Selecting Flies for Pacific Steelhead Popular flies for Steelhead vary greatly whether you are fishing in the Pacific region or in the Great Lakes. The fisheries have developed separately and so have the preferences anglers have for flies cast to their intended prey. We will primarily concentrate on Steelhead flies on the West Coast in this article and concentrate on flies of the Great Lakes region in a future article. There are some common patterns used in both regions as well, and we will point those out as we go along. Fly fishing for Steelhead can be traced back to the Eel River, in Northern California, during the late 1800's.. And many of the first Steelhead pattern's roots can be traced back to the same era as well. There were a few problems during this time, and none more crucial than lack of material with which to tie flies. Standard featherwing trout patterns became the foundation of many steelhead patterns. Other patterns were adopted from English trout patterns and Atlantic Salmon patterns. Many of today's most popular Steelhead patterns can be traced back to these beginnings. Green Butt Skunk, Skykomish Sunrise, Purple Peril, to name just a few all hail back to these early beginnings.

Tips to Photographing Your Trophy Fish When it comes to catch and release lakes, it is important for you to be ready to catch your fish, take a prize-winning shot and release your giant back into the water for others to enjoy. Before setting out on your trophy trout fishing trip with your fishing partner or guide, keep these few tips in mind. Bring along a good, reliable camera. It doesn't matter if it is digital or 35 mm, but make sure it has an automatic focus feature. Most casual photographers don't need the pressure of adjusting settings, so an automatic camera is a good choice. In addition, for the sake of safety, it doesn't hurt if your camera is waterproof!

Spring and Pawl Drag Fly Fishing Reels The first type of drag system is the traditional Spring-and Pawl-drag. Just because this drag type if traditional doesn't mean it's outdated. In fact, spring-and-pawl fly reels are ideal for trout fishing, particularly when using light tippets. When line is pulled out of a quality spring-and-pawl fly reel, it is pulled out very smoothly indeed. There is no "jerkiness" or "unevenness" in the tension that is applied to the line. The line instead leaves the reel at a very smooth rate, without any variations in the amount of tension. By getting rid of the unevenness in tension, the fly reel goes a long way towards protecting the tippet.

Fishing the First Cold Front
When a front moves through, fishing can really turn off. But, there are ways to beat that front and still catch fish.....

Recycle your old fishing line (Honolulu Advertiser)
If you've clambered along rocky coastlines where ulua anglers go, you've seen tangles of bluish white discarded fishing line..