clousers or surf candies???

not having done much fishing up here at all, [ 2 days in like almost 6 years!!]  mostly cause the job keeps me away for extended periods, i've not had a chance to learn much about the preferred patterns used locally inshore.

i'm betting they will be some type of streamer, usually weighted , imitating bunker , shad or some other baitfish, but what exactly should i be looking for when i go to buy flies? i'm not one to tie, never learned or had the want to,  after a day of stuffing communications gear into military equipment, [ my employment ] the last thing i want to do is sit down and do more work. now, give me a glass of rum or bourbon,  a good movie or something else fish related, and i'm content.

so, i'm all ears and eyes here.. what should i be looking to pick up at the fly shop?

Clouser and surf candies will work. No Bunker out here, our bait tends to the long skinny side for profile.

It's tempting to go for the bright eye-candy stuff, but olives and even brown and white with only a very little bit of flash, is what works best for me. I do like weighted heads when tied with a perfection loop.

Clouser Minnows are very good for Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat and salmon. Olive over white, tied with bucktail, synthetic hair, or marabou work very well as imitations of sand lance. For fall salmon, pink over white or chartreuse are good.

Another very popular NW saltwater pattern is the Shock and Awe, which is similar to the Clouser, except with a bullet-shaped metal conehead instead of the dumbell eyes. This provides a nice weighted head, but is more streamlined in the water, and in the air when you cast. Also more durable than the Clouser in my opinion. The Shock and Awe pattern was developed by Anil at Puget Sound Fly Fishers in Kent.

There are lots of other flies that work well. For sea-runs, my all-time favorite is Murray's Rolled Muddler, either silver or gold. Close behind is a simple epoxy head streamer tied with dark olive over white hair (my current version uses Russian Silver Goat, and has a small amount of white arctic fox dubbed in front of the wing). Another good fly, especially in the winter, is a tan bead-head woolley bugger. The bugger might imitate a sand shrimp, a sculpin, maybe a marine worm, or maybe it's just a suggestive attractor.

Tom

thanx, guys, really.. mostly olives and blues, with a few silvers and golds thrown in i see.. interesting, sounds like belize all over again...  looks like i have to start a whole new fly box..i do that, set up one box per area i fish, with patterns that work, then when i head that direction, i just grab that box and my other gear and go...

Would have to agree w/ what's said above. Especially about the shock and awe... great fly design.

Z

bringing this back up a bit because of drano coming up soon, and during my free time up here, i've been prowling the local sportsmans warehouse and the only other tackle shop [ actually a hardware store] i've been able to find..

have seen bins full of streamers simply marked "coho candy" or "chinook flies", mainly in red, orange, purple, black, cahrtreuse.. or combinations thereof.... these all look like deciver patterns of one form or another from 2 to 4 inches long... price is ususally like 3 /1.00

anyone use these before? and, are they worth buying in bulk, since they seem to be pretty cheaply put together..

From the sounds of it they're probably worth their price. Not to say for sure but I've had plenty of trouble w/ some of the brand name flies. Terrible hooks. That's when I got myself a vice and started rolling my own. Plus catching on a fly you tied is awesome! Gonna give up hootchies and tie my own trolling flies from now on.

Z

Most of those 3 for a dollar flies you see in Alaska are used for flossing reds.  Basically just some hair tied to a hook and a cheap one at that.  I have a handful on my shelves somewhere, but as I remember the hooks were so cheap I couldn't even sharpen them.  I keep thinking I'll use them for rockfish flies, but I always forget.

-Allen

I picked up some small shock and awes in Belleview last week to copy and I have to say, they are the coolest looking bugs I've seen in a long time. The big ones look nice for salmon, rockfish, and ling - but those small sizes for cutties look downright delicious.

I also agree with the above answers. What species will you be targeting? Might make a difference in your fly selection.

For targeting searun cutthroat in the upper tidewater sections of coastal streams, i often use a Reversed Spider in orange, pinkish orange, black, variegated orange/black (halloween),  or yellow, (those are body colors) and I use various colors of Mallard Flank hackle on these, and often a red tail just because it seems to work.

I just tied up a couple of white ones ("Polar Ice" actually), one pink/orange with red tail, and a red one today, to test out those colors. All were tied with natural Mallard flank hackle tied in swept forward, so that when stripped in quickly it pulsates, and flutters a bit when twitched while just hanging in the current. I use size 6 or 8 streamer hooks for these.
They can be fished off a floating line or a sink tip, or even a clear intermediate full sinking line. Cutts like the wicked action and will come out of hiding to come up and slam one of these stripped in just under the surface or in the film.

