What Really Matters?

Lee Lashway tight to a steelhead on a clear November morning.  Todd Hirano photo

As I have grown and hopefully, gracefully matured as a middle aged adult who chases steelhead with dry flies, I like to think that all the time I spend on rivers has taught me things beyond the simple act of trying to catch a fish.  It has been said that some fishermen go through an evolutionary process:  at first, just being able to catch a fish,  to trying to catch as many fish as possible, to trying to catch the biggest fish,  to trying to catch the most difficult fish, to catching fish on methods that bring challenges and satisfaction, etc.

I suppose I have gone through evolutionary phases myself - from catching tilapia on a cane pole, bobber and worms as a child in Hawaii,  to catching various gamefish on conventional gear, to learning to fly fish for trout and bass, to entering the strange and unlikely reality of chasing steelhead with dry flies.  I have thought that I reached the end of my evolving journey when I began achieving continued success with surface steelheading,  but I am realizing that I am continuing to grow and learn in this journey.

For instance, I have been having a love/hate relationship with social media in recent times. I was initially hesitant to engage in Facebook to begin with because I saw so much self absorption, arguing, and trivial crud being posted every day. I mean who really cares about what I am about to eat, where I am , who I am with and how many ways people can argue about politics?  Some folks seem to worry that the world will forget what they look like so they post selfies every day.

Well, after my Facebook account sat mostly dormant from time I opened it in 2010, I finally decided to begin participating in the world of social media in 2014, which is also when I realized that most of my fishing friends were on Facebook as well. Facebook seemed like a good way to stay connected with my fishing friends. I also opened an Instagram account shortly thereafter as well,  also for the same reason.  It was also during this time that I began noticing that the actvity on internet fly fishing forums like Speypages had really died down.   This probably due to many people also moving to social media as their preferred platform for fly fishing interactions as well.

Of course,  I began posting about my fishing activities and it seemed like a fun extension of my passion. Before I knew it,  I was finding myself caught up in the trivialities of it as well. I was posting about everything from fish I caught, to who I was with, where I was, flies I was tying and yes, sometimes even what I was eating. The only thing I didn't get into was posting selfies every day.

During the summer of 2018, I began experiencing some of the best dry fly steelhead fishing I have ever had. It occurred to me that I would be shooting myself in the foot if I continually posted current pictures and stories of the surface steelhead I was getting. I was experiencing solitude due to low returns and fishing was decent, I believe largely due to the lack of pressure.

I went into incognito mode and mostly just texted my close friends to keep them in the loop of my fishing activities. I stopped posting up to date pictures of steelhead I was catching.   Another reason that I stopped posting current fishing pictures is that such posts beg questions around where and when -questions I don't always want to answer to the world, for purely selfish reasons!  I also could not blame folks for asking these questions - who doesn't want the inside scoop on where steelhead are being currently being caught? 

It was through this abstinence of posting every fish caught and continually updating the world of my activities, that I realized how far gone I was.  How had I gotten sucked into the meaninglessness of social media?  It actually happened easily:  we all can be vulnerable to wanting approval and recognition, it's just our human nature.

In recent times, I have been back to posting less and less on social media.  When I am scrolling through my social media accounts,  I find myself  seeking posts with meaning and substance, but they can be hard to find.   Even pictures of steelhead can become ordinary,  especially if there is no story or relevance behind them. Another social media hazard:  Everyone's posts of the awesome fishing they are having can lead to comparisons of what my life is lacking and that can lead to depression!

I started questioning my own motives with using social media. Why did I need to keep the world updated on what I was doing, where I was fishing and reporting on every steelhead caught in real time?  Don't get me wrong, there are benefits of social media:  it is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends, there are some great inspirational stories, quotes, and images that appear, and I love some of the funny stuff that is posted.   However,  I can find myself overly absorbed in my social media accounts and tuning out life,  not really being present with those who are important to me.

I realized that telling the world about everything I was doing on social media in real time was no longer a priority.   What I did discover is that encouraging others in their journeys in dry fly and dry line steelheading is what I find most valuable and meaningful.  I am always honored when folks have reached out to me to learn more about my chosen methods. I am humbled when things I have written and spoke about in this blog and elsewhere has given inspiration to others.  Thus, I realized that my online presence is best served right here on my humble little blog.  I will still post on social media from time to time, but not so much in the realm of real time reportage.

