King Salmon on Streamers

October 9, 2019/in Destination Travel, Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and Patterns /by Chuck Hawkins

King Salmon, Caught on Streamers

For years most people believed that salmon could not be caught after they entered the rivers on anything but dead drift methods. When dead drifting using indicator rigs or chucking and ducking sometimes you get bit another times you are lining or flossing the fish. While fun to fight such large fish and a great way to get people interested in fishing it isn’t the most satisfying way to catch fish for many.

Due to our 23 years of fishing on the Garden River in Sault St Marie, Canada we have had a unique opportunity to fish for King Salmon that are pretty unmolested in smallish, private river. We tried many different streamers, both natural looking and bright, gaudy patterns. Nothing produced with any consistency. I remember one day many years ago when an olive wooly bugger got lots of interest, never happened again!

Slowly, very slowly, a pattern and some colors emerged. They were pioneered by Russ Maddin and his fly, the Flash Monkey. The Flash Monkey is a typical Maddin pattern, beautifully conceived and expertly tied. It’s very complicated. Far too complicated for me to produce enough of them to supply my Garden River and Michigan Rivers clients. However the basics of the fly, lots of flash creating lifelike movement gave me some ideas.

Dead Eye is born!

I started with a double hook rig, Owner 2-4/0 front hook and a smaller stinger hook at the back end of the tail. Kings often just nip the tail so you need the stinger. Colors came from our experience in Michigan, number one color for Thunder Sticks (hardware) is Fire Tiger, chartruese and orange. The next best is chartruese and white. There have been a couple of other combos that have produced like pink and purple.

The body consists of a heavy dose of flashabou overlayed with a fair amount of Ice Wing followed by a head of Ice Dub. It is easy and quick to tie and as effective as anything I’ve found. The fly should be 4-6 inches long. Salmon are hard on flies. They are big and toothy! I like this pattern because it is a quick, easy tie that doesn’t leave me in tears if it only lasts for one fish.

The Secret Weapon

The pattern, Dead Eye, can be tied and fished two ways. The first is to keel weight the front hook and add lead eyes. That gets it deep and will help it run true when it’s stripped. That means it stays up right and doesn’t spin. This it time consuming but vey effective.

The second variation of the pattern has no keel weight or lead eyes. Instead you fish the fly behind spinner blades. The blades add weight, motion and vibration. They are very effective at getting strikes from king salmon.

I carry small and medium sized blades in silver and gold along with appropriate beads in colors that make sense with the fly. Vary size and color of the blades as there doesn’t appear to be any consistency with what will work.

Retrieves

When fishing salmon with a streamer using the Dead Eye without the blades, a very fast jerking retrieve works best. When fishing with the blade use a steady two handed retrieve. Retrieve it slowly, steadily, just fast enough to keep it off the bottom. With either variation make sure you strip strike, twice isn’t a bad idea. Cloudy days and smaller water will increase your success with either of these methods. Both flies are fished on sink tip lines. My favorite is the Scientific Anglers Cold Sink 25. On the Garden River I use a 250 grain, on the Manistee a 350 grain.

Conclusion

While fishing for salmon with a streamer isn’t classic upstream, hatch matching trout fishing it is an exciting, suspenseful way to fish. For those anglers that like to swing flies for steelhead or rip streamers looking for big browns fishing for salmon with streamers is right up your alle

I will post a step by step fly tying instruction for the Dead Eye this winter when I have time.

We are now actively booking the Garden River in 2020. This year we had an incredible increase in both numbers and size for both pinks and kings. Check out our website page for more info.

After I finalize reservations for this years customers I’ll post availability for 2020 on that page. Or just give us a call at 23-228-7135 for more info.

Have a great fall!

Capt. Chuck Hawkins

Hexagenia Limbata

June 22, 2019/in Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and Patterns, Michigan Mayflies, Michigan Trout /by Chuck Hawkins

The Hex Hatch The most highly anticipated may fly hatch in Michigan is the hex hatch. These big mayflies bring the largest fish in the river up to the surface to feed. Hexagenia Limbata is a floating filet mignon to a trout. Therefore the Hex Hatch, whether duns or spinners probably produces more large trout […]

Drakes, Iysonychia, and Hex Patterns

March 14, 2019/in Fly Tying and Patterns /by Chuck Hawkins

Drake, Isonychia, Hex Fly Patterns

Brown Drakes, Isonychia, and Hex Patterns

New Drakes, Iysonychia, and Hex Patterns

I am excited to announce a new partnership with Montana Fly Company and myself. I have recently released several new dry fly patterns from my arsenal. They are now available through Montana Fly Company this year. It’s been a while since I have put anything new out there. The flies that are included in the two series I have released are mainstays in my arsenal. They are for the Isonychia, Brown Drake, and Hex hatches and have provided countless memories for our customers. The flies are all foam based Mayfly patterns designed to imitate the Isonychia, Brown Drake, and Hexegenia species. You can fish them all day with some realism and an impressionistic silhouette fish can’t resist.

