Description
If you are even a casual steelheader, you know Trey Combs. There’s a chance his monumental Steelhead Fly Fishing, published in 1991, guided you into a sport that seemed, at the time, secretive, out of reach to the average angler. Earlier he had written The Steelhead Trout (1971) and Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies (1976). Then Combs disappeared, towed out to sea by the rising popularity of saltwater fly fishing.
Now he’s back on the river—a world of rivers, actually—with Flies For Atlantic Salmon & Steelhead, a 384-page all-color blockbuster. You’ll learn that in the mid-1800s a teenage apprentice ghillie on the River Tweed in the English-Scottish border country spent all he money he had, which wasn’t much, on a “gaudy” salmon fly from Ireland, then all the rage. The lad picked it apart and taught himself to dress a fly, creating the feather- wing salmon fly that would serve as a model for a hundred years: the Jock Scott.
In North America, as Combs explains, the evolution of the steelhead fly progressed slowly, borrowing on patterns tied for other salmonids. Zane Grey’s favorite for steelhead on the Rogue and Umpqua, for instance, was a Golden Demon that he brought back from trout fishing in New Zealand, which was originally a British sea trout fly. (Readers will be fascinated at closeup photos of bronze-mallard-winged Demons from Grey’s personal collection.)
As fly fishing for steelhead moved up the coast from California, where early steelhead flies on the Eel were basically eastern brook trout wets—to the rivers of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, steelhead flies seemed to all grow white wings during the 20h century. But the style remained short and compact.
The author recalls his own devotion to tying the perfect Skykomish Sunrise as his imagined epitome of what a steelhead fly should look like. He confesses he never fully succeeded.
Combs traces his own connection to the influence of Atlantic salmon flies to a float trip down British Columbia’s Dean River during the 1980s, when he was writing Steelhead Fly Fishing. He was mesmerized watching Roland Holmberg, from Sweden, work his magic on the steelhead with a crude, early-version tube fly.
The scope of this impressive new book is truly global by exploring the origins of tube flies in Europe. Tubes have been a game changer for serious salmon anglers there, as revolutionary as Intruder-style flies here on West Coast steelhead rivers. The author covers all these pivotal changes, giving carefully researched credit to the range of creative talent at the vise. Mikael Frödin’s dazzling presentation of original tube-fly turbo coneheads, synthetic body materials and patterns is by far the largest chapter in the book.
Flies For Atlantic Salmon & Steelhead is divided into five major sections: the origins of Spey and Dee patterns on salmon rivers in Scotland and their migration to the steelhead rivers of North American, the transition to tube flies in Norway, modern steelhead flies and modern salmon flies.
The final section covers dry flies designed for both Atlantic salmon and steelhead, which were a long time taking hold, and still haven’t in much of Europe. Rivers on the Russian Kola, with the character rivers in Labrador, are of course the exception.
Modern salmon fishing on the surface was born on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick in the 1960s. The clipped- deer-hair fly was concocted by a Catholic priest named Smith. Word spread. A young insurance man in Lewiston, Idaho who had started fly fishing a few years earlier ordered dozen from a shop in eastern Canada that tied them for Father Smith. Thus, the first steelhead that rose to a Bomber did so in the Clearwater River.
That’s the quick story; to savor the long story, read the latest from Trey Combs. You won’t be disappointed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trey CombsTrey Combs has been synonymous with steelhead fly fishing for more than 50 years. In his first book, The Steelhead Trout (Salmon Trout Steelheader, 1971) he described the migratory habits of ocean steelhead for the first time. His second book, Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies (Salmon Trout Steelheader, 1976) remained in print for 30 years and was called the steelheader’s bible by a generation of fly fishers. He followed that with Steelhead Fly Fishing (Lyons and Burford, 1991) now the current bible for fly fishers throughout the salmon and steelhead world.
For seven years, Combs hosted trips to Costa Rica’s Bahia Pez Vela Lodge for Pacific sailfish. He ultimately caught five different species of billfish on fly-more than 100 marlin and sailfish in all, fishing offshore in Australia, Papua New Guinea, both coasts of both South America and Africa, and through the Americas from Panama to Mexico. For over a decade he worked as the lone charter-master for a long-range fly-fishing program out of San Diego, chartering Royal Star and Shogun for marlin trips to “the ridge” off Mexico. Then, with film crews, he led exploratory trips to the Revillagigedo Archipelago-the Mexican Galapagos–and to the French-owned Clipperton Atoll, islands never visited by fly fishers. Bluewater Fly Fishing (Lyons and Burford, 1994) was the first book about fly fishing for offshore game fish.
Trey has always returned to his steelhead roots. Today he lives a couple long casts from the Klickitat River in the little village of Klickitat, Washington. Here he engages in his favorite pastimes, tying flies for steelhead and tubes for Atlantic salmon, and giving them a swim in rivers near and far.
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