Flies for Kings

M_D

M_D

Bringin' the Skunk
Forum Supporter
@SurfnFish

I didn’t want to hijack the Powell Rod Co in Classifieds but you posted this…

IMG_8911.jpeg
and I was hoping you might share what your favorite flies were.

There is a small king run in my area that I’ve been playing around with and I’ll take any info I can get.
 
M_D said:
@SurfnFish

I didn’t want to hijack the Powell Rod Co in Classifieds but you posted this…

View attachment 165715
and I was hoping you might share what your favorite flies were.

There is a small king run in my area that I’ve been playing around with and I’ll take any info I can get.
Click to expand...
for where I fished, early in the season size 2 green and white Clousers and orange or orange and black Comets were hard to beat. As the season progressed and the fish were seeing a lot of bait and flies, a thinly tied Rainbow Clouser was my go to. Towards end of season I would be offering size 4-6 flies on 10# Max, including Comets tied in dark colors. My biggest King, an absolute beast, was tagged on a size 4 Green and White Comet. And keep in mind the biters are up and about, actually counter productive to scratch bottom for them, any line that places your fly in the middle of the water column is the right one.
 
SurfnFish said:
for where I fished, early in the season size 2 green and white Clousers and orange or orange and black Comets were hard to beat. As the season progressed and the fish were seeing a lot of bait and flies, a thinly tied Rainbow Clouser was my go to. Towards end of season I would be offering size 4-6 flies on 10# Max, including Comets tied in dark colors. My biggest King, an absolute beast, was tagged on a size 4 Green and White Comet. And keep in mind the biters are up and about, actually counter productive to scratch bottom for them, any line that places your fly in the middle of the water column is the right one.
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That Rainbow Clouser looks great. Nice and sparse!

I haven't caught many kings on flies, but I must agree the best biters, no matter the species, seem to be willing to come up. As further evidence, I recall a day several years back on the Lower Chehalis where an old friend and I were tossing spinners for coho. We spent a bunch of time moving around on the trolling motor looking for moving fish, and at one point, even though I knew we were going too fast, I deployed a big hootchie spinner and started tolling it. That thing couldn't have been more than 6 inches deep at that speed, so I expected nothing, but about 30 seconds in, I got something! Ended up being a mid-teens Chinook, much to our surprise. We trolled another 50 yards and got another one. A lot of folks target them deep, but at least that day, they were "looking up."
 
What are your coho flies? I guess you in uS call Chinooks, Kings. Your flies look the same I use for coho here near Vancouver but in size 8.
 
SurfnFish said:
Coho tend to be tough customers in tidewater, when I had any luck with them it was on pink Clousers and a fly called the Ally's Shrimp, also an excellent SRC fly in the smaller sizes

View attachment 165757
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I was going through my fies to send some to MD and ran across one I'd forgotten about, a pink Comet I tied that actually did catch a few silvers now and then.IMG_20250906_121849569 (1).jpg
 
SilverFly said:
Some I use mostly in pocket water for fall chinook and coho. The middle patch also work stripped for coho or swung.
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Nice - I'm always looking for new flies to sling at finicky tidewater staging coho. What sized hooks do you like to use?
 
RRSmith said:
Nice - I'm always looking for new flies to sling at finicky tidewater staging coho. What sized hooks do you like to use?
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Think the top ones are #2 or #4 saltwater (left) and #2 octopus (right). Middle patch are #2 saltwater streamer hooks. Bottom patch looks like #2 octopus hooks.

I also like to use tuna live bait hooks for pocket water nymphing. The short-shank profile is good for shrimp or egg patterns, and they're heavy, super-sharp, and basically unbreakable.
 
SurfnFish said:
for where I fished, early in the season size 2 green and white Clousers and orange or orange and black Comets were hard to beat.
Click to expand...

These are also my standard two flies, in a couple sizes / weights. Makes choosing simple! I downsize the fly materials more than the hook, though.

The chartreuse over white clouser mixes 5 or 6 colors, mostly 2 green dominants (chartreuse and kelly green), plus a couple strands of yellow or pink or light blue or aquamarine for depth, over white. I tie them sparse, though not as sparse as Jay Nicholas’ rainbow clouser shown at the top.

My orange/black comet uses only orange and black, and it works just as well.

I also carry a smattering of other random flies, but one of these two are always starters
 
This past Sunday I was SOOOOO counting my fishies before they were netted. :rolleyes:

A couple days prior I was playing around in a little side bay and a commercial fisher stopped by and told me how this was his go to spot, that he'd had 100 fish days there before on a flood tide, and that there were lots of silvers around this year.

Sunday was when my free time aligned with the tide.

In the morning, I walked the dog to a different part of the bay and in the 20 minutes I hung out by the water, I saw prolly 5 rollers within 20 feet of shore and 5 or 6 more flopping around waaay out there. This was still the ebb so I was getting all giddy for the flood.

4 or 5 hours later I was in the 100 fish/day bay, an hour into the flood, armed with a handful of freshly tied SurfnFish copy cat flies, while bronco busting waves in my watermaster.

I was also a bit twitterpated, working out how I was gonna net these anticipated kings and silvers with my relatively small raft net, how I was gonna string 'em up....AND could I justify keeping more than the limit since I'd had SOOOO many fishless days prior to this.

Not a bump or a dorsal fin seen one hour later but I was still amped up, knowing it could happen at any minute. I kept watching off in the distance, expecting to see a jumper or two...but nuthing.

There were 3 or 4 netters 'upstream' of me but I convinced myself there were sufficient gaps to allow a smattering of fish directly onto my lap so I kept casting away, while keeping my off hand high...for the bigger waves....just like a good rodeo cowboy.

Two hours into it....still nuthin.

2.5 hours in, the nearest netter pulled up his 100 yards worth of net and he'd gotten zippo, too. Now I was bummed. I gave it another hour and then called it....still not a fish seen. :poop:

Now, I'm faced with First World Retired Guy Problems...I gotta turn my back on the incoming salmon cuz I'm heading to Rock Creek for a while.....Damn It.....somebody call the WAAAMBULANCE, please :cool:
 
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