Salmon Trout Steelheader

Whatever Happened to the RoeMaster?

STS and Playboy…they’re really not all that different, ya know? At least how we read them. Sure, both publications are stuffed full of informative articles, but it’s really all about the pictures, right?

If you’re like me, a new STS hits the mailbox and I drop everything and flip through it cover to cover, checking out all the lusty fish porn: Guys holding chinooks the size of Fiats and double-striped steelhead from some remote B.C. stream. Then there are the shots of chrome coho, leaping rainbows and barred-up chums.

Eventually, I go back and read the articles but not before I’ve checked out every single photo in the magazine. And, of course, included in flipping through all the glossy pix is checking out the ads. I generally don’t much pay attention to them in other magazines, but I closely scan each advertisement in STS, because I want to know what’s the latest and greatest widget for salmon and steelhead fishing.

Which brings me to a hall-of-fame lure that never was: The RoeMaster Spinner. It appeared briefly in ads in this very publication in the early 1990s but then disappeared into the night and was never heard from again. So, whatever happened to the RoeMaster? I’m glad you asked! Considering I was the “mastermind” behind the lure, I guess I am qualified to tell its story…

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together!

As a college student at Humboldt State University, I must confess that I spent more time pursuing girls and steelhead than good grades. Back in those days, we skipped a lot of class to fish the nearby Mad, Eel, Klamath, Trinity and Van Duzen rivers—and those endeavors are what inspired the RoeMaster.

At that time, I was getting most of my anadramous fish info by reading this magazine, along with books like Herzog’s Drift Fishing for Steelhead and Jed Davis’ Spinner Fishing for Steelhead, Salmon, and Trout. In fact, the original idea for RoeMaster was spawned from concepts I learned in those two volumes. The more I read, the more I found that salmon and steelhead were really susceptible to roe— and properly presented spinners. So, why not combine the two and make the world’s most deadly offering: A spinner/roe combination? An evil plan indeed…and with it, I would soon rule the salmon and steelhead world!

Well, not so fast there, junior!

RoeMaster Comes to Life!

So, with my idea now hatched, I borrowed some cash from pops and bought some components and started bending wire. After some trial and error, I settled on a design that consisted of a French blade (RoeMasters were available in the odd size range of #1, #3 and #5) and then a hand-painted lead bullet weight (or worm weight that bass anglers use with Texas Rigs)…though I eventually switched to brass worm weights on later versions. Then, the “roe” was a Luhr Jensen Gooey Bob slid up the shaft below the weight. I’d then finish it off with a Gamakatsu treble or Siwash hook (your choice).

Before I had a wire-forming tool, the early editions were bent with a set of pliers and the results were…well…let’s just say they weren’t super pretty!

Design Flaws

Well, it all seemed like a good idea, but the RoeMaster wasn’t exactly the best design of all time. First off, at high RPM’s, the blade would hit the Gooey Bob, causing it to stall out. At super slow speeds, however, it worked okay. Then there was that whole faux roe thing. My idea of combining two of the great salmon and steelhead offerings into one kinda fell flat on its face when you consider that the rubber egg cluster was totally lacking in one key ingredient: that milky goodness that leeches out of real roe. Hmmm…didn’t really think that one through! Sure, you could lather it up in scent, but it was still no match for the real deal.

Early Tests

Despite all the lure’s imperfections, it actually fished pretty darned well. Its first day on the water took place at the confluence of the Eel and Van Duzen rivers, where it actually hooked a few nice steelhead and out-fished my buddies who were using the standard for that spot, gold/red Little Cleos.

That winter, the RoeMaster had its finest hour on the Mad River just below the hatchery in Blue Lake, where I hooked six winter steelhead in off-color water one February afternoon while the other 23 anglers in the lineup hooked a grand total of three while using an assortment of drift gear. The fact that I was standing in the meat of the hole was totally lost on me and I chalked my success up instead to the deadly effectiveness of my new creation!

That fall, the new brass weight edition of the RoeMaster made its debut on the Feather River’s infamous Outlet Hole. Again, the lure preformed well and the chinook seemed to like it.

The Rise & Fall of the Empire

Bolstered by the success of the tests, my dad and I got down to the business of marketing the lure that we were certain would soon propel us into Fortune 500 status. Step one: Come up with a catchy name… RoeMaster. Done. Step two: A clever slogan: “It’s not a lure, it’s a Weapon!” Ah yes, we obviously turned the queso index to “high” to come up with that one! Cheesy tag line accounted for, we then went to the only place I knew of to advertise such a fish-catching machine, Salmon Trout Steelheader.

So, the RoeMaster ad made its debut in the Feb/March 1992 issue of STS and ran three times that year. The ad copy included several bullet points, highlighting the lure’s attributes. My favorite was “Field tested and recommended by fisheries biologists.” The biologists were my uncle and his buddy and I can’t help but think about how damned funny that sounds now. One could argue that if the fishery biologists were endorsing the product, maybe it was because they realized it posed no serious threat to fish populations! Obviously, a marketing guru I was not…

I think most hard-core anglers could see the inherent flaws in the design right in the picture in the ad and RoeMaster sadly never took off. Needless to say, thanks to sales that could be counted on one hand, I never got my Gulfstream G3 and that island in the Bahamas. Instead, I ended up with a garage full of components (that I cannibalized down to nothing over the years), and a couple good laughs looking back after all the years. These days, there’s not much left of the mighty RoeMaster except for bags and bags of unused Gooey Bobs and a couple originals left on the garage wall.

Oh well, it was a good ride. Maybe someday I’ll have to update the design and bring RoeMaster outta retirement. Or, perhaps some things are best left alone…

It’s a crazy web address, but you can get a vintage RoeMaster Tee shirt here: http://www.zazzle.com/roemaster_vintage_ tee_tshirt-235510193362212950

New-Age Plug Fishing

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that Ray-Ban sunglasses are all the rage with the kids these days…they’re everywhere. They were, of course, the coolest shades you could have back when I was in high school, but when the whole Risky Business thing faded out so too did Ray-Bans.

    The ones the youngsters are wearing now, however, are quite different from the old-school black models of the 1980’s. Many are brightly colored and have crazy patterns on them. I guess every generation puts their own spin on things…

    Somehow, that got me thinking about how plug-fishing for steelhead, which has taken a backseat to side-drifting for the past 10 years, is suddenly making a comeback. But this time around, plugging is quite a bit more high-tech than it was in its heyday. Thanks to advancements in tackle, modern-day plugging is more effective than ever.

    Here’s a quick look at some cool new gear that can help take your plugging to new levels…

    Rods

Back in the day, the best plug rods were home-builds since tackle companies didn’t yet have sticks designed specifically for what eventually became known as “Hot Shotting.” Those early custom rods were typically fashioned out of fly-rod blanks, which had the right action for enabling the baits to wobble properly while also allowing the fish to hook themselves. The problem, however, was the fly rod plug sticks usually didn’t have enough backbone to handle big winter chrome.

    These days, many companies make excellent plug rods and perhaps the best I’ve ever seen are the new Certified Pro Kwik Series of 8-footers from Lamiglas. These one-piece dandies are built from a sweet graphite/composite blank that features the best properties of both materials. Like the classic ol’ graphite fly-rod plug sticks of yesteryear, the XCC 801 GH and XCC 802 GH have unbelievable action in the tip, but thanks to the graphite, they are super-light and not clunky like the old-school models. Graphite handles keep the weight way down—and the graphite in the blank adds stiffness to the lower 2/3 of the rod, so they shut off and have enough muscle to move big fish.

    I absolutely love the 801’s (rated for 8- to 15-pound line) on rivers where I’m not going to see giant steelhead and bump it up to the 802’s (10- to 20-pound) when big fish are around or I need to run larger lures.

Lures

I am always on the lookout for new steelie plugs and my hunt often takes me down the bass aisles of my favorite tackle shop. The bass guys are always coming out with tricked-out new crankbaits, and while most of the stuff I’ve brought over to the coldwater world from the bass arena has been met with mixed results, there are a few lures out there that I’m using more and more. Part of the fun of this is discovering your own, so I won’t spill too many beans here, but check out Kopper’s Live Target Crawfish for starters.

    Recently released, too, are Lindy’s River Rockers which come in two sizes (3 1/8 inches and 2 3/8 inches) and have a lot of cool potential for both big-water steelies and ones in smaller streams. They’ve got a nice, tight wobble reminiscent of the classic ol’ Tad Pollies and come in some pretty interesting color combinations that the steelies are guaranteed to have never seen before. I only wish they’d make these things in a few basic metallic finishes, though!

Scents

I am a big fan of scents when plugging for steelies but in the old days, there wasn’t much more than WD-40 with which to spice up your lures—and it didn’t last very long. Now, thanks to the invention of sticky and gel products from the likes of Pro Cure, Pautzke’s and Mike’s, you can get “the stink” to hang on to your plugs for a good length of time. For both winter and summer steelhead, shrimp and crawfish flavors are some of my all-time favorites.

Another new product that has some interesting steelhead plugging applications is the Eco Wrap from The Eco Revolution. These scent-releasing polymer strips are impregnated with Pro Cure scents and are designed for wrapping on Kwikfish, but you can cut them down to size and add them to the underbelly of your plug. Eco Wraps are water-soluble and put out a good scent trail for an hour or so—which can give you an extra little edge.

