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troutmaster08

Oregon lake trout streamers.

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I'm sending some flies to this guy up in Oregon and he mainly fishes for lake trout, salmon, and steelhead with streamers. What patterns would you suggest I send up to him?

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Lake Trout as in the species of Char (AKA Mackinaw here) or just Trout in lakes?

For Steelhead, classic hair wings like the Green Butt Skunk, Purple Peril, Silver Hilton, Freight Train are good. Intruders and marabou flies are also popular. If your sending him multiple patterns have some bright flies and some dark flies.

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I only know of a few anglers that target Lake Trout with flies out here. Most of the year they are really deep and it's hard to get a fly in front of them. I believe in spring and fall they come into the shallows. It looks like fun, but I haven't fished for them.  I would try big 4 - 6" streamers. Sorry I don't have specific pattern suggestions.

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Most color is dimmed to shades of gray at Lake Trout depths.  Red and orange are the first colors to go.  Then yellow and green.  Then the blues.  Violet and Ultra Violet maintain their "colored" appearance to fishy retinas at  the deepest depths.  But at Lake Trout depths even they appear as varying shades of gray.

Perhaps the most important characteristic--for deep deep fish--is sharp  banded contrast to make the rough outline of any minnow-like   silhouette announce itself.

There is gathering and growing evidence in fisheries biology academic papers that outline recognition is an evolutionary  adaption predatory fish are gradually developing in order to counteract the prey species tendency to disguise themselves with mottled stream-bottom-like coloring.   

That's interesting. If high contrast outline recognition is an important predatory mechanism it might explain why the Prince Nymph, Zebra Midge, Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear and Daredevil Spoon etc are so effective--despite not looking at all like anything real.

 

============= run off ==============

The streams and rivers here in Montana are (all but spring creeks and tail waters) turning brown with snow melt.  The waters are so opaquely brown this time of year it's hard from a human experience perspective to imagine how  fish find  anything to eat.  And yet this is a time of plenty. The fish are now the most fat and healthy they will be. All year long.  Do they find prey entirely by smell? When the waters are opaquely brown?

Their noses are indeed key senses.  But  so too is the lateral line which senses movement and vibration in the water.  And so too is visual outline recognition--an evolutionary adaption that relies primarily on  polarized UV light I.   Polarized UV light penetrates the silty off-color spring waters well, so polarized UV outline recognition works even during spring runoff conditions.

How do I know this?  I asked Biotor who is an academic genie I communicate with at strange and unpredictable times.  Biotor seems to know almost everything.  Biotor doesn't tell me everything.  He holds his secrets close to his chest. But what he does tell me tends to be right on.  Outline recognition is the most important visual sense for aquatic predators.  Outline recognition overcomes visual spectrum camouflage.   

Evolution is a never ending arms race between predator and prey. When ever any prey defense mechanism begins to succeed (like visual spectrum camouflage) a counter-acting tactic begins to develop in the predator class.  Camouflage works.  Therefore outline recognition became necessary.  Biotor told me this. 

I  all light in aquatic habitats tends to be highly polarized, by its interaction with the water's surface. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For summer Steelhead, black wing flies, white wing flies.  For winter, intruders. 

Purple, black, pink, orange are popular Steelhead colors.

Egg sucking WB seem popular.  Big muddlers

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Darrell's post reminded me, that I really like  pink flies for winter Steelhead on coastal streams. Shewey's Spawning Purple in pink (see my avatar) is one of my favorites. The original purple is really good too.

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