North Van Isle Pink Salmon Flies – 2018

The flies that took pink salmon in the estuaries this summer included ones coloured pink, blue, green, purple and combinations of these colours. Purple handle bar flies were good, followed by pink handle bar flies, however, handle bar flies, which are usually sparse, in other colours were also used.

Here is a shot of my small box for pink salmon on beaches/in estuaries:

 

It features my take on a Fuzzy Pink with irregular, long tails, among other flies. The variety of other flies are there to try when the fish won’t take anything, and I’m searching for answers. Some years a pink Muddler is the answer, but not this year.

Next is several flies close up. The top fly is Jerry’s fly. Note that it is a small streamer, with a silver body, and blue/green/yellow strands on top, as well as an epoxy eye. This fly caught many fish this year. It looks a little less blue than when I first tied it on.

If you blow the shot up a bit, you will find that Jerry’s fly has an Improved Clinch knot that has been pulled away from the hook eye and then tightened down on itself. I use a high quality, thin diameter, 15 lb test leader, and the pull-back is needed to give the fly more natural action. I don’t like losing fish to lighter test leader, and hence accept that the higher pound leader may make a leader-shy fish refuse to bite. In my opinion, this seldom happens. The diameter of this Snowbee leader is thinner than most 10 lb test leader material. So why sacrifice fish to snap-off.

The second fly is a Fuzzy Pink. Note the long, scraggy tail. I think it gives the fish something larger to aim at and thus bite more frequently. If I am not catching fish, or getting bites but no secure hook-ups, or someone is getting more bites on a ‘shorter’ fly, I snip off some of the tail and try again.

The bottom fly has no name. It got so many bites that the pink bead eye, mylar, chartreuse thread and Krystal Flash kept slipping round the bend of the hook, until I took the fly off, opting to coat it with Hard as Hull once I got home, and try again in 2019.

The bottom two flies use a pink mylar tube product that comes in rolls in shops that sell saltwater trolling gear. It is used to slip around the hooks of coho spoons as an added attractant. It makes for a simple fly and does not cause the angst from slicing a slice of pink plastic sheet and winding it around the shank, tying off at both ends. This process leads to flies unraveling and is why I switched. 

Purists will say that the winding process imitates segmentation. I think what matters is whether the fish bite the fly being used and have caught hundreds of pink salmon on this fly over the years, even though it was neither the best fly nor colour in 2018.

The best colour was a fly that had some purple in it. I was sold on Ken’s fly, an epoxy minnow with purple strands in the back, until I lost the two he allowed me to filch from his fly box. Having said purple, some purple flies did not work. I tried a purple Muddler and it received nary a tap and went back into the box for another year.

The final contender was Vince’s fly. As simple as it is, it was a killer the morning we were out on the bar alone. The first day I was not in the zone, but changed to an intermediate sink, 32-foot head, with running line that followed the head down. Then I was in the zone with his simple, but effective fly.