Lines

Braid used to be a no-no when plugging because of its lack of stretch, but with these new modern plug rods, you can run it. What’s nice about braid now is it is much smoother and rounder than it used to be and works great on level-wind reels. Because of its small diameter to high pound-test ratio, you can get your lures down in fast water. And its durability is a real plus when a sea-run rainbow decides to leap into overhanging branches. Just remember to run a 10- to 20-foot section of fluorocarbon between your lure and main line.

Reels

I’m still waiting for somebody to come out with a 200-size line-counter reel (Shimano’s Tekotas are great, but a bit too clunky for lighter steelie fishing), so until that day, I will continue using the good ol’ Calcuttas. Pound for pound, their durability and smoothness are tough to beat. The levelwind on the reel doesn’t go back and forth when you’re letting line out on a Calcutta, so to keep track of how far out your plugs are, slide a bobber stop up your line to a pre-determined length (usually 40-70 feet) and then simply let out the line until the stop clears the tip of the rod.

In a future issue, I’ll get more into the nuts and bolts of plug-fishing, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, try out some of this new gear and get to know the modern version of plugging.

For more info, tips and tricks, check out my website: www.fishwithjd.com

Kids Fishing Made More Fun & Safe

My 5-year-old is crazy for fishing and is now at the stage that he doesn’t want a lot of dad’s help…he’s into doing all his own baiting-up, casting and retrieving. Now at first glance, any of you who have fished with kids are immediately thinking about all the tip tangles (on every cast), wickedly twisted line (spinning reels…ugh!) and gut-hooked trout or bluegill you often get when the little ones have a rod in hand.
   
Untangle, untwist, cut, snip, retie, unhook…repeat.
   
I’m happy to do that all day long if that means I get to spend a day on the water with the monkey man, but there is actually a better way. Every time junior and I fish, I pay attention to the issues he’s having and then try to find something that works better. Over time, I’ve refined his gear to the point that he can do pretty much everything himself and I’m just there for super bird’s nests, hook removal from overhanging trees, etc…basically anything above and beyond his height or pay grade.
   
So, while I’m sure I will have more to add to this list later, here are some of the items that I have found that make fishing with kids better for everyone:

Mini Circle Hooks

After a couple kid fishing missions with a bobber and worm, I started feeling bad about how many fish were swallowing the hook. Small fry anglers don’t really have the “feel” for when to set the hook and you often end up having to cut the leader to try to avoid hurting a fish that’s got the worm all the way down to the gullet.
   
Since we release them all, I didn’t want to take the kid fishing for trout with worms either…but then I had a little stroke of genius. Or at least I hoped it was when I thought about running a circle hook and worm under the ol’ bobber.
   
I’m pleased to report that No. 12 circle hooks (not easy to find but Eagle Claw makes ‘em) work better than I had even envisioned. With a red worm end-hooked on one of these babies, a fish can slurp it down for a half-hour and not swallow it…which is handy when the kid becomes distracted by a crawdad or a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
   
Because of the way the bobber keeps a little tension on the line, every fish is pinned right in the top of the nose. We’ve caught panfish, bass and trout on circle hooks now and I am a total believer. In fact, I will be investigating their use for some “adult fishing” here soon too!
   
An added benefit of the circle hooks is I am less likely to get one buried in the back of my ear when the little man is casting. That’s not to say it can’t happen but the design of the hook is such that I feel a little safer when standing in the firing line.
   
And a quick insider tip here: the No. 12 circles are so small and don’t have a long shank to grab onto, so be sure to have a small set of needlenose pliers with you for removing them from fish (or the odd ear!).

Kid-Friendly Spinning Reel

Spinning reels can obviously be a nightmare for beginners but my little dude quickly got tired of the close-faced trigger spin reel that I originally bought him (“dad, you don’t use these, I want a reel like yours…”), so I had to suck it up and get him one.
   
While online one day, I randomly stumbled onto the Wave Spin Reel website (www.wavespinreel.com), which claimed their reels have “zero tangles and longer casts.” If true, it sounded like the perfect reel for the kiddo, so I ordered one. I’m not even sure how they really work, but the basic concept is the outer edge of the spool is festooned with little wave (or shark tooth) shapes that somehow keep the loops out of the line.
   
Well, it’s kinda like magic! The kid can cast like a pro with the reel and there are really no tangle issues to speak of. In fact, he went fishing at grandma’s house one day without me and while the rod tip and several guides came back all tangled with line, the reel was still amazingly free of rat’s nests.

Kid-Proof Line?

When mini anglers are involved, forget about regular mono. All it takes is a tip wrap and a couple cranks on the reel, winding against the drag, and you’ve got twist city. Fortunately, technology is such these days that there are plenty of new types of line out there.
   
One that I am pretty happy with is Berkley’s Fireline Crystal. It is nice and limp like mono but won’t twist…which is a major plus. The 4-pound version basically has the diameter of cobweb and that allows for longer casts.
   
The downsides, of course, are that Fireline Crystal isn’t cheap (but it does last a long time) and that you need to run some sort of leader between it and the hook, which makes the rigging for a bobber and worm a bit more complicated. Overall, however, the advantages out-weigh the cons.

Lead-Free Shot

As the little man grows and starts fishing more and more with his buddies, I am going to have him use lead-free shot-style sinkers. As a kid, I would throw a couple lead splitshot and a few Pautzke’s Balls o’ Fire in my lower lip and hit the creek, but as an adult, I can see that maybe that wasn’t the best plan. I survived, of course, but lead is highly toxic and if you can limit your kid’s exposure to it, so much the better.
   
Several companies make non-toxic lead sinkers (check out the stuff by Thill at www.lindyfishingtackle.com)—they’re more expensive but better for the kids and the waterways they fish.

Testing Your Fishin Knowledge

Okay, so this time around how ‘bout a few brain teasers? Take the little quiz below to test your fishing IQ and then read on for the detailed answers…


1) Which is the rarest salmon in the world?


Pinook Salmon
Co-Nook Salmon
Formosan salmon


2) Where might you have a chance to catch an Atlantic Salmon and a Pacific Salmon in the same day?


Yuba River
Lake Biakal
Lake Ontario
Lake Pontchartrain


3) The IGFA All-Tackle World Record for rainbow trout is a 48-pound triploid from Lake Diefenbaker, Canada, but the record for steelhead is a 42-pounder caught in saltwater by a salmon troller…


True
False


4) Where did wrapping sardine fillets onto salmon plugs originate?

Chetco River
Rogue River
Cowlitz River
Columbia River
Sacramento River
Kenai River
Skagit River

5) Which river boat pioneer used dynamite to blast a channel through Blossom Bar on Oregon’s Rogue River?

Willie Illingworth
Glen Wooldridge
Everett Spaulding
Woodie Hindman

6) The Kastmaster is one of the most popular lures of all time. Which of the following was the early inspiration for the modern-day version?

EDA Splune
Sputterbuzz
Souvenir Spoon
Colorado Pike’s Peak

7) How far do salmon have to swim upstream from saltwater before they reach the fish ladders on the Yukon River’s Whitehorse Fishway?

1,132 miles
1,864 miles
950.2 miles
2,117 miles

ANSWERS
1) Rarest of the Rare
Formosan salmon (answer #4) are the rarest salmon in the world and their numbers are down into the hundreds now. They are a landlocked subspecies of the cherry salmon, reaching about a foot in length, and occur only in a few drainages in Taiwan, including the Chichiawan Stream and the Kaoshan Stream in the upper reaches of the Tachia River.
Pinook salmon (hybrid cross of Chinook x Pink) aren’t an everyday occurrence, but they do show up now and then in Great Lakes tributaries. In fact, Michigan even keeps state records for them. Not a whole lot is known about Co-Nooks (coho x chinook hybrids)—in fact, some argue they don’t even exist—so if you guessed that, you’re not totally wrong.

2) East Coast vs West Coast
Thanks to fish farming, you really could name 100 rivers along the West Coast where net-pen-escapee Atlantics rub shoulders with Pacific salmon. Several years back, the Green River in Washington got loaded up with the buggers and it’s happening more and more. The answer I was looking for, however, was #3, Lake Ontario, where trollers sometimes cross paths with imported West Coast Salmon and planted Atlantics while dragging flutter spoons along the temperature breaks.

3) Record Steelhead
Amazingly, the long-recognized record for steelhead is a 42-pound, 2-ounce behemoth that was not taken from some well-known stream like the Babine, Skeena or Skagit. It was caught by David R. White in 1970, who was trolling the saltwater for kings at Bell Island, Alaska. Crazy, huh? Bet that was a chromer!

4) Sardine Wraps
Well, these things are always tricky to try to trace back. Since no records are kept for such things and it was long before the days of Twitter and Facebook, all we have to go on is anecdotal evidence. From talking to lots of folks, including the man himself, I’m going to say that Clancy Holt at Barge Hole on the Sacramento River in the 1950s was probably where it all began.

5) Clearing the Way
While the contributions to riverboating from all of these gentlemen can’t be ignored, Wooldridge was the man responsible for clearing a path through Blossom Bar. A true pioneer, he made the first ever float down the Rogue in a hard boat in 1915 and then made the first ascent of the river in 1947… with a prop! There’s a tough-to-find, but amazing-to-read book about his life called The Rogue: A River to Run by Florence Arman. If you can get your hands on a copy, you’ll love it!

