Spey and Dees and the Great lakes

[mdraft1 0]

HI, has anyone here been fishing traditional spey and dee flies in Michigan rivers with any luck? i'm asking because traditional patterns of spey and dee flies imitate shrimp. i have seem patterns using "spey" techniques like soft hackle, blue-eared, etc... in Michigan.

 

thanks

[Fishigan 0]

I started last year with some success. I have been trying to learn more and found that the best way is to just do it. Don't take any other flies at all. Then you have no choice. I have hooked up with a Green Butt Skunk in a Glasso style, Orange Herons and a Dragons Tooth and couple of my own design in blacks and pinks and purples. I am still learning though and I will say the success has been spotty but I have found smaller speys to work better, Like 5 and 7's. I don't use a spey rod yet. Just an 8 wt and a I do swing thru the pools in the same fashon.

[CDG 0]

I'm not sure exactly what flies he was using, but in Dec Hogans book he said he had success in the Great Lakes with standard western steelhead flies and the swing. I know he fishes speys quite a bit so I wouldn't be surprised if he were using them.

[Hardyhead 0]

 

I fish these on a regular basis, I fish the green, purple, and black kings all in size 1. I also fish the orange heron, sol duc spey, and several purple and orange spey patterns. Flies that also work well for me are the dees, purple deependables, and of course the white winged akroyd.

 

If I am not throwing a two hander, I fish an 8 weight sage vt2, I use a sink tip, usually 10-12 ft long, with a different sink rate depending on flow rate and depth of the river. When choosing a sink tip, I very my tip until I find one that ticks bottom every now and then about 2/3s of the way through the swing. Attached to the sink tip I run 8 or 10 lb tippet, no more than 1 arms length long. The key to fishing these flies is to get them at the right depth, make sure you do the lift mend (described in Dec Hogan's book) to get your sink tip down right at the beginning, and you should be ok.

 

The only real issue with heavy sink tips is often you have to strip a fair amount of line back at the end of the swing to lift it out of the water effectivly. On a sink tip that's 10 ips, that thing is a long way down at the end of the swing, and unless you are he-man, you will be wearing your fly when it's on the extension of the back cast. So I strip it back to about 25 feet, make two to three false casts to aim yourself back at the 45 degree angle and fire your line out, hope you get a good shoot, lift mend and repeat.

 

I am no master at this, but it seems to work for me.

 

Good luck

[willowhead 0]

Have never fished in Michigan but that's great advise Fishigan gave you all. When you have "no choice" you mission is clear. Dig? mark.....