I’m in another streamer phase. Every day, I’m fishing streamers, tying streamers, thinking, writing and talking about streamers.

My friend, Austin, and I are in the middle of a Troutbitten Skills Series. Season Fourteen of the Troutbitten Podcast covers streamer presentations. And I’m excited about what we’re doing, because these episodes break down streamer fishing in a way that I haven’t seen from any other resource.

For me, streamer fishing is about how we want to move the fly. Because, instead of trying to perfect one thing, as we do with a dead drifted nymph or dry fly, the door is wide open, and inside is a big assortment of movements — of presentations — providing choices for how we might animate the streamer, give it life and trick a trout.

In this ten-part podcast series we aren’t spending much time on lines, leaders or flies, because I don’t believe any of those specifics are nearly as important as how we animate the fly. Are we crossing lanes or holding one lane? Is there tension to the fly through a drift, or are we swinging it downstream. Quick movements or smooth? Fast or slow. How deep? And what is the rhythm of the movements — erratic or predictable?

Decades ago, I learned a critical lesson from my college professor in an English section. You can’t cover everything. And if you try, you’ll effectively cover nothing.

That truth has stuck with me, and it’s been a guiding principle for this Troutbitten Project. I started with the Streamer Presentations concept through an article series here on the website. Now we’re adding to that with this podcast season. We’ve filmed videos around some of these presentations. And eventually, I’ll put them all in book form. It’s always been about establishing a framework and then building upon it.

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Drop Rate in Streamers

We aren’t talking about the flies much in these episodes, so it’s no surprise that I’ve been fielding daily questions about fly choice. Most anglers ask for the names of patterns. And many ask about weight.

I think drop rate is the most important quality of a streamer. I believe how fast a fly falls is the biggest factor in its performance, because drop rate affects everything else about how we might move the fly.

Weight is easily measurable, so it’s a comfortable quality to talk about and compare. Drop rate can be measured, but it’s not easy. And I don’t know many anglers who know the ips rating (inches per second) for their streamers. But maybe we should.

Grinch vs Kreelex

Delly’s Grinch has a four millimeter bead and weighs about a gram, but it has the slowest drop rate of any weighted fly in my box. Contrast that with a Kreelex tied on a 1/32 oz ball jig (that’s about ninety centigrams). And the Kreelex is the fastest falling streamer in my fly box.

Same weight. Radically different drop rates.

Delly’s Grinch

The Grinch is purposely built with materials that resist the fall. Arctic fox for the collar adds buoyancy and bulk that counteracts the weight of the bead.

I can pitch the Grinch into a soft bank lane that’s moving slowly. And given the right rig setup, I can almost hover the fly in place just an inch or two under the surface, as the mild currents carry it gently downstream.

If I try the same cast with the Kreelex, with a much faster drop rate, the fly quickly falls to the bottom of that soft lane, forcing me to move the streamer. Then the Kreelex is quickly out of the bank lane and traveling across currents.

A Beat up Kreelex

Neither presentation is inherently better. These are just different looks to the fly, made available by drastically different drop rates.

As another example, a slow slide looks fantastic on the Grinch, but you can’t do it with a Kreelex. And while the Kreelex is perfect for jigging, the Grinch cannot be worked with a jigging approach.

Cougars and Weights

Location of weight also changes the sink rate and options for animation. Weight can be on the fly (bead, conehead, lead eyes, lead wraps), on the leader with split shot, or in the line with a sink tip or sinking line.

So here’s another scenario: Cast an unweighted Zoo Cougar up and across, into a medium flat. Do this with a sinking line of 6 ips, and a four foot leader of twelve pounds. The streamer drops toward the sinking line as it falls, and after a few seconds we can keep the Zoo Cougar tracking perfectly through the mid column by finding the right speed and tension against the currents. That’s a great look. And if we stop stripping, the line drops, but the drop rate of the fly is modest.

Contrast that with a Zoo Cougar that has heavy tungsten barbell eyes tied under the deer hair head. (I’d say it’s no longer a Zoo Cougar, but you get the point.) Now, regardless of the line or leader choice, the fly will tilt forward and drop quickly without tension to the line. And it will take far more tension and a faster presentation to keep the fly from falling.

Half Pints and Split Shot

Adding split shot to the leader is another good option, and for that, let’s look at one more scenario.

The Half Pint might be my favorite streamer, because it converts fish interest into real eats more than any other streamer in my box. It’s also built with a medium brass cone and a few lead wraps. It weighs about ninety centigrams. And with a dense group of mallard flank feathers plucked and pinched in, the Half Pint’s drop rate is perfectly medium. It straddles the line of performance, with many presentations available in one fly.

A Well-Chewed Half Pint

Some anglers send me pictures and share stories about Half Pints with heavy tungsten coneheads, telling me they needed more weight built into the fly to get it down. I have no doubt their flies catch trout, but the performance of the Half Pint is not the same with more weight on the fly. Heavy weight on the Half Pint changes its drop rate, therefore affecting everything about how it moves in the water.

I have a handful of Pints that I tie with heavy jig heads. I use them situationally. And I know that adding weight to the fly changes some of what I like so much about a Half Pint.

Let’s cast a Half Pint on a Mono Rig, into some good pocket water, with washing-machine sized boulders that create good whitewater next to slow swirls in the pockets.

If the water is thigh-deep and winter-cold, we may get very little response from trout that are unwilling to move far in faster water. We can get great looks on the Half Pint by mixing in Jerk Strips and Head Flips around rocks, then sliding the streamer into slower pockets. But we may do much better by taking those same presentations down into the strike zone. Swapping out the fly to a heavy head version is an option, but to preserve the Half Pint’s characteristic animations, I’d rather add split shot to the leader, about twelve inches above the fly.

Adding split shot is similar to the sinking line concept, where the weight is not on the fly, but somewhere away from it. By sliding the split shot closer to the streamer, we increase the drop rate of the fly. By sliding the split shot away from the streamer we decrease its drop rate.

Used this way, split shot provides an amazing tool for fine tuning streamer presentations. Essentially, the split shot takes our streamer lower in the water column, but the characteristics of the streamer are (mostly) preserved, especially with split shot a foot or two up the line.

All the Options

Mixing and matching these weight options is all part of the streamer game. Honestly, the choices for achieving the same results with different rigs are complex. That’s why I focus so much on how I want the streamer to move, rather than the line, the leader or the fly.

Choose a streamer presentation. Then choose a fly and a rig (choose a drop rate) to get it done.

Fish hard, friends.

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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com