Atlantic Salmon: The Eternal Mystery of Salmon Flies

There are things that we know and there are things that we don’t know. (And the latter tends to be heavier in volume). This is especially true when it comes to Atlantic salmon and the flies we use to catch them. Traditions, beliefs and superstitions guide our fly choices and uncertainty is always there. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing 20 salmon anglers in the book series, ”Top Salmon Flies” - and have talked with them in-depth about their best performing flies.

By TEEMU TOLONEN

How do we define a great salmon fly? Fly patterns and techniques have developed over the years as has the whole sport itself, from classic feather-winged salmon flies to modern tube flies with cone heads and hair wings all the way to synthetic rubber-legged monsters, skaters and hitch flies. All kinds of flies produce salmon in the right conditions. In my opinion, a salmon fly therefore can be any fly that catches salmon. Salmon don’t exactly know what a salmon fly is, so the definition is one that salmon fishermen have constructed themselves. And the most important lesson is: Don’t limit yourself!

The basic principles

The anatomy of a successful salmon fly varies from foam backed dry flies to heavily weighted rubber legged shrimp imitations. Most successful anglers have guidelines that they follow, when they tie flies - and when they pick flies for whatever rivers and conditions they’re fishing. Some, for instance, rely on fluorescent strike points in murky water, others believe in colours that blend in with the surrounding environment. So, is there any sense to be made of it all? The basic principle is that the fly has to be effective enough, when it enters the strike zone, to entice a take. It can be tied on a hook, tube or hitch - it doesn’t really matter all that much. It could even be a regular trout nymph, as they’re known to produce interesting results in the heat of the summer. The overarching question is: What are the water conditions like?

In murky and high water, a size 16 Icelandic micro fly is hardly visible to the salmon, let alone likely to induce a strike. However, a large cone-headed tube fly in vivid colours would probably have a good chance of being seen - and thus fooling one of the early-season chromers. If your friends are killing it with a size 6 Green Butt on a mid-season run, you will probably have a good enough chance with the same fly in size 8. It all depends…

Water colour and fly colour

Salmon have fairly good vision, and they can separate colours from each other. Different colours are visible to them at different depths of water and different colours of water filter light in different ways.

For example: Greenish water amplifies all submersed colours and especially (fluorescent) green and blue. As a result, patterns with green or blue in them, oftentimes, work well in green water. The surroundings of the river also affect the colours visible (and attractive) to the fish. If the river bottom is covered with light stones and bright green aquatic growth, you’ll probably find that choosing a fly with similar colours will work well.

Some think that a size 8 double hook fly is small, and their jaws drop when they see the size 16 micro flies used successfully in Iceland

The eyesight of salmon gradually develops and adapts as they migrate upriver to their freshwater spawning habitats

Black is the only colour that doesn’t reflect any light – a colour that, from a salmon’s perspective, always forms a silhouette against the sky. As the popular saying goes; “It doesn’t matter what colour your fly is, as long as it’s black”.

For example, on most Icelandic rivers the guides love small and medium sized Collie Dogs. These are super simple flies with all-black wings that are very visible in the mostly gin-clear Icelandic rivers, and that produces great salmon catches every year.

The eyesight of salmon gradually develops and adapts as they migrate upriver to their freshwater spawning habitats. They can see shades of green and blue better when entering the river due to a long summer spent in the blue-green ocean realm. Hence, many great early-to-mid-season patterns have green and blue shades.

The cells in the salmons’ eyes adapt to freshwater in a matter of weeks or months, and the salmon start to see shades of orange and red better than other colours. Perhaps this visual adaptation explains why especially late season (resident) fish display aggressiveness towards red and orange flies.

The top performing salmon flies might stay successful throughout the season. A colour combination of orange, yellow and black, for instance, is extremely efficient on slightly coloured rivers such as the Ponoi on the Kola Peninsula. According to Max Mamaev, Ponoi’s head guide, you can fish a Ponoi Hummer (also black, yellow and orange) throughout the whole season and catch good numbers of salmon.

And then there is the Red Frances. The one we both love and hate. We love it when it saves our week with the fish we so desperately needed. We hate it when our fishing buddy makes a sloppy cast into a pool, drops the heavy fly like a bomb and spooks all the fish back to the Atlantic Ocean. The truth, however, is that this little (or large) red devil seems to work on most salmon rivers across the globe.

Size does matter

How to pick the right size fly depends on the water levels, temperatures, and water colour. The fish, obviously, need to see the fly in order to react to it. In high- or coloured water you generally need larger flies to provoke the fish into striking. However, fly size is always a relative issue.

