Streamer Fishing for Trout in Fall

Why a fall brown will chase, which streamer and leader to start with, and where the strip and the swing belong.

From the book Fly Fishing for Nerds — $9.74 →

A streamer is a baitfish you can move. In the fall it tests whether a brown will chase, without wading the gravel it spawns on. The fall guide covers temperature, olives, and redds.

1. Why fall browns chase

Brown trout spawn in the fall. Virginia DWR puts the spawn on its rivers around mid to late November, when the water is in the mid to upper 40s, and the weeks from late September into mid-November as the pre-spawn stretch. In that stretch the males are territorial. They will chase a fly that swims into the lie. Idaho Fish and Game says some of the largest brown trout are most aggressive as spawning approaches, and that a streamer can draw the strike.

Virginia DWR also describes brown trout as piscivorous. They eat other fish, and they start doing it younger and smaller than rainbow trout do. A woolly bugger is a crude minnow. On a pre-spawn brown, the hypothesis is that the fish will move for it. On a rainbow in the same run, the fair opening is still the nymph or the olive on the fall guide. If the browns are already paired on pale gravel, you are past the chase. Leave them.

The calendars disagree because the rivers disagree. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia do not share a week. The thermometer and the look of the bottom are the check, and the fall guide is how to read a redd. A posted closure wins over this page.

2. Pick one streamer

Start with one woolly bugger. Virginia DWR uses sizes 2 to 6 on larger rivers. On a small creek the starter sizes, 8 to 10, are enough for the first test. Two flies in the first ten minutes, and you will not know which one the fish refused.

Color follows the water you can see. Virginia DWR’s rule is the one to copy: stained water gets a darker fly, black, brown, or olive. Clear water gets a lighter fly, tan or white. A dark fly on a clear day can still move a fish. If the first handful of casts is empty, change color once. Then stop changing color and change the retrieve.

Weight is the other choice, and it is separate from color. An unweighted bugger, or one with a small bead, stays in the top of the swing, where you can see the eat. A heavier head gets down in a deeper slot. Change the weight because the fly is not reaching the lie. Do not change it in the same cast you change the color.

Carry a few of those, not a second box of articulated patterns. A streamer box with deep slots keeps the marabou from matting. The gear list has one. You do not need it full.

3. A sink tip and a short leader

The floating line on a 5-weight is still the first line. It mends, you can see the swing, and on a creek the runs are often only a few feet deep. A sink-tip line is the next test, when that floating line is not getting the fly to the fish. The tip sinks. The rest of the line stays up, so you can still mend and still see the swing finish. Virginia DWR uses a floating line or a sink tip when the holes are about 4 or 5 feet deep, and a full sinking line only for the deep, heavy water on a large tailwater. If you are not on that water, do not start there.

Match the sink tip to the rod the way the maker marks it. A 5-weight rod gets the 5-weight sink tip, even when the head is built heavy to turn a big fly over. On that line the 5-weight has a tip of about 8 feet, which is enough for a wade. A heavier rod gets a longer tip. Use it when the river in front of you is actually that deep.

The leader has to turn the fly over, and it has to let the fly sink with the line. A 9-foot 5X dry-fly leader hinges a woolly bugger. The fly flops, and the cast did not test the pattern.

Virginia DWR fishes 0X to 2X, about a 9-foot leader on a floating line, and a leader of about 3 to 5 feet on a sink tip. The longer leader lets the fly sink under a line that floats. The short one keeps the fly down with the tip instead of riding above it. Both are stouter than a dry-fly leader. On this site the starter bugger, sizes 8 to 10, still sits on 3X. The tippet guide is that rule, and it saves 0X, 1X, and 2X for streamers bigger than the starter. A 7.5-foot leader is the short, stout choice on the floating line: 3X for a size 8 or 10, and 0X to 2X for sizes 2 to 6. On the sink tip, cut back to about 3 to 5 feet in that same tippet. The gear list links that 7.5-foot leader. The same page has the 0X and the 3X.

4. Strip, pause, then swing

Two retrieves. Run one of them for a handful of casts before you switch. If you do both in the same cast, you cannot say which one the fish wanted.

Strip and pause. Cast across, or quartered upstream the way Virginia DWR describes, so the fly comes back on a diagonal. Strip about six inches, then stop. Keep the pause. The fly darts and then falls, and many of the takes come on the fall. If nothing moves, the adjustment is a slower strip or a longer pause, not a new fly. Count the strips so the next cast matches this one.