6) Early Days of the Kastmaster
Not long after Art Lavallee founded the Acme Tackle Company in 1952, he became aware of a lure called the EDA Splune developed by the Engineering Design Associates of Severna Park, Maryland. Intrigued by its design, Lavallee tested and modified the lure (he made it longer and gave it its jewelry-like finish) and then signed a royalty agreement with EDA and acquired the rights to market the lure. Eventually, it became the Kastmaster and the rest, as they say, is history…

7) Going the Distance!
At 1864 miles, it’s one long trek up the Yukon River to the Whitehorse Fishway, which helps salmon continue on their journey past the Whitehorse Rapids Hydroelectric Facility, built by the Canada Power Commission in the 1950s. When they get there, the weary travellers then have to ascend a 1,200-foot-long fish ladder! Throwing out the “upper Yukon” above the dam, that’s a 3,728-mile round trip from Whitehorse and back!

Going to the Dark Side for Low-water Kings

In the fall, we often deal with low water conditions on chinook streams throughout the West and the Great Lakes. While there is no one magic elixir that will magically make skinny-water kings bite, but you can tip the odds in your favor by turning to the “Dark Side.”

In other words, try running your favorite lures in a slightly less gaudy color than you’re used to…namely, black.

I’d really like to take full credit for discovering that low-water chinook like the color black…but in the interest of full disclosure here, I guess I better fess up. My confidence in the dark side came quite by accident. I was fly-fishing kings in a river that was running very low and clear and not getting bit using traditional bright and flashy patterns. After a long drought, I decided to switch to a 6-weight rigged with a black Bunny Leech—I figured I could at least get a trout to grab on and pull a little string.

Well, the Cliff’s Notes version of what happened next goes like this: A big king pounds the fly like it’s a plug, runs like hell for the horizon, nearly busting two of my fingers in the process and reintroduces me to the backing on that reel—which I hadn’t seen since I originally spooled it on. The battle rages for way too long and just about cures me of ever wanting to hook a chinook on anything but heavy conventional tackle.

But the whole episode has also planted a little seed in the deep recesses of my brain: Was this some random incident or was I on to something?

Armed with heavier gear the next time out, my black leech accounted for five ridiculously hard grabs and three kings to the beach. A pattern was starting to develop! Then, I had one of those perfect days when I hooked 15 kings and landed every one of them on my black fly. From that day on, I was pretty much a believer!

Branching Out

Of course, my new-found success bolstered my confidence to try other lures in black as well. My first experiment came with black plugs like Kwikfish and FlatFish. Initially, the results were lackluster and I thought that maybe the kings’ taste for the dark side didn’t apply to plugs. But after some alterations, I found that they do, indeed, like black.

The major breakthrough in this area came one season while guiding in Southwest Alaska. After two solid weeks of 80-degree weather, the Nushagak River was running low and super clear and the kings were getting a little skittish. I recall thinking that the conditions were not unlike those back home in which I’d had success with the black leeches, so I spray painted a K15 black. The fish ate it but not really any better than anything else. Then fellow guide Jeremy Warter asked me to try a little idea he had—out of boredom one evening, he’d covered the belly of a silver/orange bill K15 with black electrician’s tape, leaving only the orange bill visible. I put that “egg-sucking Kwikie” into service the next morning and it quickly became my hottest plug until we got a shot of rain and the water colored up.

At home, I made my own by buying all-chrome plugs and then painting the bill or butt orange and then hitting the body of the lure with rattle can black. Normally, I’d put a primer coat on first, but you get a cool almost metallic black effect by going straight onto the chrome. Just be sure to hit everything with a clear coat at the end!

I’ve tried that plug from Sacramento to Seattle and back and it seems to work anywhere you’ve got low, clear water. I should qualify that statement a little, however. It works anywhere the water’s clear, low and warm (60-70 degrees). In other words, early fall conditions. Later in the year, when the water temps are down, the black doesn’t seem to have the same appeal.

Spinners

While I have had modest success on low-water fall-runs while using all-black spinners, the fish respond better to hardware with a little bit of flash to it. I’ve messed around with painting both the body and the blade of a spinner black and then adding a fluorescent orange or chartreuse dot to the blade. But to be honest, there’s a production model Blue Fox spinner that seems to work as well as any of my custom jobs. It has a black body and a silver blade with a red slash at the tip of the blade. There’s also a version with a chartreuse tip that is pretty effective as well.

While I rarely fish spoons for freshwater kings, I suppose you could also do well with a black model with a bright piece of red, orange or chartreuse tape stuck to the concaved side.

Other stuff

While spinners, plugs and leeches make up the bulk of my Dark Side arsenal, I have experimented with a few other things as well. Some have worked okay, while others were pretty much a disaster (don’t ask about the black herring incident…my wife’s still mad about the dark stain in her sink!). It’s no secret that Spin-N-Glos and Cheaters with black blades sometimes out-produce all other colors when drifting eggs or running them behind divers, but the other way around seems to work well too. I’ll take a black Sharpie to the body of one and then hit the white wings up with a bright orange pen. Works pretty well, but I think a lot simply has to do with the quality of your eggs!

Not deterred by the black herring debacle, a buddy and I tried dying up some eggs black, which…well…let’s just say didn’t really yield the results we were hoping for. But hey, that’s half the fun of fishing—just trying out new stuff and seeing what works. I can tell you, however, that if you stick to fishing black on the basics like plugs and spinners this fall you should see some impressive results.

For more fishing tips & tricks, check out my website: www.fishwithjd.com

Light-Tackle Fun: Fry and Smolt Imitations

On salmon streams in the spring and early summer up and down the Pacific Northwest, B.C. and Alaska, you get one of nature’s great collisions--when millions of out-migrating salmon fry and smolt smash head-on into hordes of hungry Dollys, rainbows and cutthroat. It’s life and death in the wild as Mother Nature herself intended it…but what she probably didn’t consider is the fact that this epic drama also creates quite an opportunity for anglers to get in on some light-tackle fun.

When the little salmon are making a break for saltwater, char and trout get awfully stupid and you can have some absolutely banner days when fishing small minnow patterns on spinning or fly gear.

Timing
The first thing to consider in your local area is the timing of the salmon’s downstream migration. Basically, the further north you go, the later the out-migration. In Northern California, little chinook start to head downstream in February and March and continue into May, but it can be as late as July in Alaska. It all has to do with a river’s character, ambient air and water temperatures and the variety of salmon smolt that it contains. As a basic rule of thumb, late spring and early summer is go time.

Locations
Well, obviously, you want to start with a river that has good runs of salmon. Streams with solid populations of several varieties of salmon are the best and I prefer somewhat longer systems--just so you have a more drawn-out fishing period. Of course the flip side to that is, short drainages may only fish well during the spring out-migration period for a brief time, but hit it right and you should find major concentrations of bows, Dollys and cutties.

As far as specific spots to target go, lake outlets are usually as deadly as it gets--especially on streams that have good populations of coho and sockeye salmon. Those varieties in particular like to spawn in tributaries above lakes, so spring trout fishing can be epic at the outlet as the clouds of baby salmon head for the sea. Moving downstream, the mouths of feeder creeks are also stacking zones for little salmon--and the trout that feed on them. The base of a major rapid, falls or dam is also worthy of investigation as the predators target the little guys as they struggle to get their bearings after washing out of the whitewater.

Cutthroat will congregate in the lower portions of rivers—usually in and around tidewater. They do their hunting more ambush-style, hanging out in slower water around woody cover. River mouths are, of course, also extremely productive—especially for char. While Dollys will eagerly dash upstream to intercept the fry’s downstream migration, there are some that also seem to prefer to just hang in saltwater and wait for the food to come to them.

Keep in mind that juvenile fish tend to migrate along the margins of the river, seeking cover from predators near grassy banks, fallen timber and boulders--and that’s where you should concentrate your efforts. In high water, the target zones actually get even easier to locate as the fish--hunters and the hunted--get piled up into soft edges.

One of the inherent beauties of targeting salmon-eating trout and char is that it’s pretty simple, easy fishing. There’s not a whole lot of mystery to what the fish are munching on, so therefore, matching the hatch is not a big problem. Regardless of what you’re using--hardware or flies--you’re going to want something with a green back and silvery sides.

If you’re fishing with fly gear, small Clousers, Crystal Buggers, leeches, Muddlers and epoxy minnows work well. A basic hardware kit should include Size No. 2-4 Panther Martin spinners along with No. 0-3 Mepps and Blue Fox spinners. Small Kastmasters and Little Cleos are good selections as well, and ripping small rip baits like Lucky Craft Pointers is also a kick.

While picking a color pattern is a no-brainer here, there is something to be said for carefully paying attention to the silhouette of your bait. In other words, matching the size of your offering to the size of the baby fish is important. Predators like trout and char can get so dialed-in to a particular size of food that they ignore anything that’s out of that range. This is especially true when there are vast schools of juvenile fish in the river—with so much natural food around, it doesn’t take much for a fish to pay no attention to your lure if it looks a little different from the real thing.