Here is a breakdown of the flies that are now available through MFC:

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Isonychia

The Isonychia hatch is one of our best and most lengthy hatches of the season. This fly is designed, much like the name, to be fished all day! It has a very realistic profile and is a great fly to fish over rising fish. This is also a great searching pattern throughout the day with or without actual bugs on the water. This one is a must have!!

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Isonychia

This fly just looks crazy on the water! Like the name, the Boondoggle Isonychia has a “fishy” profile and just flat out hunts . It often creates some chaotic moments of intense excitement. This fly is more of a searching pattern that has a silhouette that will get the fish looking up with or without bugs on the water. Once the Iso hatch gets started, the fish are always looking for it.

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Brown Drake

Brown Drakes on our home water of the Manistee are often a complicated puzzle, often leaving you scratching your head. We commonly refer to this hatch as the “Great Houdini” hatch as it can disappear for days and then suddenly reappear in epic fashion. This fly fishes great with bugs on the water, but I will do just as well fishing it blind during the Brown Drake season. This fly was designed to be fished blind or over rising fish. It fishes well even during the rare daytime emergence that we will commonly see a few times each season. This is also a great pattern during the spinner fall especially on the cooler evenings when they spin early.

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Brown Drake

Like the Isonychia version of this fly it has a very fishy appeal to it. I have fished it during both the daytime emergence and more typical evening timeframes and have had success with it in both situations. With the white calf tail wings it is easy to track in the low light periods and floats like a cork! It gives me all the confidence knowing my fly is still fishing even when I really can’t see it.

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Hex

The Hex hatch is truly the busiest time of year on our waters. I wanted a fly that I could fish that was different from anything else. I wanted a fly that would work during the day and night, but more importantly when it was bright and no bugs to be seen. This has been my best daytime Hex pattern for a while now. When you get a rare, but not too uncommon daytime emergence, yeah…..this is the one!

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Hex

The Hex version of this series is where the template all started for me. The original versions were getting smashed in the evenings well before the hatch would start and then again after the bugs disappeared while fishing blind and hunting for sipping fish in the dark. I love this fly, it just flat out hunts!! It was so good over a broad spectrum of circumstances that I had to have it for the Iso and Drake hatches as well. Thus began the evolution of this series.

Fly Shops

Check with your local fly shop for availability. If you can’t find it drop us a line and we will help to get these patterns in your hands. Look for more to be coming out in the near future as I have expanded on some old favorites and I am constantly tweeking new stuff and expanding on my boxes. Good luck fishing this season and I am looking forward to the upcoming trout season and some summer like weather!

Tight Lines,

Ed

Top 5 Spring Steelhead Flies

February 27, 2019/in Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and Patterns, Steelhead Fishing /by Chuck Hawkins

Top Five Spring Steelhead Flies Many fly anglers eagerly await the start of the spring steelhead run. In this blog post I will point out what I believe are the top five spring steelhead flies. I will show you how to tie them and explain when to use them. Any list of the top five […]

Hawkins Little Rascal

February 6, 2019/in Fly Fishing Tips, Fly Tying and Patterns /by Chuck Hawkins

Hawkins little rascal streamer pattern for the Manistee River

Little Rascal

Last spring, I was fishing below Tippy Dam throwing streamers for trout. There were lots of bank anglers fishing spawn sacks and a lot of heavy pressure from boat anglers. The trout were refusing most of our offerings of big streamers and we hadn’t had any steelhead activity. It was a sunny day which usually spells tough times in Michigan trout fishing. That’s just what we were having. As white is a go-to color in sun and olive and white is the most productive color combination that I’ve experienced, I tied on two Little Rascals in those colors for my clients to change things up. Fifteen minutes later we had landed a gorgeous steelhead that darted out from a mid-stream logjam and devoured the fly. Shortly after that we landed that a 4.5 pound brown trout. A star was born.

Size Matters

How come a smaller streamer worked for big fish when big streamers usually get the job done? At Hawkins Outfitters, we fish streamers almost everyday in early and late season because they do catch big fish. Along with my pattern, the Nutcracker, we throw a lot of large streamers that entice big predator fish. But, those same large trout and steelhead see a lot of big streamers and, I believe, grow wary of the same big patterns they see over and over again. Even the best big pattern can start to produce fewer fish if fished too much or too often.

Trout key on different sizes and profiles. Some days it’s four inch sculpins, other times it’s smaller leech or lamprey profiles. That’s why I created the Hawkins Little Rascal. It’s a smaller, slimmer pattern, that imitates leeches and lampreys well. Plus, it has a great, lively movement and action in the water. I tie the tail with rabbit strip to get that movement that trout love. Combine that with the conehead and you get that all-important jigging movement that predator fish often can’t pass up. Plus the conehead gets the fly down better in deeper and heavier water.