Some think that a size 8 double hook fly is small, and their jaws drop when they see the size 16 micro flies used successfully in Iceland. Some think that their size 2/0 classic single hook is big, but then they haven’t seen a 20cm temple hair tube, which – by the way - has been known to catch its fair share of early season salmon in recent years.

A salmon’s diet consists of prey items of varying sizes, starting from microscopic insects at the parr stage and extending all the way, for example, to large herring when they’re feeding in the ocean. Even though they do not eat during their stay in the river, old feeding habits might subliminally come to the surface and subsequently become one of the key factors that trigger the salmon into taking a fly. So, make sure you stretch your fly selection in both directions – from tiny to huge, and don’t be afraid to experiment with imitations of fresh- and saltwater insects and prey fish.

Develop your own playbook

Flies, as we’ve seen, are important when fishing for salmon. But it might be even more important how we fish them. In the first Top Salmon Flies book we borrowed the term ”playbook” from American football to explain the concept of building a successful concept for catching Atlantic salmon. In salmon fishing the playbook consists of three elements: 1) overall fishing strategy; 2) fly choices and fishing techniques; and 3) reading the salmon’s reactions and learning from “the opponent”. It’s important to have an overall game plan when entering the river and to take the conditions into full account. What are the conditions like? Is it early-season and high water or late-season and super low water with finicky fish? Do you have private pools to fish (and rest) or are you spending a week on crowded public beats?

Every angler’s dream, of course, is a private river, that we have all to ourselves, flooded with salmon eager to hit the fly. The reality, however, is almost always different.

If you start to see frequently jumping or splashing fish in a pool but fail to connect, it might be a good idea to stop for a moment. I like the basic principle that, for example, Antti Guttorm and Anders Neteland use when they are starting to fish a pool that they particularly like -or are fairly sure is holding salmon.

Their approach works well on crowded rivers where you might occasionally find a pool or two without other anglers. Antti and Anders follow the basic rule of starting from the top and working their way down to the bottom. They go through the pool as subtly as they can with a floating line and a light fly; cast across and make the fly swim fast. The basic idea is to have that element of surprise when the fish still haven’t seen you and they hear no water splashing around the pool.

Make the first round rather quick, then let the pool rest for a few minutes. If nothing happens, switch to a weighted fly and/or line and work the pool again. The last resort, many times a successful one, is to go deep. Switch to a skagit line and a weighted fly and fish slowly close to the bottom.

With this kind of approach, you’ll minimally pressure the pool and you’re more likely to get a hook up. In Iceland this approach has been refined in terms of the size of the fly. Here, they fish the pools using extremely small flies first and then – only later – size up. This delicate approach has resulted in higher catch rates and they’re now able to catch more fish in the same pool compared to previous years, when they simply started off by hammering the pools with tungsten Snaeldas and similar types of flies.

Early-season high water conditions require a different approach. The number of fish in the river can be low and - due to the high water, you’re fishing is limited to a few pools. Then it’s basically a waiting game. Go through the pool every now and then and patiently wait for that fresh chromer to enter the pool and settle.

The most important strategy of the playbook is simply to have a strategy. Of course, you can catch salmon without one, but there’s little doubt that you’ll be catching more fish if you aren’t simply casting and fishing at random. There’s a saying that: “Losers let it happen, and winners make it happen”. It’s not a coincidence that some anglers catch more fish than others. Try to think two steps ahead all the time. That’s what the really good salmon fishermen do.

Faith moves mountains

Sometimes shit hits the fan and even the best flies - or the best playbook for that matter, will reward you with a fish. Then it’s time to get the “thinking juice” out of the trunk and try to figure out new ways of doing it. If there are salmon in the river, there’s always a chance of catching them – so keep that in mind and don’t give up. Never give up!

Sometimes, beginner’s luck trumps any amount of experience ever acquired. I just got a call from one of my dear friends. He had gotten skunked for four consecutive 4 days on his favourite river in Norway. The only angler in their group who had succeeded in catching salmon was the newbie in the group. His unorthodox flies and full intermediate line had tricked a dozen salmon while the others watched in amazement. On the fifth day, my buddy tied an exact replica of the plain, no-hackle small doubles that had been the newbie’s secret recipe. With the new flies and renewed confidence things changed for him, and he started hooking one fish after another.

Fishing for Atlantic salmon is a mental sport and sometimes a mental challenge because we can only partly explain things using our common sense. Thankfully our confidence grows with experience, but confidence can easily turn into insecurity when nothing seems to work. So, we need to stay strong in our beliefs.

Whether we’ll ever have definite answers to what the ultimate salmon fly looks like is an open question. I don’t really believe we will. And I guess that’s part of the reason why we love the sport so much: The ups and downs of trying to crack the code.