The swing. Cast across and slightly downstream. Mend once so the tip can sink on a slack line, then let the current do the rest. The line tightens and the fly sweeps across the lie, broadside. Keep the rod tip low and pointed at the fly. When the swing finishes below you, strip the last few feet, then recast. A trout that follows to the end of the swing and does not eat is a result. The fish saw the fly. Change the pause, or the distance from the bank, before you change the pattern.

Set the hook on a pause or a swing by sweeping low, toward the bank the fish came from. A high trout set pulls a streamer out of the mouth. If you miss, repeat the same retrieve through the same lane once more. Then move.

5. Banks, seams, and tailouts

Fish where a brown can hold without fighting the main current, and where a baitfish would pass close enough to chase. Virginia DWR names the places: soft water behind a boulder, a seam that delivers food, a drop-off, a steep bank with wood. The reading-water guide is the walk. This is where the streamer goes.

Banks. Cast so the fly lands close to the bank, the wood, or the undercut, and the first strips happen there. A cast that lands in the middle and strips toward the bank tests the middle. Wade where the fish are not. In low, clear water the fish are easy to move off the lie before you cast. Stay off the skyline.

Seams. The soft side of a seam is the holding side. Put the fly in the faster water and let it swing onto the soft side, or strip it along the line where the speeds meet. A foam line marks that boundary when there is one. Fish the soft side of it.

Tailouts. The tailout is the shallowing end of the pool, and in the fall it is also the kind of gravel a brown uses for a redd. Look before you cast. If the patch is paler than the bed around it, do not swing a streamer through the fish on it, and do not wade it. Fish the wooded bank instead, from a path that stays off the pale gravel. The fall guide is the longer version of that rule.

Footing still comes first. A low river hides the next drop-off, and stained water hides it better. Safety and access are the first item on the bank checklist.

6. What flow and temperature change

Read the gauge before you pick the fly. The river-flow guide is today’s discharge against that gauge’s own range for the date. A number you remember from last October is not this river today.

PingWhen (paid, from $9 a month) can email you when a USGS gauge crosses a flow or gage-height level you set.

Low and clear. This is the usual fall freestone. Idaho Fish and Game notes that trout in that water are spooky, and more often in deeper or better-protected lies. Use the smaller bugger, the floating line, and a longer cast from farther off the bank. A sink tip in two feet of clear water ticks the rocks and pushes a wake at the fish. Skip it until the lie is actually deeper than the floating line can reach.

Up, or stained. The fish slide to the bank and the soft edge. A darker, slightly larger fly is the first test, close to that edge. The after-rain guide is the rise, the color, and when to stay out. If you cannot see the edge, you cannot tell whether the swing worked. Come back when you can. A sink tip helps only when that edge is still deep.

Temperature. Take it. The water-temperature guide is the reading, and the stop near 68°F. A warm fall afternoon can still cross that line. If it does, stop.

While the water is in the 50s, a quicker strip is a fair test. Virginia DWR says you can usually fish an aggressive strip in the pre-spawn, and that you should slow down, or pause longer, when that strip gets no reply. When the river drops into the 40s, slow the strips and let the fly spend more time near the bottom. That is the same adjustment the fall guide makes. When the river spends the day in the 30s, the fish often will not chase. The winter guide is the dead drift, not a faster strip.

The time-of-day guide puts the hour once you have the temperature. In the 50s the day is open, and it is shorter than it was in July, so pick a window and fish it. In the 40s, fish the warmest part of the day.

7. One line before you rig

Write the temperature, whether the river looks low and clear, and whether you saw pale gravel. Then one sentence. "54°F, low and clear, wooded bank: a size 8 olive bugger on the floating line, six strip-and-pause casts." Or "48°F, a foot of color, deep edge under the log: sink tip, a short 2X leader, a darker bugger, and a slow swing. The pale tailout stays behind me." Run that test. If it is empty, change the retrieve or the lane. Then stop changing things.

A pond bass is a different streamer job. The fly is still a baitfish, and the leader is heavier. That page is bass and bluegill.

Streamers, the pre-spawn chase, and the lies those fish use get more room in Fly Fishing for Nerds: A Data-Driven Guide to Finding, Hooking, and Landing Trout. Readers can take 25% off ($9.74) with code NERDS25 at Leanpub.

The Riverbank Checklist is the one-page routine for the bank: safety first, then one hypothesis and a short test. Temperature, the flow, and whether you saw pale gravel belong in that note.