Salmon often require different tactics depending on species and location. It can be frustrating for a non-expert like me to get them to take flies.  One day a few years back I really slayed the coho and chum on a small green flash fly, but I have been unable to find that kind of action since then. Must have been beginner's luck. I'm going to pick up a copy of Les Johnson's new book on fly fishing for salmon. Just came out and is supposed to be chock full of good info. I think its called "Fly Fishing for Pacific Salmon," but I'm not sure.

If you are fishing for Kings in Puget sound, you might try a squid pattern. There is a "tube fly" squid pattern designed by Mark Mandell called the "Calamarko" that is supposed to be killer for Kings when fished vertically on a full sink line or fast sinking head. I need to get the materials to tie some of these, as well as the materials for the tube version of the "Shock and Awe."

For trout in rivers, you practically need to be an entomologist. You have to figure out what the trout are eating and represent that. Or stop off at the nearest fly shop and buy what's been working. I just try to fake it with whatever I have with me that looks like what the fish are taking or resembles a food source I find in the river. 

You should check out washingtonflyfishing.com for good NW fly fishing info. I've learned a lot there.

I just picked up a tube fly version of the Shock'nAwe at Waters West in Port Angeles yesterday, along with the materials to tie some, and fished it on the way home from a beach near the north end of Brinnon. Curt, at Water's West, recommended the Gamakatsu SC-15 for the best hook to use, so I got some of those.  I didn't even get a hit, but it looked really enticing in the water. Was practically a dead ringer for the sand lances I saw underneath me when I was paddling around the entrance to Sequim Bay on Tuesday.
 
Near Brinnon , I saw a nice fish chasing some bait on the surface just out of casting range (my Ultimate 12 was on my racks )and a small cutthroat jumping out in front of a private beach.  I should have launched, even though it was getting late. I had "wasted" too much time earlier driving around Quilcene and Dabob Bays, checking out potential launch sites. (I did find out that "Broadspit" on the West shore of Dabob Bay is accessible by water only. It is a WDFW public tidelands).
The water glassed off as the evening progressed, the tide was coming in, and it looked absolutely skookum for paddling. I didn't leave until 9pm, anyway.

My casting sucks. I need more practice. I was using a Rio Outbound with the clear intermediate sinking head, on my 6 wt setup, and as usual, I had to really stretch that coiled serpent every inch of its length to straighten it out, prior to casting.
Until the tide got high enough, the berm behind me was kind of steep, and I kept hitting the vegetation and rocks with my backcast. Still, with the running line coiled in my stripping basket, and using a double haul, I was able to gack it out there 50 to 60+ feet, when I didn't flub it.  I'd get a horrible trailing loop every time I hurried my forward cast in an effort to keep my fly from hitting the rocks behind me on my back cast. So it goes... Not much current where I was at, it was glassy, and the salad was collecting on my fly and knots. I was wet wading up to just above my knees wearing shorts and my "yak shoes" and was not at all cold.

Tuesday morning, I managed one small searun cutt, a small sculpin, and a big (relatively) shiner perch fishing around the Sequim Bay entrance, trying various small (tied on #6 hooks) baitfish patterns, including a green-over-white Clouser and a Chum Baby. Also used a ConeHead Squid, but got no love on that.  Good  place to paddle when the W, NW, N, NE, E or SE wind isn't blowing too much. Lots of current on the outgoing tide there, and a nice rip line off the spit. Kind of an "iffy" spot for the searun cutts, but my parents live about a mile from the county park where I launched at (the wind was light), so I check it out whenever I visit them, if the wind isn't bad.

Gotta go tie up some Shock'nAwe tube flies! And some Cone Head Muddlers!  Fishing tomorow, and paddling in the Elk River Challenge ("old lame novice's" division, if they have one) on Saturday.

Thanks for the great report.

Exploring is a big part of sea-run fishing, especially at low tide. A lot of depressions, ridges, rock piles, and kelp beds that trap baitfish, and attract fish, are exposed. It's fun to take pictures and notes, then come back and fish your new "secret spot" when the tide comes back in.


Tom

Man, what an inspiring post. Off to google land to find pictures of some of these flies.

lots of interesting local saltwater fly fishing info at washingtonflyfishing.com they are mostly wading and casting off the beach but seems to be some productive SRC areas around

i plan on trying some SRC flyfishing from my kayak this summer...while waiting for the salmon to show up

so any of you wand wavers do any deep water fly fishing? how do you get a fly down to 40' deep?  add alot of split shot?