Fly, Tackle & Gear

Damdochax is a small to medium sized river, and usually flows with great clarity; therefore, our fish often prefer smaller, sparser flies. With that in mind, bring flies smaller than you might fish for Steelhead elsewhere, as well as your regular Steelhead patterns. Traditional Spey or soft hackle style, sparsely tied, low-water patterns are very effective in sizes from 2-8, particularly in normal or reduced river flows.

We use tube flies as our primary choice for larger and deeper water, generally after having gone through with either a dry or sparse Spey inspired fly first. We do not fish stinger style flies on the Damdochax, as they are often too large, and easily spook the fish.

We use a combination of single hand and double hand rods at Damdochax, dependent on the runs and pools we fish, and in conjunction with angler preference.  The ideal and most versatile rod is a 12-13’6″ double hand rod, capable of casting modern Skagit style/compact heads.  Reels should carry a minimum of 100 yards of backing. For high water events and to fish deeper, we recommend interchangeable tip systems (such as the MOW system) as the quickest and most efficient solution.  

We fish a lot of floating and intermediate tips at Damdochax but recommend guests always have other sinking tips in their leader wallet.  A useful addition to tackle is a spool of T-11, (or equivalent sinking line) so that tip lengths can be constructed according to conditions.