Gear
No need to get fancy here--your basic lightweight spinning rod spooled up with 6-pound mono is all you’ll need for throwing hardware. A 4- to 6-weight fly rod with either a dry line (bring some splitshot) or a sink tip will cover most fluff-chucking situations, though on larger rivers you may want to throw a shooting head in for good measure.

When throwing lures, it’s a good idea to swap out the stock treble hooks with singles and then pinch the barbs--that way you can quickly and safely release fish. And when the bite is on, you’ll be doing that often.

Get Out There!
Again, this is a pretty simple fishery--find the right area and match your lure or fly to the size of the “baitfish” and you’re going to get bit. I like it because it can be a nice filler activity between seasons in some areas--and it also reminds me of the good ol’ days of trout fishing as a kid. Only these trout are on steroids!

Sploosh Balls: Getting Down With Black-Ball Technology

Everybody’s first-ever reaction to seeing a “sploosh ball” is pretty much the same. Something like…

What the heck is that? Or perhaps: You’re frigging kidding me…this is a joke, right?

It’s easy to understand, too, considering these black sinker balls that are taking the side-drifting world by storm look like they’re better suited for back-bouncing at first glance. Because they’re made of plastic, the balls are much larger than other drift weights and a 1/2-ouncer looks like it should weigh about 4 or 6 ounces. And the big ‘ol 1-ounce jobbies wouldn’t look too out of place being loaded into a cannon. When rigged up on typical side-drifting gear, these jumbo plastic weights look downright ridiculous.

That is until you fish them. Sploosh balls have several key attributes that make them very attractive to side-drifters. Here’s a look…

Superior Snag-Resistance

At first look, that a fat plastic sphere is less prone to snags than the slim form of a Slinky seems laughable. You’d think the wide profile of the ball would be able to get wedged in all sorts of spots, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Sploosh balls don’t fit into a lot of the spaces between rocks that more conventional sinkers can squeeze into.

The wide profile, combined with the fact that plastic is obviously less dense than lead, allows the balls to be pushed along by the current—which makes them less prone to sink down into snags. What you end up with is a sinker that bounces and glides along the bottom, rather than pounds it. An added benefit of that, of course, is you get a more natural-looking presentation.

I can’t say that sploosh balls are snag-proof, but they are as close to that as any sinker I’ve ever seen. I’ve spent entire winter guiding seasons on my home river, the American, without losing a dozen balls from January through April. Granted, that river is mostly mellow cobble but that’s still an amazing statistic. I’ve actually had balls wear out before I lost them. But they perform nearly as well on super craggy creeks as well. Let’s face it: less time spent re-tying after break-offs means more time fishing.

Castability

There’s no question that sploosh balls are superior to all other forms of side-drifting weights when it comes to casting. With minimal effort, you can chuck these things into the next county. While long-bomb casts are rarely necessary in this style of fishing, it’s nice (especially when you’ve got inexperienced anglers on board) that pretty much anybody can chunk these things where they need to be without too much trouble.

Versatility

While side-drifting is where the balls really shine, they also boon-dog amazingly well in water with moderate depth. Get ‘em down and they will track great and drift perfectly! You just have to adjust your approach so that you start a bit higher in the drift to allow them to sink into the zone.

You can also use them off the bank when employing the “poor man’s drift boat” style of side-drifting (in which you cast out and then walk downstream with your bait). The extra profile and lack of density, however, makes conventional (stationary) drift fishing with splooshies a tough proposition…though guys are now making modifications to the balls by adding long sections of pencil lead to them and getting pretty good drifts.

Better Drifts & Easily Detected Bites

Earlier, I mentioned that you get a better presentation of your bait while drifting balls. Instead of pounding the bottom, sploosh balls glide more and tap intermittently. Not only does that make your offering look more like real food to the fish, it also helps you determine when one picks it up. When trying out black balls for the first time, most folks comment on how much easier it is to feel bites. Because bottom contact is more of a slow bounce, rather than a rapid tap-tap-tapping, grabs are more obvious.

But perhaps the coolest feature of sploosh balls is the fact that they will fish through all types of water. Cast them at the head of a run as you drop into it and then just keep on fishing, if you like, through the middle section and on out through the tailout…and you can even sometimes keep going down into the next run without reeling up.

The wide profile allows you to roll these balls through slow flats and shallow tailouts—spots you wouldn’t be able to fish because a slinky will stall out and end up anchored to the bottom.

I’ve also found that they’re more forgiving and changing weights a million times a day to match each spot becomes a thing of the past. I used to carry a box loaded with .210 shot Slinkies in lengths from 5-shot to 10-shot and now just a few basic sizes of balls will do the trick. In fact, there are some streams I drift where you can get away with fishing the same-size sploosh ball all day long.

Getting Used to the Ball

Kinda like your first beer, using sploosh balls takes a little getting used to. At first, I wanted to throw them all over the side and never use anything but a Slinky or pencil lead again. The main problem was I tried using the balls just like Slinkies, casting them straight out or slightly upstream and I just couldn’t get the drift I was looking for. I’d get my drift going and then kinda flounder around and eventually, I’d get frustrated that the splooshers seemed to really fish best when almost dragged downstream at a 45-degree angle—kinda like modified boon-doggin’ (only off to the side).

Then, I started having my guys intentionally toss the balls at that same 45-degree angle (or better) upstream and things just fell into place. The drift was then easier to control and I think the presentation was better in that without the bow in the line (like you would casting straight out), you can keep unnecessary tension off the line—and thus the bait floats higher.

There are guys who fish them in completely different ways than me, so you just have to get out and practice with sploosh balls and figure out what works for you. When you get the hang of them, however, you’re going to be hard-pressed to switch back.

While I fish sploosh balls on a slider rig, there are some folks who have a little trouble with them rolling up the line towards the rod tip when they first start out. If that’s the case, you can fish them hardtied initially, but once you get the feel for things, you’re better in the long run with a slider setup.

Weighted or Unweighted?

The first thing that we early sploosh ball aficionados discovered was you could make them even more effective by adding a little extra weight. That way, you got the best of both worlds: a sinker that glided over the bottom but that was also heavy enough to get down quickly in fast water. Initially, we did what a buddy of mine coined the “frank and bean” method—we ran a ball and a Slinky in the same snap. Goofy looking, but it worked. Eventually, we cleaned things up by drilling a hole in the bottom and plugging it with a few buckshot or a length of pencil lead. Now you can buy them like that if you’d rather not go through the hassle.

One other thing that takes a little getting used to is that the actual weight of the ball is kind of misleading. For example, a 1/2-ounce unweighted ball will actually sink quicker than a 1-ouncer because of its narrower profile. It’s probably a better idea to think of them in sizes like small, medium and large rather than in weight.

A Little History

Drift fishing with plastic ball-shaped sinkers is really nothing new. Luhr Jensen’s Bouncing Betty has been around for decades and still has a small but dedicated following. The Betty’s never really gained super widespread popularity, however, probably due to the fact that they were a bit too soft and not quite dense enough.

Enter the modern “sploosh ball” (the slang term often used comes from the sound they make when they hit the water). It’s hard to pinpoint the origins of the contemporary black-ball revival, but ground zero seems to be somewhere along the snaggy steelhead streams of the Northern California/Southern Oregon coast. Again, I’m not sure who got the…er…“ball rolling” but the Plunk-N-Dunk brand, made in California’s Bay Area, was the first one I was exposed to (and they even made several appearances in my book, Side-Drifting for Steelhead).

Initially, the Plunk-N-Dunks were slow to catch on with the side-drifting public—partly due to the fact that Slinkies had such a hold on the market but also because the black balls were poorly marketed and extremely difficult to find. Over time, however, anglers began to see their merits and Plunk-N-Dunk gained a loyal band of fans. Recently, Mad River Manufacturing entered the fray, releasing a line of drift balls called Mad River Drifters, which come in more sizes and are available in both weighted and unweighted models. They should do very well, too, due to the fact that they are easily located at shops and online (www.madrivermanufacturing. com).

These days, it’s not uncommon to see a higher percentage of guide boats on rivers like the Smith, Eel and Chetco fishing with sploosh balls than Slinkies—and the number of converts seems to grow each day. Give them a try and you will probably join the ranks of sploosh ball fans as well.

Chasing the Vampire Steelhead of South America

My quest for the vampire steelhead of southern Chile has taken me on many tens of thousands of miles worth of trips over the past 10 years—journeys that my friends and colleagues have increasingly called “wild goose chases” and “witch hunts” due to their lack of success.

The missions have all been dead-ends, with maybe a new lead or rumor to look into, but there have been no sightings…pictures…or anything concrete that would lead me to believe that the ferocious, fang-sporting, rodent-eating giant steelhead of South America were more than just stories. I guess the idea of a saber-toothed steelhead’s existence was just so thrilling that I let myself get caught up in the fable. But, after being stonewalled so many times, I was ready last fall to admit defeat and chalk the vampire fish up as nothing more than the product of someone’s vivid imagination.

That was until I meet The Viking.

 El Vikingo

I met The Viking, or “El Vikingo” as the locals call him for his pink-white skin, burly two-pronged red beard and ever-present felt Viking hat, quite by chance one evening in the back of a seedy bar in Puerto Natales, Chile. Over many Cervezas Escudos that night, the conversation eventually turned from politics and travel to fishing. When I had a decent heat going, El Vikingo asked if I’d ever heard of “Pez Diablo,” the devilfish of the southern coast. Of course I had…that’s what some of the old-timers I’d spoken with over the years called the vampire steelhead. But I’d been down this road before…getting excited about some info about the fish that always turned into nothing. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up again.

