Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Cover water with a fly you trust instead of changing patterns. Fish inside bends and slack seams where migrating fish rest, use a strip-strip-pause retrieve so the fly flutters on the drop, and fish jig-head flies on a floating line so they rise and fall. Set with a hard strip, hands held forward.
Kodie Kowitz guided in Alaska for 12 years, including at Katmai Trophy Lodge, and now guides migratory fish year-round in Michigan.
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How do you streamer fish for migratory fish?
Streamer fishing for migratory fish starts with reading where fish rest rather than where they feed. Kodie Kowitz targets inside bends and slack seams, on the logic that fish moving upstream will not sit in heavy current, so the soft edges hold the freshest and most aggressive fish. He fishes a fly he has confidence in for the given water level, flow and season, then covers as much good water as possible instead of picking apart one run. The goal is finding an angry fish that wants to chase, not convincing a specific fish to eat.
What is jigging a streamer with a fly rod?
Jigging a streamer means fishing a jig-head fly on a floating line so the fly rips up off the bottom and then flutters back down, rather than swimming on a flat plane. Kowitz says the technique came out of necessity in Alaska, where clients arrived with 8-weight floating lines and no sink tips, so guides tied flies on jig heads as heavy as a quarter ounce to reach the bottom. He specifically avoids fishing jig flies on a sink tip, because the tip pulls the fly forward instead of upward and removes the rise-and-fall action that makes the technique work. The eats usually come on the drop.
Should you change flies when streamer fishing?
Kowitz's core tip is don't change your fly, change your fish. For steelhead, Pacific salmon, brown trout, smallmouth and pike, a fly you trust fished through fresh water beats cycling through a fly box, because every fly change costs casts and re-running the same run only pushes fish down. He makes an exception for genuinely changed conditions - the sun disappearing, a downpour, the river blowing out - or for depth adjustments, moving from lead eyes to a bead head to unweighted.
Where do migratory fish hold in fall, winter and spring?
Fresh fall fish sit in shallower, faster runs with less obvious seams, because they are still moving through rather than holding, and they will chase a streamer a long way. As water temperatures drop into winter, those same fish settle into deeper holes to stage before spawning, which means fishing slower, with deeper heads, longer tips and more weight on the fly. In spring, fish still use the winter holes, but post-spawn drop-backs are the prize because they are feeding again and will chase fry and sculpin right onto the bank.
How do you set the hook on a salmon that eats a streamer?
Kowitz coaches anglers to hold their hands out in front of them, saltwater style, so there is another 18 inches to two feet of travel available for a strip set. If the rod hand starts back at the waist, the angler has already used half their range and cannot drive the hook. This matters most on chum and silver salmon, where the fly has to be pulled out of the corner of a bony mouth and the fish tends to grab the fly and hold still rather than run.
What retrieve speed works best for streamers?
Kowitz thinks most anglers move a streamer too fast, and his reasoning is calorie math: a healthy baitfish sprinting downriver is an expensive chase, while a wounded fish that kicks twice and then sinks reads as a free meal. His default is strip, strip, pause, letting a lightly weighted fly kick and then hang and slowly sink. The exceptions are pike, which will take a fly moving as fast as you can pull it, and jointed or big rabbit-strip flies for smallmouth, where a bigger strip makes the fly kick side to side.
How is streamer fishing for Michigan steelhead different from Alaska salmon?
The biggest difference is how long the aggressive window lasts. In Michigan, king salmon go from chrome to bronze and shut down within roughly two weeks, whereas Alaska kings stayed in attack mode from mid-June until the season closed at the end of July. Alaska's prime window for big trout runs from late August through mid-October, roughly two months of 45 to 55 degree water, versus Michigan's shorter surge when the river drops from 75 to 38 degrees in about six weeks.
Key takeaways
- Don't change your fly, change your fish - covering new water beats re-fishing a run with a different colour.
- Fish inside bends and slack seams for migratory fish; upstream movers avoid heavy current.
- Fish jig-head flies on a floating line, not a sink tip, so the fly rises and flutters instead of dragging.
- Strip, strip, pause - a fly that kicks and then sinks reads as a wounded, easy meal.
- Hold your hands out in front of you so you have 18 inches to two feet of travel left for a strip set.
- Fall fish sit in shallower, faster runs; winter fish drop into deeper holes; spring drop-backs feed hard on fry and sculpins.
