RIO Fly Recommendations | Great Lakes Steelhead Patterns with Ben Hunting

As the leaves fall and air temperatures turn into the beginning of winter, the Great Lakes region still offers some phenomenal angling for fall and winter steelhead through different angling style techniques. The month of November into early December, depending on both air temps and water temps can provide some of the best two-handed angling around the world. Great Lakes steelhead are deemed “lake-run rainbows” but I would argue that pound-for-pound they would go the distance in a heavy weight fight against their PNW and Canadian counterparts. Once the middle of December hits and even into January, our water temps and air temps are much colder and the true definition of a winter steelhead angler comes into play. The metabolism of our steelhead slows down and the need to chase swung flies slowly but surely changes to feeding on dead drifted nymph and egg patterns in the deeper runs. Here are some of my favorite flies for both techniques with a focus on the most productive patterns for the coldest and darkest months.

Two-Hand Searcher: RIO's King Flow

RIO’s King Flow in Olive (also in the Black/Brown colorway) is a great searching pattern for the two-hander and works extremely well with low-flow river systems. As we sneak into the late fall/early winter season here in the Great Lakes, we may very well be dealing with extremely low water conditions in many of our fisheries and this would be a great addition to the fly box of anyone enjoying this style of angling for steelhead.

(BELOW L TO R: RIO'S KING FLOW #4 IN OLIVE AND IN BLACK/BROWN)

Winter Indicator Options: Double Header, RIO's Hogan Chubby Cousin, Glow Yarn Egg

With the colder water and air temps, these patterns are workhorses when getting slow, natural dead drifts under an indicator becomes the name of the game. I personally like to use the nymph as my point fly and the egg pattern as my dropper fly. This allows me to change the color of the egg pattern quickly to determine if one color is better than another. I’ll go through numerous egg colors throughout one winter run before I switch the nymph. And if the water is low and clear, I will tend to use the smaller of the nymphs hoping to match size, shape and color of the insects.

(BELOW L TO R: DOUBLE HEADER #8 IN BROWN, GLOW YARN EGG #8 IN PEACH, RIO HOGAN'S CHUBBY COUSIN #12 IN PEACOCK)

Chuck and Duck: Hook Up Stone & Glow Yarn Egg

The other technique used in the Great Lakes territory is a method called “Chuck & Duck.” While mostly used in my home state of Michigan, this is a dedicated bottom bouncing method that is very successful and is used for our fall salmon fishery, and if the water is up, during our fall and winter steelhead fishery, too. This technique allows anglers to fish deeper runs knowing that their fly and egg patterns are rolling around at the bottom of the river. Like fishing under an indicator, I prefer the larger Hook Up Stone pattern as my point fly and the Glow Egg pattern as the dropper fly. You can NEVER have enough egg patterns, period!

(BELOW L TO R: HOOK UP STONE #6 IN BLACK/BROWN, GLOW YARN EGG #8 IN PINK CHAMPAGNE)