Springer Flies - Let's see yours

brownheron · Mar 28, 2022

There's a good thread going on springer fishing glacial rivers so I thought it'd be a great resource for the group to have a consoidated place to post successful (or not) flies we used for the king of our anadromous fisheries.

Mine is posted below. I use it for everything and it's been successful for both Skeena and Kodiak spring chinook as well as OP fall kings. No WA springers yet but I'm optimistic for the upcoming season. I'll post some situation-specific flies I'm planning for springers once I get a bit of time to tie.

Foxy Alicia Leach - Rabbit strip / flash / three dubbing loops of blue arctic fox gradually getting darker / bit of UV Minnow Belly between loops / Jungle Cock eyes, black schlappen collar / conehead. This one is on a plastic tube. I also tie a sparse deepwater version on a tungsten tube with black Himalayan Goat for the tail that sinks super fast.

AR15

RRSmith · Apr 1, 2022

Oregon tidewater springers are mostly of hatchery origin and under the best of conditions, difficult to entice. If you're fortunate to find a pod of staging springers, an angler might spend all day casting to them for a 30 to 45 minute bite, if they go on the bite at all. Tidewater staging fall chinook tend to be much more cooperative. All of my springer grabs and hookups have come from small, sparsely tied traditional tidewater chinook patterns.

Creatch’r · Apr 1, 2022

I pulled these two down off my little wall of retired flies above my tying bench. Both have caught a handful of spring/summer kings swinging here in WA, on the coast and Puget sound and are my go to flies in glacial till. Mostly flash and rhea so they are easy to cast. The top fly pattern in particular has been super productive and put the biggest springer I’ve ever personally seen in the net for me once upon a time. Generally the first and usually the last fly I tie on the end of my leader when vis is 1-4’ and chinook are present.