“They don’t exist,” I said.

“No?” El Vikingo said with a grin. And then he sat there in silence for a long moment, staring off into the distance and gently rolling one of the tips of his beard (which looked like the back end of a red Gibson Flying V guitar) between his thumb and finger. I got the sense that he really did have something significant to reveal and was mulling over whether or not it was a good idea to speak any further about it. Waiting on his next words, I started feeling a bit light-headed—like I was waiting for the cute girl in school to give me an answer about going to the dance with me.

“Want to catch one?” he finally asked. I inspected his face closely for a sign that this was a joke on me but there was nothing—not a wink or a blink or even the slightest curling up of his lips. And now there was a fire behind his eyes and I could see that the man was serious. I nodded in the affirmative, trying to keep from getting too excited. El Vikingo took a long pull on his cerveza and then dug around in his coat pocket for a moment. He then produced a tattered envelope filled with photographic evidence of the fish I’d sought for so long. Some of the photos were old and tattered; some of them looked very recent. All of them featured big steelhead sporting fangs that looked like they belonged on a sabertooth tiger. The room started spinning and I almost fell off my chair.

 Land of the Vampires

Though I couldn’t get it out of him what he did for a living (sometimes it’s best not to know, though rumor has it he came up with the whole “Fahrvergnügen: It’s what makes a car a Volkswagen” ad campaign in the early 1990s for the German car manufacturer), El Vikingo told me that he spent 20 years fishing his way across the globe, looking for something compelling enough to make him want to stay. Well, about 5 years ago, he found what he was looking for in a very remote corner of southern Chile.

“Pez Diablo only lives in a handful of streams on Isla Indigno de Confianza,” he told me. “Chief among them is the Rio de Grandes Mentiras. It’s isolated there and extremely difficult to get to, but that’s where what you call the ‘vampire steelhead’ live.”

Then he dropped a bombshell: El Vikingo had built a home there and invited me to come fish. The only problem, he noted, was that the vampires only appear for a few short days on the first new moon after ice-out. As quickly as they appear in the rivers, they’re gone again for an entire year. We’d have to wait until the following spring…

Pez Diablo

In the spring of 2010, I returned to Chile with friends Jack Damon and Ronnie Stone. El Vikingo met us at the airport and we embarked on the long journey to his home on Isla Indigno de Confianza, which included a 5-hour train trek, riding on the luggage rack of a bus for 20 miles, going over a mountain pass on burro’s backs and then being ferried, by a large rowboat, to the island.

Along the way, Ronnie asks the $25,000 question: “What’s up with the teeth?”

“Assuming you’re referring to the fish’s and not mine,” El Vikingo begins, “they are for drawing blood. Pez Diablo has a taste for it. He craves it. The fangs—or tusks—are typically 2 to 5 inches in length and are incredibly sharp. Deadly, too. Just ask Ernesto…”

“Who’s that?” I inquire.

“My old ranch helper,” he says. “He had a run-in with a really large Pez Diabo a few years back…reached down to try to grab a fish I had hooked and the thing clamped down on his arm and yanked him into the river.” El Vikingo’s voice cracks a bit and then trails off.

“What happened?”

“Esta Muerto.”

“He died?” Jack asks.

El Vikingo nods, dabs some moisture out of the corner of his eye and continues…

“They don’t all have the fangs…just the males,” he says. “And probably only 5 percent of the males actually have the teeth. There really aren’t very many of them and, since the season is so short, I only catch a handful of Pez Diablo a year…but there’s nothing like this fish.”

And that’s why El Vikingo has settled in this desolate land.

“They can get big—close to 30 pounds,” he says. “And probably even bigger than that. This is the most angry, evil fish I’ve ever encountered. You have to be really careful when wading when they’re around because they are so aggressive. One ill-timed splash and they’ll charge. I learned this the hard way the first season I was here. A particularly large Pez Diablo was drawn to the commotion of me walking upstream and launched himself out of a deep hole like a Polaris missile, narrowly missing my jugular before savagely attacking my thigh. I had to beat him off me with a piece of driftwood, and in the end, I nearly bled to death.

“If you want to wade, you have to wear some Kevlar pads under your waders. I asked Simms to design them and they’re made out of the same stuff they put in bulletproof vests. Or, stay out of the water entirely and fish from the boat!”

Hooking Up

In the early days of chasing vampire steelies, El Vikingo fished live bait. A wrinkled old local woman initially showed him how to fish Degu (small brush-tailed rodents that look kinda like guinea pigs) lip-hooked on the surface. The technique worked wonders, but he said that it was pretty gruesome watching the poor little buggers get disemboweled by the fangs of Pez Diablo.

“It was such a bloodbath—like sharks on a sealion pup,” he says. “I just couldn’t do it anymore…I figured there was a better way.”

It quickly became obvious that traditional steelhead techniques were of no use on these fish, he told me. El Vikingo tried drifting eggs, which worked on hens and toothless males, but the vampires had no interest whatsoever. He then turned to hardware like spoons and spinners, which accounted for a few fish but, since he had to use such large ones, they were hard to work in the shallow waters of the river.

Over the years, he continued to refine his technique and, remembering the way Pez Diablo would absolutely exploded on the live Degus on the surface, El Vikingo switched to throwing big saltwater poppers.

“My first day using topwater, I caught three and had two other blow-ups…and I was hooked,” he says. “Now, that’s pretty much all I do. The bigger the popper the better…the more water that it moves and spits the better it fishes. And there’s no limit to how fast you can work the lure…Pez Diablo is so aggressive, he’ll sometimes jump up and grab it before it hits the water! Of course, you have to use a wire leader here or you will part ways with many lures, my friend!”

Sometimes, he wraps the bottoms of the poppers with a sponge the same way you’d sardine wrap a Kwikfish. Every few casts, he dunks his plug into a bucket of pig’s blood…adding extra “scent” can be just the ticket when the bite gets tough.

On the Island

Upon arriving at El Vikingo’s ranch on the tiny island, I’m shocked to see a Willie drift boat pulled up on the bank behind the house. When I inquire just how the heck he got the boat here, our host tells me that he bought it on Craigslist from Brookings, Oregon and had the seller cut it into pieces and ship them individually. El Vikingo re-assembled the drifter and you can hardly tell it had been re-welded—except for the plywood section in the bow (that part of the original boat never made it).

The funny thing is, El Vikingo has no way to tow the boat on the island. There are no roads and he doesn’t have a car. So, he’s got about a quarter-mile stretch of water behind the house that he drifts. To get to the top of the run, he ties a line to a mule on the shore and the beast drags the boat upstream, Lewis & Clark style, while he stands in the bow, with one hand stuffed into the breast pocket of his coat. It’s quite a sight to see—El Vikingo looks equally like a circus performer and a Nordic George Washington crossing the Potomac as he gets “shuttled” upstream by the donkey.

The river itself is gorgeous—swift riffles connected by many fishy-looking flats and the occasional aquamarine pool. The first day, we take turns drifting the home waters—El Vikingo on the sticks and one of us in the bow. While one guy fishes out of the boat, the other two hang out on a bench carved from a log and watch the action.

Jack Damon goes first and immediately has a huge fish blow-up on his popper. From where Ronnie and I sit, it sounds like somebody dropped a big gun safe into the river. The fish misses the hooks and that’s it for this round. In fact, it’s the only sign of life for the day.

The following morning, I hook an absolute pig that has me down to two wraps of line left on a Curado 301 in the blink of an eye. One quick jump and my popper’s in the trees and it’s over before I know what hits me. After lunch, we hike up a small tea-colored tributary and Ronnie hooks and lands a brute that very nearly relieves him of several fingers as he’s removing the hooks. The only bite Jack gets is on his wading boot when an angry Pez Diablo mistakes it for a rodent.

Over the course of two more days, we have several blow-ups and land a few beautiful vampire steelies, topped by Jack’s 25-pound beast. Along the way, we’ve also had three rods explode, several treble hooks bitten off and one reel spool that got so hot it fused to the frame.

All too quickly, it’s time to head home. While the trek back north is a long one (even after the burros, boats and busses), it’s a happy ride. I still can’t believe that, after all the years of searching, I finally have made contact with the vampire steelhead of South America. There’s no doubt I’ll be back next year.

Making the Trip

While he won’t be open for business in 2011, El Vikingo is planning to open his home as a lodge to a limited number of guests in 2012. For the adventure of a lifetime, call him at (800) APRIL-FOOLS!

Memories of the Infamous "Wall"

I know it’s steelie season now, but as I write this we’re coming off the first chinook season on my home stream, the American River, in three years. After such a long layoff, getting after some kings in the backyard was really nice-—and boy did it bring up a lot of memories…most of which involved happy clients in the drift boat and fish boxes stuffed to the lid.
    However, when I took it all the way back to the beginning, images from my early days of salmon fishing on the American started popping into my head, including some very colorful ones from the days when I’d go down and fish the infamous “Wall” near Nimbus Dam.
    

