Kelly Galloup is the inventor--or at least the compiler--of modern trophy trout streamer fishing. I attended the Sportsman's Expo in Sacramento a few years back and listened to Kelly talk about big predatory fish, specifically Brown trout. He told a story about how he had spent one summer in a wet suit observing, counting and logging in a journal about what he noticed. For me the take away was large brown's hunt for food. He told a story about a 28 inch Brown that traveled five mile in 24 hours. He also explained that 22 plus inch trout do not regularly feed on terrestrials, they seek fish. His idea is more protein with less energy expelled. This is the theory that spawned Kelly's line of streamer patterns. If you have interest, the video below is of Kelly tying up one of his very large yellow streamers.
The thing I notice with Kelly's flies when compared to other makers is two things. The first is he does not use weight and the other is the size of the head. Which is very large. It has been my experience when using large streamer patterns that I don't catch many fish and I often get shut-out. But when I do dedicate the time to exclusively swing a huge hunk of feathers I will also catch bigger fish. So if you are willing to forgo numbers of fish for size then you may be a good fit for this theory. Your fishing partners will certainly out fish you on a regular basis as mine do but you just might catch a fish of a lifetime.
The Sex Dungeon fly in the photo above is my personal favorite. This may be one of the most deadly flies for big fish ever created. The sex dungeon is a jointed fly that contains a bit of everything.....lead eyes, deer hair/sculpin type head, bugger type hackle, marabou and some rubber legs. Deadly on big trout and especially deadly on largemouth. Main hook is size 2 and sold in five sexy colors here.
While there are many streamer manufacturers, I like Kelly's products due to he is a thinking fisherman first. What I mean by that is he loves hunting big fish, he has studied as well as thought about and observed the large predictor species. After hearing him speak at the Expo that day, he certainly changed the way I think about streamer fishing. Good luck!
Any idea why he doesn't weight them??
ReplyDeleteHe stated, He prefers to use sink-tip line rather than weight the fly itself. He feels the fly moves more true within the current of the river. Good question.
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