Making flies for browns.

[bob03567]

I don't know if you guys make your own flies. But I've been doing it alot. I'm not doing it to save money, more to the fact of catching something that you made on your own. So far I've had good luck with some of my colors. At least for the steelies. Not so good with the salmon. But so a tip. The color that they been hitting was a 3" green crinckle with 3" uv green. running behind a captain valum with a 22 in. leader.

So my question is this. Do the flies work on browns? And if so what colors and what size of mylar? And do you guys run 8" spinnies with them? I wanted to give it a try on some local lakes here in pa and see if they bite them here also.

[LongLine]

FWIW - I've never caught a brown on a fly in the open water. Maybe other guys have?

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Tim Bromund]

I've gotten a few browns on flashers and flies while fishing for kings over the years but it is not their preferred presentation. If I am targeting brown trout, I'd never have a spinnie and fly in the water.

Browns are your classic spoon fish, with stickbaits also commonly used, primarily in the spring but I'll also run a stick on a long lead in the summer.

Tim

[tangler]

We also have picked up a few strays on ff combos, sometimes they just like them. However fishing for spring browns on many lakes (including big O) i will fish a hand tied tandem streamer fly right in the propwash. I use a flyrod with sinking line in a scotty flyrod holder, but you could fish it on mono with enough splitshot to get it just subsurface. Put the line IN the propwash (this gives it its whipping action). They are a great winter project to tie also.

[bluewater]

I caught a few browns this year on flasher fly combos unintentionally while targeting kings but nothing consistent.

[Gray Fox]

We catch a good share of browns every year on flies. Typically from July on... once they have moved out to the deeper water. This year we took our first brown on a spinny. When we target deep water browns I always pull at least one fly. The best brown combo to date for us has been a frog dodger with a glow green horse fly. Not sure what the material is but its can get really matted, almost feels like a frayed pair of jeans. I'll see if I can dig one up here at the house and post a picture a little later.

[ITO Flies]

I fish on Lake Michigan and this time of year we will go out and target the browns. We use a mix of flies and spoons and everything we use has the color copper in it. The Browns love to eat the gobies over here so matching there color patter have been very efective.

This is a fly that I tie and sell and we have done very good on it for the brown and it is just plain copper. We have found that the crinkled copper is usually better then the flashy type. I hope this helps.