The Wall
Back in the late 1980s, the Wall was…how should I put this…a very interesting place to fish. It’s nearly impossible to describe the carnival of zany characters that lived there (and I do mean “live” in the truest sense of the word) and you really just kinda had to experience it for yourself, but I’ll try to paint you a picture as best I can…
    What made the Wall such an attractive fishing spot was it was located immediately downstream of Nimbus Dam, a 987-foot high concrete monolith that, at river mile 23, blocked all upstream migration of anadramous fishes. Not surprisingly, chinook piled up against the dam in huge numbers (we had as many as 200,000 kings up the American some years back then). Fishing was allowed there because the dam lies upstream of the hatchery so fish that made it that far were considered lost causes as there was minimal spawning habitat in that area.
    On the north side of the river, extending downstream from the dam for about 100 feet was a concrete pier with a 4-foot high metal tube railing along its length. That’s where everybody fished. Parallel to the railing was a 20-foot high concrete wall that protruded, at a right angle, away from the dam. The distance between where the fishermen stood and the Wall was probably 60 feet—well within the casting range of the 2- and 3-ounce egg sinkers that were required to get down to the bottom. In fact, you actually had to be sure to feather your reel to keep from bouncing your lead off the Wall. The surface was so abrasive and the impact so hard that you often lost your whole rig if contact with the Wall was made.
   
Riverside Cesspool
The place was an absolute pit. It reeked of decaying salmon, urine, dried roe, more urine and, on the cold days, wet garbage being burned. The gravel behind the pad was disgusting…the dirtiest rocks you’d ever seen…and strewn everywhere were Bud cans, Miller Light cans, amazing wads of discarded line, a million cigarette butts, Hostess Donuts packages, Styrofoam nightcrawler cups and all sorts of other trash. And every day, you’d see somebody on their hands and knees in all that filth, sifting through the gravel for lost hooks, swivels or beads.
    Getting to this “Garden of Eden” was no picnic. You had to either park across the river at the hatchery and walk a good half-mile or come down Cardiac Hill, a nearly vertical goat trail from the upper parking lot on the north side. The only thing that kept you from tumbling down the 200-foot cliff was a chain link fence that ran along the path. You could slow your descent by grabbing fence, almost repelling yourself down. Coming back up with a limit of kings (at one point we could keep 5 a day) on a hot day, however, was how Cardiac Hill got its name.
    High up on the dam above the railing was a sign that read: Danger: Entering the water would result in CERTAIN death. I always found the fact that they felt compelled to write “certain” in all caps both amusing and slightly disconcerting. The river there, coming out of the bottom of the dam was indeed boily and didn’t look like a good place for a swim. Plus, there had to be miles of snagged lines down on the bottom. But lead poisoning is probably what would get ya in the end. There were so many lost egg sinkers on the bottom down there that I hooked an alarming number of them. When you consider the odds of that happening…often…it’s scary.
    Though it’s long since faded, “The Bunny Pond Kids,” was spray-painted on the dam, just above the area where the railing and dam came together. The “Kids” were a band of Wall regulars who had claimed that area, aka “The Corner,” as their own. There was a little pond of water that leaked out of the dam there and the Bunny Ponders would throw their fish in it. Theirs was the choice spot—the closer you could get to the dam the better, and the guy who’s left shoulder rubbed up against not another angler but the cold concrete of Nimbus Dam itself was said to have pole position.
   
The Characters
It was the people that made the Wall truly unique. You had the every day gang, which was mainly made up of guys who, I imagined, were hiding from the law, wives, the IRS and who knows what else. And some were clearly subsistence fishing as well. I remember guys like Randy, “The Grateful Dude” who was there every single day, eyes glazed over and a cloud of blue smoke perpetually billowing out of the hood of his sweatshirt. There was Joey, a Vietnam vet who had the colorful vocabulary of a sailor and who taught us kids the deplorable technique of “gut and release” on dark hens. Then there was The Preacher (a real one) and Uncle Rob, who was a kid’s guitar teacher by trade and found screaming at guys and dropping F-Bombs at the Wall therapeutic after having to hear butchered Beatles songs all day. Little Donnie was a half-pint of a guy who had to bring a milk crate to stand on so he could cast over the rail. And who could forget “Axe Handle,” the seemingly gentle giant who was rumored to have done time for murder.
    You also had kids like me and my pals who were in high school (if our parents knew who were hanging out with!) and a whole host of other “semi regulars” who’d come down a few times a week. Then there were the people who’d drive up from San Jose or Fresno or some other far-off town. Those guys were usually the ones who caused the most trouble as they weren’t well versed in the ebb and flow of fishing the Wall.
   
The Chaos
On the slow days, the Wall was a fairly mellow place. But when the kings were in, it was chaos. Guys would start lining up to get a good spot on the rail around midnight (or maybe they just never left). That was always a bit early for us, so my buddies and I would show up around 3:30 a.m., which usually got us a spot about midway up the railing. Not perfect, but close enough to the hot corner that we’d be able to hook up.
    It was always quiet there before legal fishing time, groups of anglers softly talking in the dark or sitting in the muck around stanky, smoldering fires. Then, as an hour before sunrise hit, everybody would spring to action. Camera flashes and flashlights would come out and light up glow Corkies and then the casts would rain down on the water by the hundreds. If it was going to be a good day, you’d immediately hear hook sets on either side…
    FEEWUUUSSSH!
    FAAAAAAAWISH!
    And then somebody out in the dark would call “fish on” and somewhere downstream you’d hear a splash. Another shout and another leaping salmon; a hundred guys casting into a tight space in the dark. Crazy. As the sun came up, the scene was unbelievable.
    A small army of fishermen squished together in an area I wouldn’t want to share with two other anglers these days; hooks flying, fish jumping, fishermen running up and down the railing following fish, salmon flopping on the bank, nets dipping, wild haymaker hook sets all up and down the rail, lines going everywhere. Shouting…there was lots of shouting (since this is a family publication, I’ve edited out about two thirds of the words normally used at the Wall).
    Fish on…out in the boil! Legal Beagle here boys, get your lines outta my way! Fish on…coming down! Hey dude, I’ve got a fish on here…don’t cast across my line. You’re on my fish, man…give me some slack. I need a net here…anybody got a net? That’s not a fish, buddy, you’ve got the cable! Hey you freaking corner casters, throw straight out! Cast across me again and I’m coming down there! Fish on…right out front!
    I once even had a dude standing next to me with a fish on who yelled at me:
    “You cut my line, I cut your throat”
    And so it would go, day in and day out.
   
Time to Move On
With my trusty Lamiglas spinning rod that I fished (unknowingly) upside down and my tiny plastic Ryobi levelwind that couldn’t have held more than 85 yards of line, I hooked more salmon that I can count during my tenure at the Wall. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Some days those fish were so packed in there that I bet we hooked 30+ each. Over the years, I schlepped a lot of darkies up that hill, but there were some chrome dandies as well. For several years, I visited the place during salmon season at least two times a week.
    But then one day it hit me…those Wall salmon were not actually eating my beads. It was just a flossing show and all I was doing was force-feeding them. It was kind of a watershed moment for me, a day I grew as an angler. I decided that I’d rather go downstream somewhere, be by myself and toss spinners and catch fewer fish than to stand up with the masses and line 20 kings. I was just a personal decision—some of my friends couldn’t give up the adrenalin rush of the Wall and kept fishing it for years thereafter. But, I left the Wall for good.
    Over 20 years has past since those Wall days. I have zero interest now in fishing in a shoulder-to-shoulder lineup, but whenever I drive over the Hazel Ave. Bridge and look upstream towards the Wall, I still think back to all the good times up there…and somewhere, deep down kinda miss all the craziness of it. 

The Ultimate Steelhead Bait

If I were designing the ultimate steelhead offering it would be as effective as eggs but without the mess—and more easily obtained. It would be versatile enough to use under floats or on drift gear, and I could fish it from shore or a boat. My ultimate steelie getter would work well when things are low and clear—but also when the river’s up with some color. In a perfect world I’d also like it to be smolt-resistant and, in light of economic times, it wouldn’t hurt if it were inexpensive as well.
    Sounds a bit like a pipe dream, I know, but such offerings actually already exist: Yarn Balls. In fact, yarn balls or “yarnies” may just be the world’s most perfect steelhead bait. Let’s take a look at what makes these things so sweet…
   
Deadly
First, a quick description is in order here. I’m talking about yarn balls (very similar to Glo Bugs) tied in roughly the size of a quarter. Of course the big question is do yarnies work and how well, right? Well, a lot of the top guides I know up and down the West Coast are turning to them more and more each day. I’m talking big names in the industry who are now staking their reputations and businesses on yarn.
    It sounds strange, but it’s not uncommon for yarnies to out-fish roe. I think that’s partially due to the fact that yarnies have a little more profile and are thus more visible to the fish, but they also drift very naturally and look really cool in the water. It may also boil down to the fact that you aren’t wasting time re-baiting and, over the course of a long day, you’re going to get a lot more fishing time in while using yarn balls.
    Plus, think about how nice it is not to have everything in your boat stained pink at the end of the day—not to mention being able to avoid the dreaded dried and cracked hand syndrome from touching borax. Yarnies are also cool because trout, smolts and squawfish can’t suck them off your hook. If you stumble into a smolt invasion, you know that you’ve still got a fully “armed” offering out in the water even if you’re getting peck-peck-pecked like crazy.
   
