Fly Fishing with Rapalas
I was catching a few fish but felt like I should be getting more grabs. I kept on working downstream, missing a fish that was hanging in a juicy piece of water next to a steep cut bank. I glanced back upstream and saw a small piece of water that I had missed. I cast and worked my AC Stickbait down through the deeper water with a rip, pause, rip, pause… nothing. Another cast through the meat of it with no results. Strange! I made another cast and just for fun I thought I would just let the stickbait float down the run just like a dry fly. I twitched it once and BOOM!
I was so shocked that I didn’t even set the hook. I made another cast upstream, letting the lure float down river, twitching it periodically so that it dove slightly under water and popped back up. BOOM! Another nice fish charged the lure, this one I was able to hook and land. The lure was sideways in the fish’s mouth. I snapped a few pics and slid him back in the water. By this time my AC had lost its tail and was pretty beat up. I put on a Rapala and cast to the head of the run again. How many fish could be in here? I had already covered this run very thoroughly quartering downstream without any action.
Twitch, pause, float… twitch, pause, float. The next fish took the lure more subtly, like a bass sucking in a sluggo right underneath the surface. Once again I noticed the lure was sideways in the fish’s mouth. I continued down the run, casting upstream and twitching the lure downstream and landed another 3 fish. I continued to use this method very successfully for another hour or so before I decided to head back to my truck to wake up my napping brother and let him in on what I had discovered.
I double timed it back to the truck and hollered at my brother John to wake up. He could tell by the grin on my face that something was up. I had seen some very juicy runs on our drive in that I knew would be perfect for floating some stickbaits. As we drove downriver I told my brother what had happened and I could see he was getting jacked to try it out. We pulled up to a nice looking section and hiked back to a run with some big boulders that were buried just under the surface.
Any serious steelheader out there know that big steelhead love big boulders and any time I am working a bouldery run for big trout I always expect some big fish to show. I let my brother work the run, telling him how to work the lure. Nothing happened on the first few casts but he kept at it and on his 4th or 5th cast he hooked into a giant. A few big headshakes and the fish was gone, one of the biggest river browns I have ever seen in my entire life. After my brothers nerves had calmed he continued to work the run and landed a nice 20 inch fish.
We continued to catch many more fish using my new “fly fishing” method that day. I have also connected on some nice fish using this method on some other rivers when the conditions are right. Don’t be afraid to try something new and innovative. Many of us get caught up doing the same thing day in and day out. I hope you will think about this in the future and try a new twist and maybe it will result in some surprising results!
