SONGS from the SIRENS STEELHEAD FLIES & THEIR SEDUCTIVE POWERS

SONGS from the SIRENS
STEELHEAD FLIES & THEIR SEDUCTIVE POWERS
photos, flies & text by Jeff Bright
A Northern Hilton in shrimp
and orange prepares to take
flight from the tier’s vice.
Steelhead and salmon flies, those fanciful
creations in shocking colors, whether piled willy-nilly in shop bins,
arranged neatly in a Wheatley box, posed perfectly on a catalog page,
or wet and pinned in the hinge of a great fish’s jaw, never fail to catch
my eye. It’s as if they possess an
inert but dangerous potential, a sort of coiledup voodoo. Tease them
with a wisp of air or tongue of
BLACK CAT
river current and they spring to life. The good ones have an attitude,
a jaunty stance. When you open your fly box in the morning, they
whisper convincingly, “Pick me, I’m the one.” Knotted on your tippet,
they swim like mermaids — beautiful, seductive, creatures of the
imagination, each one a song from the sirens.
This Skeena steelhead couldn’t resist a Shanghai Lady.
NEW SONGS TO SING
If your writing or photography makes its way into a
magazine or book, sooner or later you’ll be asked to
provide a short bio. My wife, generously lending her
writing talents, helped with mine. In it she declared that
I “came to Northern California pursuing musical aspirations, but fell deeply in love with the land. The rivers
sang a melody truer than any I had heard and the fish
were more seductive than any lyric.” That sums it up
pretty well. But let me give it to you another way.
For 15 years I wrote and played music. From
southwest Ohio, in 1988 I traveled to the west coast
and landed in San Francisco. I wrote hundreds of
songs and sang them in front of hundreds of people.
As far as I know none of them died from the exposure.
Maybe I should’ve stuck with it, I don’t know. But I
didn’t. (I said hundreds of people, not thousands.) Instead, I picked a different path through that yellow
wood when a friend took me to a small coastal stream
on a bright January day in 1994. He stuck a casting
rod in my hand, I caught a large, wild steelhead and
immediately the course of my life veered in a new direction. I was bitten by the steelhead bug, and the
stinger went in deep. Very deep.
A couple of years and many fish later, I set aside
conventional tackle and committed to fly fishing for
steelhead — and instantly went from catching a lot to
none. It was a strain on the ego, but thankfully I had
A pack of Northern Hiltons poised for action on a Skeena tributary.
A Highland Blackbird and a Blue Peacock Spey await their turns on a British Columbia river.
books to keep me company and offer encouragement.
Among those books was Flies for Steelhead by Dick Stewart and Farrow Allen. Published in 1992, at the time it was a
compendium of flies in current use, including a mix of patterns
with historical significance and those new on the scene. Before
nodding off to sleep at night I would pore over the photographs,
recipes and descriptions for hours, transfixed by the elegant
hairwings and speys, in particular the traditionally inspired, sleek
ties of John Shewey and Bob Veverka and the spare, uniquely
crafted summer flies of Harry Lemire.
It was surely a case of flies
catching the fisherman.
I began buying all
manner of materials and
tying all manner of ill conceived, overdressed monstrosities. Getting my flies
to look like those in Stewart
ROYAL PURPLE
and Allen’s book was harder than I
imagined.
But with time and perseverance, I found I could come
close, and close enough to occasionally entice a reckless steelhead. I developed a better sense for proportion and an understanding of fly design, which, as most steelhead fly-tying anglers
come to realize, is almost always more important than precise
pattern.
I also discovered I could seldom tie faithful to a recipe. I
had to do it differently. I had to somehow make the fly my own
Shanghai Lady and Cascade Jack worked their magic on two Dean River steelhead.
A Shadow Hilton relaxes after the catch in California’s Trinity River — and a Hardy JLH Ultralight will need to be rinsed of sand.
if I were to actually take it to the river, tie it on and fish it.
The ideas I used in tying the fly might be borrowed, but the
end result had to be an expression of my own personality
before I could let a steelhead see it. I understand this could
be judged as short sighted self-absorption, or even a kind
of snobbery, but really it has more to do with why I chose
to fly fish in the first place.
Fly fishing for steelhead
and salmon may not require a creative streak,
but it certainly provides
the opportunity to exercise what creativity and
penchant for individual
expression one might have
GOLDEN ORANGE SPEY
— especially if you possess an
overactive imagination and a knack for making things with your hands. For those who want it to be so,
fly fishing is art, design and craft all wrapped in one neat
package. And perhaps no element in fly fishing represents
this notion more than the fly.
I think it was here, in this realization, that I discovered
a creative satisfaction in developing, tying and fishing steelhead flies similar to that which I found in writing and performing songs. Steelhead fly fishing could provide a
platform for meaningful engagement with the world around
me. It could fuel my observations, curiosity and questions.
And in the process, it could sustain my soul.
A Thornhill Rose on the Kitsumkalum River.
ANOTHER REVOLUTION
Of course, it began some time before — and a recently released DVD documents the origins — but for me the world
of steelhead flies changed radically in winter 2002 when
Fish & Fly magazine sent out its Volume 3, Number 2. In
that issue appeared a long and involved recipe for a newto-the-public fly called the Intruder, a creation credited to
Washington-based guide Ed Ward.
Ed and his cohort of savvy steelheaders developed a
style of fly — again, not so much a pattern as a style —
that utilized “in-the-round” tying and careful selection and
placement of materials to produce a large profile fly, without excessive bulk, that could be cast reasonable distances
and sink at a reasonable rate.
Hey, it made perfect sense to me. Big, wild steelhead
and salmon are serious predators. They don’t get big without a mean streak. From a very young age they have to become adept at tracking and ambushing other swimming
creatures, some of which are not much smaller than themselves. Especially in northern rivers, where aquatic insects
are scarce, survivors can’t be choosy — see big swimming
protein, eat big swimming protein!
Translating this to ocean life is an easy step, as well.
We don’t know a lot about the marine habits of steelhead
and salmon, but it seems likely colorful swimming critters
like prawns and squid would be features of their diets.
So, in the Intruder, at last, was something like a silver
bullet for winter steelheading. Finally we had something to
Still life with Moonray.
Three thieves on the Bulkley River, all steelhead-approved: Blue Creeper (aka Lil’ Elvis), Diablo Verde, Kingfisher Deluxe.
tie on our leaders that might begin to rival
the effectiveness of a wobbling, polished
blade of metal. We had an offering that
“moved” in a seductive, lifelike manner and
that we might, if we stretched the meaning,
still call a fly.
For me this was exciting. It opened the
door to a new world of possibilities and
new ways to express myself. When Ed let
his secret out of the box, I was inspired, as
were many anglers and tiers throughout
the Pacific Northwest. We had a new way
to conceptualize the steelhead fly.
Today, the revolution continues with
influence from Scandinavia in the stackedwing Nordic tube flies created by gifted
tiers such as Michael Frodin. To my eye,
the siren songs have become even more alluring. I’m excited to see where we will go
from here, and see who will be more seduced — the fish or the fisher. I think I
know the answer.
Up close and personal with a shrimp and orange
Nordic Marabou, scheduled for field testing
August 2010.