Scent
While yarn balls are super effective fished “naked,” you can also easily doctor them up with scent. Yarn holds stinky stuff pretty well and the sky’s the limit on what flavor you add. A super simple way to go is to pour some Pautzke’s Nectar (it’s the juice from their egg-curing process) into a small Tupperware container and simply marinate your yarnies in there. Or, take a couple chunks of roe and mush them up into a similar container and allow your yarn to soak up the scent.
   
Multi-talented
Pick your poison: Side-drifting, float-fishing, drift gear from the bank—you can do it all with yarnies. For standard drift fishing and side-drifting, simply place a yarnie into your egg loop and start fishing. Normally, I don’t use any extra floatation but if you feel like you’re getting hung up too much, simply slide a small foam Fish Pill onto your hook to give the bait a little extra buoyancy.
    For float-fishing, I’ll rig up just as I would if I were using eggs and will typically add a small 1/8- to 1/16-ounce slip weight (they look like Corkies but are made from lead) onto the leader, right on top of the hook eye.

Cheap & Easy
You can tie up a big batch of yarnies for next to nothing. The materials are super inexpensive: all you need is some yarn (the best I’ve found by far is the UV yarn from Steelhead Stalkers, www.steelheadstalkers.com), some stretchy thread like Miracle Thread or Ghost Cocoon and a super-sharp set of fly-tying scissors. Rather than trying to talk you through how to tie yarn balls, simply Google it and you’ll find all sorts of helpful videos. Additionally, you can hit my website: www.fishwithjd.com and type “Poor Man’s Glo Bug” into the search field for a super easy, step-by-step method.
    You can tie them “Glo Bug style” permanently onto a hook, but I prefer to just make up a bunch of balls without hooks. Then, it’s a cinch to slip a yarnie into an egg loop—that way I can change colors really quickly as necessary.
    Bottom line: Yarnies are incredibly easy to tie up and with a little practice, you’ll turn into a yarn-ball-making machine in no time! Which brings me to yet another attractive attribute of these baits—since they weigh so little and compress down well, you could literally carry enough of them for an entire season in your back pocket and not even notice they were there.
   
Sizes and Colors
In most conditions, I’ll run a yarnie that’s roughly the size of a quarter. As the water drops out, I may scale the size down a little. In high, off-colored flows or super low, cold and clear water, I will bump the size up a bit.
    Generally, I like a combo of pink with a little orange and some white mixed in. I think the white is really crucial as it gives the bait that natural translucent look. As the color drops out, stick more to the light pink side of things and go with more fluorescent orange, pink and even some chartreuse when you’ve got limited visibility.
   
Give ‘em a Try
I’m sure you’ll quickly become a yarnie aficionado if you give them a good try this winter. I mean, really, what’s not to love about ‘em?
    For more tricks, tips, video & more, check out www.fishwithjd.com.?

Short-Stick Side-Drifting

For me, one of the most interesting aspects of getting to fish with folks all up and down the West Coast, B.C. and Alaska is getting to see, first-hand, the regional differences in ways people pursue fish.
      Basically, a salmon’s a salmon and a steelie’s a steelie, but there sure are a bunch of different ways to skin a cat depending on where you are. For example, it would be fun to put a bunch of steelheaders from different areas on a given stream and see how they fish. A guy from British Columbia may opt for a pink worm under a dink float, while a Washington angler might instead go with sand shrimp behind a diver. A Northern California steelheader would probably try drifting a tiny cluster of natural eggs with a Slinky and a Fish Pill and a Great Lakes fisher might use a spawn bag or waxie under a tiny float.
      And the coolest thing is, they’d probably all catch fish. That’s why it’s a great experience to try fishing away from home from time to time—there’s a lot you can learn. To that end, I figured I’d give you perhaps a little something new to consider from the Nor Cal perspective: Short-Stick Side-Drifting.

The Long and Short of It
      On the many occasions I’ve gone side-drifting for steelhead in Oregon and Washington, I’ve noticed that light, long spinning rods are the thing up there. Common side-drifters are 9 1/2 to 10 feet in length and are typically rated for 4- to 8-pound or 6- to 12-pound line and generally feature slow, parabolic actions.
      There are many tangible reasons to go with the long rods. The extra length means you can cast a mile with light sinkers. The slow action is extremely useful when you’ve got a fish on, as a nice long bend will keep the tension on the fish. A soft rod also helps protect light leaders from break-offs when a fish gets wild. And man do they transmit a bite! I can see a guy get bit three boats away with these things. I’ve always enjoyed using long rods for side-drifting up north, but you can also make a case for the shorter “California style” sticks. Of course, there’s no real right or wrong way to do it, but it is fun to take a different look at things…

The Basics
Golden State side-drifters usually go with rods that are in the 8-foot range, give or take a few inches. These rods usually have line ratings in the 8- to 12-pound or 8- to 15-pound range with reasonably soft tip sections but pretty good backbone throughout the lower two-thirds of the length.

Attractive Attributes
      There are several reasons I tend to err on the side of shorter sticks for drifting in most cases. First of all, I often fish water loaded with big, grabby rocks and boulders. When your sinker is bouncing along that type of bottom, the firmer tip of one of these shorter rods helps to keep your gear from sinking down into the crevices between rocks. With a long, limber rod you’re going to get hung up much more often. Now, on smooth cobble bottoms, it’s no biggie, but in rocky creeks, I’m doing anything I can to minimize snags.
      Shorter sticks are also a lot more user-friendly and manageable in a boat. From storage to re-baiting to casting, it’s simply easier to handle a rod that’s not super long. I’ve run guide trips out of the power boat with four guys using the long models and have had a few dudes that have…well…let’s just say not the best “rod awareness” and tangles and hooked hats, etc. can be pretty common.
      Speaking of casting, your distance may be compromised a tad with a shorter rod when using light sinkers but you’re going to have much better power to toss heavier stuff like Magnum Slinkies, pencil lead and Sploosh Balls. Plus, it’s a heck of a lot easier to deliver precision casts under overhanging willows without so much length to deal with.
      When you get bit using an 8-footer, you don’t have as much time to mess around as you would with a longer, softer version. A fish will feel your resistance more quickly and you’re going to have to set the hook pretty much immediately—while you can let them gobble the bait for an eternity on a noodle rod. The upside to the length-challenged rod is that you’re likely to get a more positive hookset because of the greater power built into the blank.
      As the guy in the rower’s seat most days in the drift boat, I also appreciate a shorter rod from a viewing standpoint. As we’re drifting along, I don’t have to crane my neck quite so much to keep an eye on the tips—which also allows me to watch rods and see where I’m going at the same time. It may not seem like much, but at the end of a long day, the less cocked your neck is, the better.
      Well anyway, that’s just kind of a look into a different way of doing things. As I noted earlier, there are many ways to look at techniques like side-drifting and all can be quite different—and equally effective at the same time. Give short-stick side-drifting a try sometime and see if you like it.

New Models
      I recently worked with the fine folks at Lamiglas to design some short drift rods to add to their Certified Pro collection and they came out sweet! For rivers that feature smaller steelhead or big trout, check out the X82MS, which is an 8-foot, 2-inch, 1-piece spinning rod that features fast action and medium power. It’s rated for 6- to 12-pound test and can handle weights up to 5/8 of an ounce. Incidentally, I’ve also had a blast with this thing tossing grubs into the surf for perch, but that’s a story for another time.
      For larger steelies and salmon, try the 7’11” X711MTS, which is a nimble but powerful stick that’s rated for 8- to 12-pound line and weights up to 3/4 ounces.

For more tips, techniques, videos, fishing reports and more, check out my website: www.fishwithjd.com

Plan Now For an Affordable Saltwater Dream Trip Next Summer

As winter draws closer, it’s time to start planning for that dream saltwater fishing trip to Alaska or British Columbia next summer. I know, lots of folks have been putting off fishing excursions to the north due to finances lately, but there is a way that you can do it without dumping a bunch of cash: Go unguided.
   
    Self-Guided
    Many saltwater lodges up and down the British Columbia and Alaska coasts offer self-guided, do-it-yourself packages that typically include food, gear, lodging, boat and fuel. These are typically quite a bit less expensive than the full-service packages and, for anglers who already know a little something about saltwater fishing and perhaps own boats back home, this is a great option.
    Without having to pay for a guide, you’re going to save probably $100 to $200 a day (or more). The fact you’re paying less, however, doesn’t mean you’ll get less service. Most lodges that offer self-guided packages have staff on hand specifically to assist the do-it-yourselfers. They’ll go over gear, techniques and fishing locations in detail and show you everything you need to be safe and successful. In many cases, your boat will be cleaned and restocked with bait and fuel for you for the next day of fishing. Your catch will also be cleaned and processed as it would be if you were fishing on a guide boat.
   