Another change I have noticed in myself over the past few years is my current criteria of a successful surface steelhead encounter. As a younger angler who chased steelhead with dry flies, I had a narrower perspective of what I considered success in my chosen game. If a steelhead was raised, hooked, but NOT landed, and with no photograpic proof, it didn't "count". Thus, I would be terribly disappointed whenever steelhead escaped my hook,  especially after a good fight with the steelhead close to shore.

Now,  almost 30 years into my dry steelhead fly journey, the loss of a steelhead during the fight stings less and less.   It's always great to behold the beauty of a steelhead up close and to be able to capture that beauty in photographs. However,  I am now more grateful for every steelhead rise I am blessed to experience. The excitement of the rise is the ultimate reward for my perseverance and confirmation of my intuition, ability to read water and to present my surface fly in way that appeals to a steelhead.

When I think about it,  hooking and landing steelhead are the parts of the experience that I have little to no control over.  When a steelhead takes a fly, there is no way to  predict how the hook will be oriented in the steelhead's mouth or jaw.   The only part of this process I do have control over is resisting the urge to immediately raise the rod to set the hook.  It is also critical to fight steelhead aggressively and quickly,  keeping maximum pressure during the fight. 

Otherwise if I am lucky, my hook will find purchase in the corner of the jaw or in some other location in the steelhead's mouth where a solid hookup is ensured.  If I am not so lucky, my hook only catches a patch of skin and pulls free after a brief or sometimes extended fight. Ie., actually landing a surface steelhead is more of a crapshoot and less dependent on actual skill. Will I get to the point of fishing for rises only and cutting the points off my hooks as Lee Spencer does on the North Umpqua?  While I agree that we should minimize our impact when pursuing our precious wild steelhead, my selfish nature still loves the adrenaline rush of the power that steelhead display during the fight.

Since eliciting steelhead rises really is the feedback I seek as a dry fly steelheader, I am joyful whenever my efforts result in those thrills regardless of the ultimate outcome. I like to think that the accomplishment of raising steelhead to the surface is what requires much more than dumb luck - although dumb luck can help, but should never be depended on.  In the end,  I am more than happy in getting an aggressive attack to my surface bug, maybe a few pulls off my reel and a jump - that's what counts anymore.  No need for a steelhead in hand and a picture every time, much less an immediate post on social media - maybe a quick text or message to my close friends to celebrate and I call it good.

Surface steelhead that came to my Black/Blue wang in mid November

What about you?  Where has your journey in this game taken you?

Little Wang Fly Tying Video

Many thanks to Courtney Morris (@sculpinarmy on Instagram) for putting this video together which documents the step by step instructions in building my favorite steelhead wakers.  Also thanks to Homewaters Fly Shop for posting these videos on their YouTube channel. 

Some commentary on fishing the Wang.

Morning Redemption

It was overcast morning in the middle of October as I donned my waders along a favorite summer steelhead river.   While I prepared for a brief morning session before heading to church, my mind started to wander. After experiencing a surprisingly productive summer dry fly steelhead season,  I found myself in the midst of a dry spell coming through late summer and early fall.  I had gotten spoiled with the periodic, but less than consistent surface action the rivers provided me from early summer through late summer, but the seemingly sudden downturn in top water steelhead activity started to mess with my head.  My summer surface steelhead connections showed me beating the odds, especially with current low returns,  but fall is prime time for surface steelhead and my recent results didn't reflect that truism.

I was armed with my 11' 3wt trout spey and the natural bomber variant that I have been tying in recent months.  This fly is basically a split winged bomber with a cow elk wing added between the trimmed deer body and front facing split calf tail wings.  After fishing primarily foam waking flies for the past 10 years, I sought to come up with an all natural pattern that met my critieria for visibility and staying on the surface with consistency.  I finally came close enough with my "bivisi-bomber-wang".  I had raised steelhead on the pattern but had not actually landed any while using it yet.

