about surface flies!

Hey Bunnyleach.......
 
 I've hooked one Skamania summer run steelhead on a surface fly...a Bomber....in a bright pink. Lost that fish....probably in the low teens. on the Salmon river.
 
I've landed a 13 pound steelhead on an emerger in a small trib back here west of Rochester. This was in Nov. a few years back. Size 12 emerger...and i tried it becaue I observed this steelhead smacking the surface every minute for about 10 minutes. Tied on the emerger...no weight...Fly was unweighted as well...other then the weight of the hook....and the fish took it...a simple gray hares ear. Took it in the surface film....so truly not on top....but with in an inch of the surface...when he came up and slurped it in. ....You could hear me yell from about two counties over.
 
Skating bombers is the most tried and true practice to try and entice a surface take. usually it's done in the summer time when you have some large bugs hatching.... The Skams seem to be a little more surface orientated...then the Washington strain Chambers Creek fish. The closest places that you'd encounter the best chance to get a surface bite would be the Erie tribs...especially the Grand River in Canada. I know of some fish taken up top in the Erie tribs on the states side...but it's just not a likely situation.
 
I have a good friend who's taken a least one and possibly a couple steelhead on the surface in the Genny River here in Rochester....very early fall.... So deer hair bombers are most common in use for this type of activity. Like Atlantic Salmon fishing it's all about the speed of the fly.
 
So if you are going to put some time in....I'd suggest both some bright attractor colors...and some natural grays browns black...and olives. Obviously skating a fly is simply adding drag to your swing...and creating that "V" as the fly slides across the surface.
 
The conditions...hard to say....since I've had very little success...but for sure...it's best to try and find a pod of holding fish...that haven't been stressed. Your approach has to stealthy. And you want to rest the pool or run. In other words...pick a fly...work down over the holding fish....No dice...go back up top...sit against a tree for 10 15 minutes...and tie on the next fly and go again.
 
I've had several Atlantics and Skams grab the back of a streamer at the end of my swing...as the fly raises almost to the surface. They blow up on the fly just as it's reaching the surface...move a bulge of water...and escape.
 
It's a truly difficult task to complete around here. The best places to get steelhead up top are of course some of the rivers in BC...where those wild fish are used to looking up. I've caught juvie steelhead in some of the Ontario Canada side of the LO tribs...wild steelhead that are a foot long and live in a trib before heading out to the lake...on regular dry flies..Caddis patterns....but not quite what your looking for.
 
Good luck Bunnyleach.....if you are willing to spend countless hours at it...odds are you'll turn a few...i thought Musky fishing was hard...on my very first attempt at Musky fishing many years ago...I put a 50 inch fish in the boat in the first two hours...had to laught at that fish of 10,000 casts thing.  
 
So you never know.

BL in nearly 30 years fishing the SR I have taken a handfull of steelhead on flies fished on the surface. All of them have been in the fall and 3 of them from the same pocket on the same day. Don't know if that means I had something figured out or was just the lucky fool in the right place at the right time. It was a pocket that was about the size of a trucks hood and maybe 6 inches or a foot deeper than the rest of the river bed in that area. I found it because one day as I was trying to explain where the steelhead held to a client I was guiding a fish of about 8 lbs came up and attacked his glo bug that was whipping bacxk and forth across the current as we talked. Used to walk from Coho street over the Black hole and down below the glide on high water just to fish it after that. It always held hot steel and a few times they were hot enough to rise to the surface, once to a dead drift but usually if they were going to climb on it they liked it skating. I have caught quite a few in the surface, mostly up in the bubbles below the Altmar bridge. There is a pocket on the Genny that when the water is low 900-1100 cfs that has given me many takes that were in the surface wash, not truely dry but totally visable. 

Thank you guys!!! I will definitely put in to good use your suggestions.