A Guides Life:

Devil In The Details
Streamer-fly fishing

By Bob Howe

To call streamer fly fishing a tradition in Maine is actually selling it short. It is actually more of an art, and if practiced correctly, it can be an absolutely lethal way to fish.

The most superb fly guys I know are the ones who have devoted their entire fishing lives to using strictly streamers throughout the year. They have learned to take advantage of different things so they never have to put them away. So often I see fishermen pick up streamers for a month or a few weeks of spring fishing and then not use them any more. If they just changed their methods a little bit, that same enjoyment they get from fishing streamers for a few weeks in the spring could extend through their entire season.

For a large part of my life I was absolutely devoted to streamers. I tied tens of thousands of them with every conceivable variation. During the one year I kept track of I went through over 200 tanks of gas in my boat trolling streamers. For every tank I was able to troll between 12-15 hours. I have caught every game fish in Maine on streamer flies and fish as large as a 250-pound blue shark. In fact, just about the only thing I think I haven’t caught on a streamer is an eel. I don’t want people to think I am bragging when I say that, but just mention it because I want you to understand how much I believe in fishing them and to show how diverse they can be.

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