Spey fishing coho in river

speedbird

speedbird

Life of the Party
Does anyone make use of their spey rod come coho time? I have been considering buying one for a while for the art of it and the rich history in the region, but with Steelhead opportunity so limited I doubt I would ever get enough use of it to justify the heavy price tag even on an entry level set up. There are plenty of spots with no backcast room where I am sure I could make use of a spey setup searching for coho, but I question if I would catch one swinging. I would ask a fly shop, but considering the salmon fly selection in shops and the salmon fly selection in the boxes of actual salmon fly fishermen who seem to catch fish are worlds apart I am not sure they are the best source for this specific fishery.

Funny enough, I see more spey rods than single hand when I see fly fishermen looking for coho, but they never seem to be catching. (Then again, neither do the gear guys. I swear I am the unluckiest person alive when it comes to timing river coho trips, I had a missed egg bite in SWW that was either a Springer or Steelie, which means I have come closer to catching two of the hardest to catch Salmonids in Washington in a river than a coho)
 
I think single handers are slightly better but spey rods are still a very good options.

1. I'd go short sub 12 foot
2. Get an 8 or 9 wt you'll likely be fishing around Chinook and chums too
3. If you an get a completely integrated like, even the sink tips if you can... loops going through your tip top will have you setting the hook most every cast.

Fishing coho

1. Watch gear fishermen. If they're drifting corkies go elsewhere
2. If they are throwing spinners of jigs. Just use flies and retrieves to mimic what they do.
3. Stand away from the bank if your fishing an eddy or slack water, coho will chase your fly to the bank
 
I've found spey rods work as long as you are able to strip/jig with them. As rob said above, shorter rods with integrated lines help to that end.
 
I fly fish for coho with single hand 8wt and 12ft trout spey 4wt. Either way no catching. Maybe this season will be THE season. No luck last few years. Just one on single hand. It was wild. In general I suck in coho fishing, I don't think there is an issue with the rod choice. :)
 
I've done well the last few seasons fishing and OPST 7wt @ 11' with their commando integrated line and various tips depending on the water. I'm swinging, but it's what I would describe as a jiggy pop strip swing. I'm fishing low down in the systems and typically on the incoming and looking for traveling fish they can be very snappy in this scenario at times. More often than not I'm casting straight across with an immediate big upstream mend, straightens everything out parallel with the lane, slot, run, also introduces a nice amount of slack taking the tension off the tip and pattern so it can sink and once it comes tight I start popping the tip thru the swing and strip back or pop and strip back immediately thru the tasty water. It can be pretty effective when the stars align.
Good luck
 
Flash flies/ space creatures in purple/lime green, black and lime green and black and bright orange,
 
I do on occasion. I like single handers for coho but its fun to change things up. Mostly same flies/technique as a single.

Plus: i can get it out a bit farther easier or in spots where back cast is limited.

Minus: its a bit more clunky at the end of the strip where coho often hit.
 
I use two-handers for river fishing coho, but prefer sh for targeting them on the beach. Beach coho can be spooky, so I prefer a clean pickup and overhead cast, as opposed to ripping line off the water w/a two-hander. Sh also allows stripping of the integrated head well into the guides, as coho are known to follow the fly right in close. I came to this, as I realized the top three (IMO) beach fishermen I know all use sh.
 
These work pretty good on a spey rod.
_WW_

Thread 'Making the Wells Spoon'

Porting this over from corporate.

I've had several inquiries about the Wells Spoons that I use for Coho so I thought I'd put up a step by step on how I make them. Not being a fly I'm sure this won't be for everybody. These lures can be thrown with a fly rod and fly line, especially a spey rod which is what I like to use when casting them. I also troll these in the river or the salt with a full sinking line. Of course they can also be used with gear rods and is how I caught all my coho this year.

The history as I've heard it:
Earl Wells developed these for fishing kings in Jim Creek...
  • Like
 
I definitely will target coho with a two hander when some fish have moved out of tidewater. Using similar techniques as swinging for winter chrome. Just using flies that have a lot of movement and flow on the swing. And if that doesn't work, adding some popping action will sometimes do the trick.
 
A swing catches them just fine (as long as they're not freaked out by gear dragging over their backs all day). I have caught a bunch on a simple marabou spider in pink, purple, or black.

My favorite way to fish them is stripping flies with a single-hander, but you can definitely catch salmon swinging.
 
_WW_ said:
These work pretty good on a spey rod.
_WW_

Thread 'Making the Wells Spoon'

Porting this over from corporate.

I've had several inquiries about the Wells Spoons that I use for Coho so I thought I'd put up a step by step on how I make them. Not being a fly I'm sure this won't be for everybody. These lures can be thrown with a fly rod and fly line, especially a spey rod which is what I like to use when casting them. I also troll these in the river or the salt with a full sinking line. Of course they can also be used with gear rods and is how I caught all my coho this year.

The history as I've heard it:
Earl Wells developed these for fishing kings in Jim Creek...
  • Like
Click to expand...
WW, are the instructions for making them still on this web site ? I want to try and make some this year. Thanks.
 
Jabbering on sorry (waves are too strong to fish right now) agree OPST commando smooth is great and small Dick nites can be casted better on SH rods than two handers with more of a chuck kinda cast. Oh and check out some of B.C websites on fishing coho in rivers. They do it as a normal fishery up there. And of course there’s Beads.
 
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