I started at the top of the run, lengthening line with each cast until my OPST Commando head and a few strips of running line were out the tip of my rod.  It was a cool morning and I was enjoying sips of hot coffee from my thermos cup that I keep tucked in the front of my waders as each cast approached mid swing to the dangle.  It was before I had my normal "9 strip" cast out that I heard a gulp and saw a splashy rise in the periphery of my vision as I had my coffee cup tipped back for a drink.  My line drew tight in an instant and the steelhead took off on a run as I tucked my coffee cup back into the front of my waders and switched the rod over to my left hand so I could crank on my 3 5/8" Hardy Perfect with my right hand.


The steelhead made a couple more short bursts and leaped a time or two as I drew it closer to me.  I kept steady pressure with a low rod position and tension on my reel.  After a few mintutes, I had the steelhead in the shallows along my bank.  Just as I was able to get my sights on what appeared to be an average sized steelhead in the 6-8lb range , the hook pulled out.  Ah well, there was still time remaining to see if other steelhead were around.


I resumed my position and extended my cast out to the 60-70' range.  This amounts to what is a comfortable casting distance with the light rod and short head.  I continued working down the run and when I was about 20 feet below my starting point, another explosive rise came to my bomber in mid swing, and again, the line quickly came tight with a run and a leap.  Judging by visual appearances and the nature of the fight, I could tell that this steelhead was above average in size.  Steady pressure and exerting as much tension as I could on the steelhead had it coming towards me in a short time.


I have been criticized for using light gear for steelhead, however as has been demonstrated through my personal experiences repeatedly, exerting maximum pressure (palming/fingers on the reel spool) , maintaining a low rod position, and staying with appropriate steelhead tippet (8 or 10lb Maxima for me) get steelhead in quickly.


There was not a convenient area that would allow me to draw the steelhead near to the bank so I got the steelhead as close as I could.  I did the trick of drawing in line by stripping to allow for my rod to be lifted above and behind me as I reached for the leader.  The trick worked and I carefully hand lined the steelhead within grasping range.  I was impressed by the broad shoulders of the hatchery buck which I guessed to be in the 12-13lb range.  I could see that the bomber was firmly lodged in the mouth of the steelhead.  This whole process is an awkward maneuver as one is simultaneously grasping the leader and being constantly prepared to release pressure if the steelhead tries to run off, while trying to keep track of loose line not tangling in the guides of the rod, should the leader need to be released.  Things were going well and I was about to grab the wrist of the steelhead's tail, when he gave a last ditch flop which popped the 12lb section of my leader.  I made a desperate attempt at getting a hold of my prize, but he was quickly gone with my freshly tied bomber and tippet section. I was surprised that my tippet snapped in the stronger 12lb section.  I figured that I either had a wind knot or that the loop knot I used weakened the mono.


I can say, I was just a little bummed at losing probably the largest steelhead that I had hooked into for the season.  However as a steelheader gets older and crustier, those losses don't tend to hurt as much.  I wasn't really in the mood to deal with harvesting, filleting, and freezing a late season hatchery steelhead.  A picture would have been nice, but even that is not as important to me anymore.  I don't post fish pics on social media as much as I used to - probably because I realized that I don't have anything to prove and there are plenty of steelhead pics on Instagram already.  I got everything I could have asked for from that steelhead - a beautiful rise, a powerful and exciting fight and an up close look at the prize that I seek.

I still had the lower half of the run to fish and enough time to fish it,  so I tied up a new tippet section and went back to work with another one of my bomber variants.  As I got near the bottom of the run, I slowed my pace because this stretch of water has held rising steelhead in multiple locations.

 As I got into the beginning the hot zone,  I was startled as yet another aggressive rise came to my fly near  the dangle.  The steelhead made a series of short runs until I had it with in range to see it was seemingly a twin of the first one I hooked into earlier,  in that 6-8lb size window.  The steelhead was drawn close to my bank when the hook pulled out.

It was not a day for getting fish slime on my hands,  but I was beyond content with the fast paced surface action in the compressed timeframe of about an hour.  It was that magical time that may happen a time or two each fall when I luck into a loaded run.