We decided due to popular demand regarding gear and accessories to offer you a short overview regarding the most important issues. Our clues are based on years of experience in these rivers and streams.
Clues
One Hand Fly Rod
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Basically the mentioned 300 and 400 grain lines can be easily cast with a one hand rod. This rod should, if possible have no pure specification, because a semiparabolic action eases the usage of the heavy sinking lines. Casting those lines can become rather strenuous in the course of a fishing day, though. For salmon and steelhead 9-10 feet fly fishing rods, designed for 7-9 weight are suitable. Good to high quality rods are better capable to withstand the loads because on our rivers, your equipment will be pushed to its limits. A two handed rod makes things simpler and less strenuous. |
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Two hand fly fishing rod
Lengths from 13' upwards are recommended. Basically one can say the longer the rod is, the easier they make casting. On top of that longer rods make it easier to lead the fish during the pick up.
We therefore recommend a 14' to 15' spey rod of the line class 9/10 or 10/11 along with a matching short multitip spey line and the T-17 tips in 15', 18', 21' and 24' and a basic knowledge of the two basic spey casting techiques double-spey and snap-c. Prepared like this you can concentrat on the fish and apply the advice of the guides.
Fishing with the the two handed rod is very agreeable and relaxing.
Salmon fly fishing reels
There are fly fishing reels that disassemble themselves during a pick up into their single parts but well known brands ususally do not suffer that fate. These reels are all suitable for salmon fishing. The differences during the use are considerable though. The reel should be able to at least take a Teeny 400 and 450 ft. of backing line. The reel should furthermore not be sensitive to dirt and sand (closed braking system).
The brake should have a continuously variable resistance. Test set brake to "Vorfachtragekraft" existiert als Wort NIRGENDS ausser dieser website - habe die übersetzung zusammen gepuzzelt. the leaders capacity and pull line extremely slowly and with increasing force of the reel.
Fly line
One hand rod
Most fly fishers on the Skeena use a Teeny T300 and additionally a Teeny T 400 and T500 for deeper waters. These lines allow for a non problematic mending.
It is possible to fish very successfully with a Teeny T300. The loss of a fly line without having a replacement line available can cost you a day of fishing. We recommend to always carry 2 x T 300 and 1 x T 400 on you. Replacement lines can be bought on site in many fishing supply stores.
- 300 Grain T-Series 24ft Sink Tip Fly Line by Jim Teeny / Rod class 7-10, / Sink Rate 6.5 ips
- 400 Grain T-Series 24ft Sink Tip Fly Line by Jim Teeny / Rod class 8- 12 / Sink Rate 8 ips
- 500 Grain T-Series 24ft Sink Tip Fly Line by Jim Teeny / Rod class 9- 14 / Sink Rate 9 ips
Two hand rod
The different variatons of skagit style casting make things a lot easier. It means, that, depending on the height of the water, you cast tippets of different lengths with a very high sinking rate attached to swimming but relatively short and heavy spey or skagit-bellys. Skagit-heads can be bought in these weight classes, when using a multitip spey line (e.g. AIRFLO Delta Spei Multitip or AIRFLO Quickspey) this would equal a line class of 8/9 and heavier. The extremely short Skagit heads throw the heavy tips even easier but the multitips lines advantage is that it can be used for salmon and sea trout fishing in Europe as well.
For the tip we recommend the T-17 sink tip material (17 grain/ft) by RIO (10 inch per sec) in lengths from 15' to 24' (it can be bought by the yard and then cut and looped by one self). The T14 tips of rio sink a bit slower. We recommend taking along different tips in the lengths of 15', 18', 21' and 24 feet. This way you can adapt to different situations. If you need more information we gladly assist you or just ask your friendly fishing supplies dealer.
Leader material
The leader material mostly used on the Skeena river is Maxima - with a good reason. The Skeena is a fly eater and it doesn't return many a fly fishing line either. The Maxima-Leader Material has no surrface treatment to allow for reaching a big carrying capacity. It is thus less prone to breakage when there are hard to detect defects.
Depending on the target fish a capacity of 15 lbs and more with a length of approx 32 inches is used. Please make sure the capacity does not exceed the fly lines capacity.
Effective bait for the Skeena river
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Good steelhead fly (by Harald Birkl) This voluminous fly is hard to get close to the ground and also hard to lead optimally. |
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Good steelhead fly (by Günter Heufler) The sparse use of tying material allows it to sink quickly towards the ground. |
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Very good sockeye fly (by Harald Birkl) |
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Lead close to the ground for coho (by Harald Birkl) Steelheads take this fly if it is lead higher up, too. |
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Good coho fly by Gerhard Schnöller (by Harald Birkl) |
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gg-Sucking Leech. For chinook, salmon and big trout (by Harald Birkl) |
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Allround fly: Harry's cheap (by Harald Birkl) I made the third place at an international fly tying competition. You will not get any prices with this fly but you will catch fish! |
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Ground angling | Spinfishing
Heavy equipment, rod 10-12 ft with WG approx. 300 grams, reel with at least 200 m 50 mono line, good brake. A special canadian spinning lure, the Spin-N-Glo is attached to a leader of approx 3-4 ft with a ground lead of 200-400 anchored on the 1 ft side run of the climbing trench. Thats where it will do its rounds for hours, always in the effective range. On the bite, the fish will hook up shortly, the rest is up to the angler. A very successful way of angling.
Multi reel with a rod action tuned to the casting style and reel. You should be able to cast at least an 8 Oz. groundlead with spinning- or ground rod. A parabolic action of the rod makes a rounded casting much easier.
Fastest reeling in is called for with big strong fish coming at your. So if you are used to a stationary reel with a left sided crank make sure that the crank is on the same side on the multi reel.
If you want to fish with a stationary reel make sure that you only use reels with a top notch brake. Otherwise you will not enjoy your reel for a very long time.
Purchase a fishing license
To acquire a fishing license, please click this link: