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It's time to go fly fishing By Mark Freeman SHADY COVE � It�s time for fly-casters to break out their waders, put a few extra streamers in their fly box and head for the upper Rogue River to take advantage of a short window of time when traditional steelhead fly-fishing is its best. The prime time to cast streamer flies for summer steelhead begins this weekend as the upper Rogue waters now sport the most fly-fishing-friendly conditions of the year. The low flows now present in the upper Rogue mean the steelhead will congregate in riffles that are easy to wade. And the water is currently warm, meaning the steelhead are most apt to dart from the bottom to snatch at a streamer fly swung at or near the surface. The practice is called "swinging" flies, and it�s a time for modern-day anglers to imitate the casts Zane Grey wrote about in the 1920s to catch the adult steelhead that made the Rogue famous. "Swinging flies is such a cleaner, more elegant way to catch steelhead on a fly," says Fred Thieme, a Medford fly-fisherman who divides his time between fishing and giving out advice behind the counter at McKenzie Outfitters in Medford. "When the fish comes up and whacks a streamer, there�s no mistaking it," Thieme says. "There�s something really exhilarating about it. People really dig it. I do." Doing it is easy. Use a floating or sink-tip fly line and a tapered leader about 8 feet long. Tie on a green-butt skunk, red ant, royal coachman or any of several traditional steelhead streamer flies sold at most tackle shops along the Rogue. Wade into any of the upper Rogue�s common steelhead riffles, usually no more than knee- or waist-deep. Using long, flat casts, send the fly at a 45-degree angle downstream, then let the line and fly swing through the riffle until it flattens out. And hold on. When a steelhead hits, it usually does so with a violent thrash before speeding downstream. This is the traditional technique � or "old school" way, as Thieme calls it � to fish summer steelhead with flies on the Rogue, North Umpqua or other rivers. It relies on the fish coming to the flies. The "new school" technique uses weighted nymphs, long leaders and strike indicators and relies on getting the fly down in front of the steelhead. New-school fishing, commonly called "nymphing," is considered less dramatic because the bite is much more subtle, and often undetected. "When you�re nymphing, the fish feels you before you feel the fish," Thieme says. "But with swinging, you feel everything." Alas, swinging flies has fallen out of favor on the upper Rogue, chiefly because the water-management practices at Lost Creek Lake don�t favor traditional steelhead fly-fishing. Water releases from Lost Creek Lake were lowered this past week from 2,200 cubic feet per second of water to 1,100 cfs, says Jim Buck, who runs the complex for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The current flows are about what the traditional fall flows were prior to the dam�s construction. The water had been kept high in early September to help draw fall chinook salmon through the lower Rogue and into the Grants Pass-Gold Hill areas. The flows were dropped this week to help corral spring chinook salmon into spawning in the main river channels of the upper Rogue to ensure that water will flow over the eggs throughout the fall and winter. While the river changes are meant to help chinook, fly-casters need to take advantage of them now because this steelheading Nirvana won�t last much longer. The water released from Lost Creek Lake will be to the low 40s in early October under a water-release plan created by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The colder water will make steelhead less apt to rise for a streamer near the surface. So Thieme�s "new school" of fly-fishing with heavy nymphs will then take over as the technique of choice. That�s the price anglers pay for managing the Rogue for fish over fishing. The colder water in October is released to retard the growth rates for wild spring chinook eggs in the upper Rogue. It will counter-balance the Rogue�s winter flows that are unnaturally warm now because the sun heats Lost Creek Lake warmer in winter than it would a free-flowing Rogue. The altered fall temperatures are considered critical to ensure that spring chinook eggs �whose incubation periods are closely tied to water temperature �hatch their natural late-winter period. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. 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