: How to Fish Streamers in High Water

Big, bright streamers that move a lot of water can be very effective. Photo: Kubie Brown

There’s nothing worse than grabbing your fly rod and heading to the river only to see that it’s blown out. All your hopes and plans for the day are seemingly swept away by the dark and muddy water raging and churning its way along the banks. It’s an all too common occurrence this time of year, when snowmelt and spring rains have flooded your favorite trout streams. Yet, there’s no reason to despair because, while they may put a damper on nymphing and dry-fly fishing, those swollen and turbulent waters can offer some fantastic streamer fishing.

Fishing streamers during high water isn’t your typical day of making long casts and stripping or swinging your flies to try to cover water. It’s a gritty, in-your-face grind of close-quarter fishing where you smash, rip, and slash your flies through the water like you’re trying to stir up trouble. This sort of fly fishing isn’t for everyone, but t can produce killer fishing and a shot at some big trout.

This beefy brown fell for a bright-yellow Beldar Rubber Leg in dirty water. Photo: Phil Monahan

Beef Up Your Outfit

To catch trout during highwater, leave your typical fly-fishing equipment at home. The heavy currents, big trout, and brush, rocks, and logs that go along with highwater fishing call for the big guns. Start with a 7-weight or even an 8-weight rod, preferably one with a stiffer, tip-flex action that can handle casting big flies and yanking trout out of thick cover and heavy current. Pair the rod with a large-arbor reel and a shooting-head line that’s at least one weight larger than your rod (e.g. an 8-weight line for your 7-weight rod), which will help create more leverage and help you keep your casts accurate and under control. Finally, use a short, heavy leader—2 to 3 feet of 20- to 25-pound-test. Don’t worry about this thicker line spooking the fish, as the high, off-colored water the leader is virtually invisible.

Fish large patterns that make an impression, in either very dark or very bright colors,—black, olive, white, and yellow. My favorite high-water streamers are heavy patterns that create a very distinct profile beneath the surface, such as the Hawkins’ Hat Trick, McLure’s Kill Whitey, Mike’s Meal Ticket, and the Dolly Llama. I also fish very large, unweighted flies, like CJ’s Sluggo, the Drunk and Disorderly, and the Double Deceiver. If I’m fishing from a boat or want to keep my options open while wading, I carry two rigged rods, so I can quickly get my streamers into action on different types of water without having to switch out my streamers.

Top (l to r): Hawkins’ Hat Trick, McLure’s Kill Whitey, and Mike’s Meal Ticket. Middle (l to r): Drunk and Disorderly, CJ’s Sluggo, and Dolly Llama. Bottom: Double Deceiver.

Smash and Grab

In high water, trout move out of the main currents and hold close to the banks. Once there, they’ll plant themselves in the shallowest and slowest moving water they can find along the edges, hiding behind rocks, burrowing into grass and under overhanging brush, and swimming out onto flooded banks. To get at these fish, don’t cast your streamers along the fringes of the fast current and hope the trout will risk being swept downstream trying to get at it. Instead, you’ve got to risk losing your fly by smashing down the door to their hiding spots and casting your fly right into their living rooms.

Catching high-water trout is all about making hard, splashing casts less than an inch off the bank, creating a lot of disturbance and drawing attention to your fly. Concentrating your efforts on any patch of still or slow water or cover, slap your fly down, let it sink for a second or two, and then make one or two quick strips before moving on. Any trout hiding in the area will usually strike immediately after the fly lands or after your first strip, so there’s no real point in working your fly more than you have to or making repeated casts into the same area. Keep fishing your way down the shoreline, smacking your fly down behind every rock and log and beneath overhanging brush and grass.

The soft water along the bank holds the most fish when the river is blown out. Photos: Kubie Brown and (inset) Phil Monahan

Fish the Frog Water

High water is one time when you don’t pass up sections of frog water. This can include backwaters, creek mouths, sloughs, or flooded banks that connect to the river. Baitfish and small trout surge into these areas during high water, and predatory trout will follow.

Fishing frog water is an exception to the high-water rule: make several casts and long, stripping retrieves into these stillwater areas and thoroughly work them over. Use a large, unweighted streamer and cast it as far back into the frog water as you can. Strip the fly back, using jerks and pauses with your rod tip to make your streamer look like a confused or wounded baitfish, which can trigger a strike from a big, backwater cruising trout.

The author shows off a streamer-eater taken in shallow water along the bank. Photo: Kubie Brown

Get Out and Get Bent

When you know how to fish streamers in high water, you’ll no longer consider heavy rains and spring floods to be a curse, but an opportunity. Those big wary trout you hunt for all season long give up their wary ways and picky eating habits, attacking anything that moves and looks like food. This makes high water one of your best opportunities to catch high numbers of big trout and perhaps land a true monster. When conditions are right, fishing with streamers in high water can be so good that you may find yourself praying for rain.