Retrieves

We don’t just fish Little Rascals in the spring. You’ll find that you’ll have luck with them year round. You’ll get the best results if you vary retrieves and colors depending on water temps and sky color. When fishing colder water, use a slower retrieve than you would fishing warmer water. The fish’s metabolism is down and the fish themselves are slower at these times and will travel less distance to feed. If your streamer is retrieved more slowly, the fish will see it better and be able to strike. As the water warms, you can quicken your retrieve.

Color

As far as color goes: on dark days use dark colors and on bright days use bright colors. However, there are a couple times that the Little Rascal is a good imitation for a natural food source. In spring there are two food sources, lampreys and salmon fry that can be imitated by a Little Rascal. When you start seeing lampreys on the trout you are catching try a black Little Rascal on cloudy days. I’ve had some great success doing this. When fishing where salmon and steelhead hatch try a small white Little Rascal, it works well. You can fish the Little Rascal in any water conditions except when the water is extremely dirty. Then, you’ll want to stick with a larger streamer. You can also use it for just about any freshwater species. I’ve caught brown, rainbow and brook trout; king, pink and Coho salmon; plus small and large mouth bass on the pattern just this year alone.

Little Rascal 2.0

One of the fun things about owning Hawkins Outfitters is hanging around and trading information amongst the Hawkins Guides. Jon Ray, Ed McCoy, Jeff Topp, Russ Madden, and Steve Pels are some of the fishiest guys I’ve ever known. We constantly exchange information, fish locations, new patterns and techniques etc are community property.

The Little Rascal 2.0 is a result of that sharing. As new materials come along or different tying techniques are learned it is a good thing to look back at some of our patterns. Jon Ray did just that with an old standby of mine, the Little Rascal. What he created we now call the Little Rascal 2.0.

Jon made two big changes to the fly. First he added a vertical mono loop in the rabbit tail to reduce the instance of the tail fouling around the hook. This is a dynamite idea that will be incorporated into all of my rabbit tail flies in the future. The second addition is a dubbing brush palmered up the body along with the original rabbit strip. You know Jon Ray he loves flash!

These two changes are fantastic additions that create a better fly. Less tail wrapping on the hook and a bulkier body with more flash makes this good fly even better. Thank you Jon Ray.

Watch the video blow to see how to implement these changes and tie yourself some 2.0s!!

Good Luck.

Captain Chuck Hawkins

Southwest Michigan Steelhead

October 21, 2018/in Fly Tying and Patterns, Steelhead Fishing /by Chuck Hawkins

Southwest Michigan Steelhead

Introduction and Where

Hawkins Outfitters is excited to introduce a new option to pursue steelhead in the Southwest portion of Michigan. This is a great choice for those folks traveling from Chicago, Grand Rapids, or Detroit that need a quick chrome fix! Hawkins Outfitters now has the capability to fish several of the southwestern tributaries of Lake Michigan for steelhead. These fisheries get astonishing numbers of returning steelhead and the season can extend well into December. Ambient air and water temperatures will remain a few degrees warmer in these tributaries compared to our northern tribs. Additionally, these rivers are under 3 hours from Detroit, Chicago and approximately an hour from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.

When

Much like the rest of our west side Michigan tributaries, the fall steelhead runs begin in early October and peak from mid October through December. Mid winter fishing opportunities still exist, however we are more selective on when we decide to go and target our efforts around the most productive times of the day.

Southwest Michigan Steelhead

Spring fishing picks back up in March and can extend as late as early May. Additionally, these tributaries have impressive numbers of summer run steelhead that enter the systems starting as early as July and are present through September.

Methods

These fish can only be targeted from a boat. These rivers are large and deep therefore, wading can be treacherous. In the boat, we are able to cover water, remain comfortable in adverse conditions and locate the next chrome bullet!

Steelhead are aggressive in the fall and take stripped and swung flies exceptionally well. I can think of fewer things more exciting than

Assortment of steelhead Swing Patterns

fishing a beautiful stretch of a quiet Michigan river, swinging a fly with a tight line, only to have your line come tight with an angry steelhead at the other end.

