Fly Rod and Reel, mid 1980s
Roadkill Streamer
The Roadkill Streamer is an amazing big fish fly.
One of my favorite places to fish this fly is at the
culvert outlets on DePuy Spring Creek near Livingston, Montana,
especially on cloudy or better yet stormy days. If you hike up to the
top culvert at DePuy's, stand on the culvet and cast downstream
and off to the side of the current, and then gradually
jiggle and snake the fly up the edges of the fast water,
you can often take 1 to three large fish before putting them
all down. The fish you catch will be brown trout from 16"
up, to well over 20" long. You can jump downstream at that
point, hitting each culvert on the way down to the bottom
end of the creek, taking one or two big browns from each outlet.
The spring creeks hold some giant brown trout you seldom
see fishing match the hatch flies. The way to catch them
is to fish big streamer flies on cloudy, unsettled days.
I remember hooking one, some years ago, at the second culvert, just above the fly shop, when Bob Auger was still the stream keeper. Bob came running up to my side when I hollered "big fish, big fish, biiiig fish." Bob said he thought I was the only one who ever fished there that way. Even then I only do it when the hatches are done for the day, and when it's stormy. Fishing big steamers on bright sunny days seldom works, for some reason. Now that I think about, I did that to Bob twice. There was another time I stood on top of that same culvert and hooked a 21-22" brown, that time on a wiggler. Bob came running up to see the fish, accompanied by a friend who frowned and said (about the wiggler) is that legal? Is that a fly? Bob said "it's got feathers on it and Sandy tied it, so it's a fly in my book." Bob is a great guy and he was a the best river keeper ever. DePuy's lost a lot when Bob left. |
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Materials
Poke in hook
Finished Roadkill