Babine Style Bombers

The holly grail of steelhead fishing lies in British Columbia, where rivers like the Bulkely, Skeena, Kispiox and Babine provide some of the best surface fishing for steelhead.

Loren Irving from Oregon has mailed us some of his favourite steelhead patterns – styled for the Babine river

Babine style Bomber

These three sizes 6 – 4 Bombers come from the fly box of Loren Irving from Bend, Oregon, and were some of the first he tied some 20 years ago. They were inspired by his fishing partners Frank Cammack and Jim Bussard, two veteran steelheaders from Bend as well. According to Loren, these flies were used in Northern BC Rivers: Bulkley, Skeena, Kispiox and The Babine.

These flies were used in a documentary film produced in the mid 90″s by Pierce Clegg, who then owned the Babine Norlakes Lodge, to show the tendency of BC Steelhead to very actively come to the surface to Bombers and waking flies. Loren Irving – steelhead fisher

Mr Irving favours the Green Butt Bomber and switches to a Brown Bomber as a follow-up fly, as his friend Jim Bussard suggested.

These are Bombers styled to be fished as wake flies – or swinging bombers – fished across the river on a tight line, making them drag in the surface