The most common way to target these fish would be to utilize two-handed rods, typically 13-14 foot rods in 8 to 9 weight. We load them with either with either floating or intermediate Scientific Anglers Freightliner skagit lines, in 480-560 grains depending on conditions. Our flies vary from small and natural to fairly large and quite flashy, again. Our fly choice depends on water and weather conditions. Here are two links for tried and true Hawkins Outfitters swing flies. The first is a more natural sculpin pattern, despite its purple color scheme.
The second fly pattern, named “The Perch” has proven itself over the years to be a top producer for the Hawkins Team. It can also be used as a template for other swung flies. Vary the color and flash combos and dial in your new swing fly creation. (video below)

Another method we utilize is stripping streamers in the fall and spring. Typically, we use 9 foot 8-9 weight rods loaded with Scientific Anglers Sonar Sink 30 in 200-350 grains. Much like streamer fishing for trout, we target structure and tempt the steelhead to attack! It is much more visual, especially when you see silver roll and eat right at the boat.

While these rivers are ideal for swinging and stripping flies, indicator fishing also produces great results. We fish the same way we fish our northern rivers.

Whether you are a seasoned Spey angler, indicator angler or a streamer junkie, these river systems have something to offer for all skill levels.

Hawkins Outfitters is very excited and happy to provide a new experience to our customers. We still have a few openings in the next few weeks during prime time steelhead season if you’d like to try this new opportunity! Contact us via the web or give Cherie a call 231-228-7135.

Tight Lines,
Steve Pels

Fly Patterns for Michigan Hatches

May 19, 2018/in Fly Tying and Patterns, Michigan Mayflies, Michigan Trout /by Chuck Hawkins

Fly Patterns for Michigan Hatches

I remember way back (45 years ago) when I was learning to fly fish out west, the most intimidating facet of the sport was bugs. Pale Morning Duns, Blue Wing Olive, Green Drakes, I had no idea what these were or how to proceed in learning more.

Fast forward 35 years. One night during Hex and Brown Drake (the big bugs) season my son, Zach, was wade fishing while I was on the water, working. When all the guides and customers gathered in a friend’s garage Zach was showing a picture of a nice brown that he landed that night. A customer of one of the other guides asked Zach “how did you know what fly to use”? Watching from across the room I wanted to make sure that Zach was polite and respectful. He said to the angler “ just a moment sir, I’ll be right back”. Minutes later he returned with his fly box, opened it and told the angler “I catch the bug that the fish are eating, set it in my fly box and pick the bug that looks like the natural”! At 10 years old he had that figured out. Read more

Tying Flies with Beads

February 1, 2018/in Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and Patterns, Steelhead Fishing /by Chuck Hawkins

Tying Flies with Beads Alaskan Trout and Steelhead anglers have known about fishing with beads for years. Bead fishing is an effective way to imitate fish eggs. Fishing with beads has really exploded here in the midwest over the past few years especially when targeting fall steelhead . While most anglers use beads by themselves […]

American Favorite Flies, New Book

January 27, 2018/in Fly Tying and Patterns, Michigan Trout, Product Review /by Chuck Hawkins

Chuck Hawkins and Russ Maddin featured in a new book, America’s Favorite Flies

This is a new book, America’s Favorite Flies. It showcases 224 favorite flies from such notables as Yvon Chouinard, Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, Craig Mathew, Huey Lewis and others including Russ and I. All of the profits are given to two nonprofit organizations. They are the Native Fish Society and the James River Association.

America’s favorite Flies is fun to read. In addition to Russ and I, I’ve seen other Michigan anglers featured. John Kluging and Dennis Potter are in the book. Each fly tier answered some questions and did a write up about themselves and or the fly the called their favorite fly. I’ve enjoyed both the stories and the photos, I’m sure you will too . There is also a ton of artwork by well know artists including Dave Ruimveld, Bob White and others. This is a substantial book, 656 pages, 1700 color images, it weighs 7 1/2 pounds! It is is a great coffee table book for the avid fly angler! You can get more information about it at American’s Favorite Flies.

How to Purchase America’s Favorite Flies

America’s Favorite Flies is available for sale for $145, shipping included, directly from the printer. It may be purchased by emailing me at [email protected] or by calling 231-228-7135. If you would like Russ and I to sign it, we will be happy to! Just add $10 to the price to cover the extra shipping.

As Jason Borger says in the introduction “These pages represent the diverse fly patterns of a diverse group of anglers,but more than that these pages celebrate experiences and revere waters. With an underlying mission of preservation and conservation, America’s Favorite Flies is a visually engaging storybook for all fly fishers who share such ideals”

Many thanks to John Bryan and Rob Carter for inviting Russ and I to participate and for creating such a beautiful book.

Capt. Chuck

Isonychia bicolor Dun – Slate Drake

February 6, 2017/in Fly Tying and Patterns, Michigan Mayflies, Michigan Trout /by Chuck Hawkins

Isonychias, are the best mayfly for anglers in Michigan! In Michigan, and elsewhere, the Isonychia mayfly provides the best dry fly opportunities of the year. That’s heresy to many in fly anglers in Michigan, who would argue vehemently that the mighty Hex beats Isonychias hands down. Isonychias are the best mayfly in Michigan for many […]