Rainbow fishing and king salmon flies

On July 8th Mike and I brought my raft down to Lost Lake (we were able to find it), near Birch lake to have a go at rainbow fishing. The weather was blustery with rain squalls blowing through. With the rain, wind and waves, it made fly fishing pretty tough. I was able to get one fish to strike. Mike with spinning gear was able to do just a little bit better and had his fish on for just long enough for us to get a look at it. It was still a nice day out, but adding a rainbow to my list of species caught on my own fly pattern will have to wait. We did get to watch a cow moose with her new born calf for most of the day.

King Salmon Flies
Around July fourth every year the king salmon run hits the interior. This years run was running a little late, but I was going to give king salmon fishing a try in the Salcha River. A friend has some property on the river and invited me to fish in his bend of the river.

It is recognized that some salmon do not feed after they reach fresh water, king and red salmon are the two species most well known for that. A fisherman has to trigger a strike response for other reasons than feeding. It is believed that kings can be enticed to strike by irritating them. I can be irritating at times, in fact my wife will tell you that I excel at it, so king fishing should be easy for me.

In researching for my king salmon pattern I found that most popular king patterns had purple or chartreuse in them and that egg patterns also did well. Some anglers believe that egg patterns do well because a spawning salmon will pick up eggs from other salmon to remove them from it's nest.

I decided I would try variations of a large, irritating, purple and chartreuse, articulated egg sucking leech.

The Atomic Egg Sucking Leech is born.

The articulation is tied with a 2/0 red octopus hook and the shank of a 2/0 streamer hook . Thirty pound monofilament is bound to the hooks with one half inch between them. I weighted the hooks with .035 lead wire to get the fly to the bottom. Kings spawn and hold on the bottom and sometimes the pools are deep so if you want to invade their space you have to get the fly down there. I found after tying a few of these that it's much easier to tie onto the leading hook if I wait to cut the hook from the shank until after the fly is tied. There's just not that much to hold onto if the hook is cut before the fly is tied.

I tied two purple hackles in for tails, I call them ticklers. I imagine me waving this in front of a king just tickling his nose until he gets frustrated enough to bite.

I tied in some purple flashibou and marabou, then a hackle and some chenille.

The chenille is wrapped and tied down then the hackle is palmered around the chenille, a head is whip finished and cemented.

Flashibou and marabou are tied in for a tail on the leading hook shank, then some egg colored flashabou chenille.

The egg is wrapped, I tied in a hackle and for a little more weight some barbell eyes.

I tied variations with different colors, less weight and deer hair eggs.

I hope to get out and fish some of these king salmon flies, but the run is off to a very bad start, very low numbers and the rain is making all the rivers run high and muddy.

I'm using a new vice and many materials given to me by my friend Janet Bourne after her husband Dennis died. These are some of his patterns.

Next some Red Salmon fly patterns and hopefully some fishing.