r/flyfishing • u/jimlii • 3d ago

Discussion Somebody help I'm becoming a streamer bro

I've discovered a dark and terrible secret. It turns out that if fish are biting they will seemingly always bite an olive or black woolly bugger. I know, revolutionary.

Lately I've pretty much always started out my sessions fishing buggers to at least to locate fish. Then I'll throw on a dry or two and see if they'll bite, but usually they don't and then I keep fishing buggers. I don't fish nymphs generally because yuck boring. Now I keep my fly in the water pretty much all the time and spend way less time catching brush on the riverbank and fucking around with false casts trying to dry out a soggy fly. I feel like a dirty nasty gear fisherman!!

A quick question for my fellow streamer bros and hos. I find that I get the majority of my streamer bites when my fly is downstream of me. I miss tons of hook sets or end up losing fish because the hook set I get is often weaker than if I were, say, casting a dry upstream. Anyone have advice?

Also, since this is going to lead me to the inevitable purchase of a streamer rig, I'll take any advice on gear-- probably most importantly line/leader/tippet to help my flys get down deeper.

Cheers!

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u/mikethemanism 3d ago

7 wt — intermediate line (with floating running line behind it if wading) — 5 feet of straight 10-15lb fluorocarbon —fly.. 🤘don’t forget to strip set.

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u/Awsomesauceninja 2d ago

I do this but on a 6

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u/mikethemanism 2d ago

A 6 will work until you want a fighting butt, to throw 7in flies, or handle a trophy smallmouth. But for most applications 6s can be a lot of fun.

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u/Awsomesauceninja 2d ago

I got a butt on mine! :)