A report on Kelly Galloup’s seminar at Feather Craft by Mike Oldani, Jim Craig and Bill Byington:

Tips: Talking Streamers with Kelly Galloup at Feather-Craft

FATC boys attended Kelly Galloup’s seminar about “Streamers Technique” sponsored by Feather-Craft. It was a fun day of learning, tying demos and listening to Kelly with his excellent presentation. We thought we share some knowledge from the seminar:

• Big trout, say those over about 20-21″ are predators.  As predators, they eat primary at night.  So, when we try to catch them during the day, we are trying to trigger a reactionary strike, not a feeding strike.
• During the day, big trout are resting, most likely in slow-moving water.
• Post mortem observations of the thousands of trophy trout Kelly had mounted in his taxidermy work, he rarely found insects in their stomachs.  I guess he was finding other fish.  Because, he said large trout will eat food that is half their body length.  I got the impression they were eating other fish/trout.
• Use your rod to impart action in your streamer.  Simply stripping will not result in sufficient action to trigger a strike.
• Seldom use weight in streamers because when you do a swim-and-stop retrieve, you DON’T want the fly to sink on the stop.  You want it to just hang in the water.  Kelly made the point that prey does not sink when they stop swimming.  That sinking is a turnoff for the trout.
• Streamer flies that are to imitate minnows need to have a silvery or white bottom.
• My biggest take away was that we forget that trout are predators and we don’t think like predators, like what I would do if I was a big trout looking for a meal. And that we, for the most part, are fishing for the smaller trout, not the biggest fish in the stream. You have to actively target those fish.
• Kelly’s favorite fly patterns for streamer fishing-Peanut Envy, Barley Legal, and Sex Dungeon. Probably have to add a lot of dots to add this on the FATC blog…LOL
• Kelly recommends bringing an extra spool filled with sinking line. Sinking lines carries a bigger fly like a streamer more efficiently than a floating line. Also, you’re able to throw a sinking line better and more efficiently and accurately than a floating line.
• Kelly prefers the sinking line over a sinking leader when streamer fishing. He never uses a sinking leader.
• Trout usually strike and eat head of fly first. Reason to use articulated flies.
• Nancy P is an excellent streamer pattern when using a jigging technique.
• Kelly had photos of trout striking and eating fish, floating deer carcass parts that were larger than the trout. Basically don’t be afraid to throw larger streamers. Remember trout are predators. His standard size to fish with is a 5 inch streamer.
• A good technique is quick jerks with rod then take-up line slack, not always stripping.
• Buck tail best for tying streamer flies.
• Kelly prefers a Davey Knot.
• Yellow light on water switch to Tan color. Not sure on the reasoning.
• Remember with technique, try to fish your fly moving in either a vertical or lateral movement. Don’t drop vertically in the water column. The streamer fly following the sinking line to get down.
• Hunt the fish. Try to think to yourself “fly fisher becomes a predator”. Develop yourself to fish fast, fish hard, change flies frequent until somethings works, and keep moving. Who does this sound like from the FATC? Hmmmm?

We appreciate Feather-Craft for offering this presentation, and Trustbusters for providing free lunch for everyone. Troutbusters is a great organization, they are dedicated to helping cancer survivors and military veterans.