    Freedom
    On a guided lodge boat, you’ll often have to share space with other anglers and make decisions on what to fish for as a group. When you’re at the helm of your own vessel, however, you call the shots. Maybe you’d like to fish lings when the entire guided fleet is chasing kings. No problem. Or perhaps, you’d rather mooch when everybody else is trolling. Go ahead—it’s your boat.
    Another aspect of going the self-guided route that’s a lot of fun is plotting your game plan the night before. I love pouring over charts of the area, looking for cool nooks and crannies to check out. One year, we were fishing an area in Southeast Alaska that was filthy with halibut. We figured there should be a bunch of rockfish and lings around as well, but we weren’t able to find them. So, one evening we took a closer look at the chart of the area we’d been fishing and found that it was flat and sandy for miles in all directions. A big rock pile to the north, however, looked extremely promising and the next day we made a beeline for it. When we got on top of the reef, it was difficult to get our jigs to the bottom through the prolific schools of rockfish.
   
    Convenience
    Running your own boat is also handy when somebody gets seasick. I once did a trip with my uncle off the B.C. coast in the late fall for silvers and the weather kicked up pretty good on us. When we caught a glimpse of the 8- to 10-foot swells, we instantly made a pact that if either one of us started feeling woozy, we’d head for calmer waters, no questions asked. If you get sick on a guide boat, you’re probably going to be stuck being miserable for the day.
    Of course, when the need to heed the call of nature arises, you also can make a run back to the lodge facilities—or you can dash back in for a quick lunch break or to retrieve a forgotten piece of gear without cutting into other anglers’ fishing time.

    Get Some Information First
    Before putting down a deposit on a self-guided package, ask the lodge personnel a few basic questions. Make sure that fuel is part of the deal and not an additional cost. Check into how many hours a day you’ll be allowed to fish. Will you have to return to base for lunch or are sack lunches provided? Do the boats have fish finders? GPS? Downriggers?
    Also inquire about peak fishing seasons. Let them know what type of fishing you’re most interested in and have them suggest some dates that would put you in the heat of the action. In addition to your target species, find out what else is available when you’re planning to take your trip. Say, for example, you want to go catch kings. You get up there and the king fishing, for some reason, is tough. Will there be any silvers around to chase instead? How about halibut or lings? Do they have any freshwater stuff you can do? Even in world-class fishing destinations, the action isn’t guaranteed, so it’s a good idea to see what Plan B looks like.
    One other thing to ask about is weather. Bad weather is always a possibility in that part of the world. What happens if the ocean kicks up and you can’t get out to the main fishing grounds? Find out how many days a year the lodge boats get grounded by weather and if there are any protected spots nearby where you’ll still be able to fish.
    Every little bit of extra information gleaned will help you make the most informed decision on which outfit to visit. There are too many outfitters and lodges in B.C. and Alaska that offer self-guided fishing trips to mention here, but the following list should get you started. Once you decide on a destination, plan on having a ball. Skippering your own vessel gives you carte blanche and opens up a whole new world of adventure.
   
    Gearing Up
    Check with the lodge about tackle before you go—with few exceptions, they’ll have everything you need. However, if you’re a gear junky like me, half the fun of such a trip is using your own stuff.
    What to bring depends on what time of year you’re going on your trip. Early in the season, when the kings are in, you’ll want a solid mooching stick in the 9- to 12-foot class that can handle 1 to 6 ounces of lead. You can back away from the beef if you’re chasing silvers and go with a rod in the same length that’s rated in the 8- to 17-pound line range. On both rods, a quality level-wind reel with a strong drag is a must.
    For halibut jigging, you’ll need a stout stick capable of handling leads up to 16 ounces and fish the size of Fiats. And a high-quality conventional reel such as the Calcutta CTE 700 or Avet’s MXJ two-speed is a must. Because of its durability and lack of stretch, braided line is absolutely mandatory for deep jigging with heavy lures. Go with 80-pound braid and at least 60-pound heavy-duty mono leader.
    You don’t need anything fancy for rockfishing. A medium-heavy bass rod and a conventional reel spooled with 30-pound braided line will work great and will also double as a jigging outfit for coho.
   
    Terminal Tackle
    Basic terminal gear, like mooching leaders, banana sinkers and bait hooks for halibut, is usually supplied by the lodge, so don’t worry too much about hauling that kind of stuff with you. For fun, you may want to toss a couple of your favorite trolling spoons or plugs into your luggage along with a few rotator heads like Rotary Salmon Killers or Krippled Anchovies and a handful of 1- to 4-ounce chrome or white jigging spoons. It’s also not a bad idea to always have a rod rigged up with a 1- to 2-ounce silver Kastmasters just in case a school of marauding silvers starts rolling near the boat.
    For big lings and halibut, leadhead jigs in the 10- to 16-ounce range are nice to have but they’re a pain to schlep around in your suitcase. If you do go for it, don’t forget the jumbo curly-tailed grubs in root beer, white and purple patterns and big 6- to 9-inch swimbaits.
    Rockfish will eat a wide array of small Scampis and jigging spoons, so take along an assortment of those as well. Jigs up to about 4 ounces should cover most situations you’ll encounter. Just remember that with rockfish you don’t want to fish deeper than about 30 feet if you plan on releasing the fish as they often contract the bends when cranked up from deep water.
   
    Where to Find Self-Guided Packages
    Flip through the ads in this fine publication for some ideas on where to go. The internet, of course, is another great resource. Here are a few that I’ve personally been to…
    • Whaler’s Cove Lodge, Angoon, AK (whalerscovelodge.com)
    • South Passage Outfitters, Icy Straits, AK (www.icystrait.com)
    • St. John’s Fishing Lodge, Caamano & Milbanke Sounds, B.C. (www.stjohnsfishinglodge.com)
   
    For more tips, tricks, videos & more, check out www.fishwithjd.com.

Hybrid Flat-lining for Kings

Okay…fall’s here and that means it’s time to get out on the water and start pulling plugs for kings! If I could, I’d flat-line a Kwikfish or Flatfish every day of the week. I love the simplicity and presentation of this method…and the grab is one of the best in fishing…but there are times when the conditions aren’t super conducive to traditional flat-lining—but not quite right for back-bouncing either. For those in-between times, hybrid backtrolling is the answer!

In a perfect world, every river would be like Alaska’s Nushagak: smooth pea-gravel bottom, consistent current and 6 to 12 feet deep. In other words: ideal flat-line water. But, the reality is you don’t always get it set up on a tee like that. Many of the rivers I fish, for example, feature conditions that make flat-lining a pain: deep, slow pools with extremely clear water and uneven bottoms. The water’s too slow to get a flat-lined plug down deep enough and you can’t get one back far enough away from the boat if you try to bounce lead. Unless you’re fishing a glacial stream with plenty of color to it, slow and deep is the plugger’s worst nightmare! To get your offering into “The Zone,” you have to add some weight—but again, not so much that the plug gets anchored to the bottom.

 Borrowing from the Side-drift Box

When confronted with this situation, I’ll borrow a couple different weighting systems from my steelhead boxes—Slinkies and Sploosh Balls (Plunk-N-Dunks). These guys have just enough density to get down without acting like anchors. With a mixed bag of these two types of sinkers, I can get my plugs where I need them in just about any water.

But let’s back up here a bit and take a look at rigging for this method first.

To rig up, I’ll slide a plastic quick-change clevis up my mainline (30-pound braid) and then I tie it off to a size-6 SPRO barrel swivel (small, but 80-pound breaking strength). It’s not a bad idea to also add a small plastic bumper bead between the swivel and clevis. To the other end of the barrel swivel goes my leader. Generally, I run a 4- to 5-foot section of 25- to 30-pound fluorocarbon, but it of course depends on the water you’re fishing and the size of the fish.

Next, I’ll tie up several 12-inch to 3-foot sections of 12-pound mono, each with a snap on one end and a loop on the other. These are the weight droppers. Snap your sinker on one end and then slip the loop onto the clevis and you’re in business. I’ll use the shorter droppers in faster water and the longer ones in the really slow and deep stuff. The whole point of this rig is so that you can easily change dropper lengths and also take them off when you don’t need them. When you come to those spots where extra weight isn’t necessary, you can keep your rig nice and clean by removing the droppers—which, if left on, don’t affect the plug’s action but can get tangled in other lines, the net, etc.

Sinkers

Slinkies are the mainstay of my modified flat-lining sinker arsenal. They’re dense enough to get down but slide easily along the bottom without hanging up too often. Where you fish and what size lure you’re using will dictate how much lead to use, but I can get away with running sinkers made from .210 shot in 3- to 8-ball lengths just about everywhere I fish.

Sploosh Balls are my secret weapon in the really deep and froggy pools. If you’re unfamiliar with Plunk-N-Dunks, they’re rubber ball-shaped sinkers (kinda like Bouncing Bettys) used for side-drifting. For the water you just can’t get a plug down into, they work wonders. In those super deep, slow holes where you see fish rolling but can’t get a flat-lined or back-bounced plug to work, try throwing on a 3-foot dropper with a 1/2- to 3/4-ounce Plunk-N-Dunk attached and go with a big lure like a K16 Kwikfish or T-55 FlatFish. The weight of the sinker will take the lure down, and the wide profile of the weight (and lure) will catch the current, which will pull your gear downstream.

It sometimes takes awhile to get your lures where you want them, and since you won’t be able to feel the bottom, it’s a bit of a guessing game as to how much line to let out. The line angle as it enters the water will tell you everything you need to know. Once the lures are down deep and working (you’ll probably only get a faint pumping on the rod tip), slowly slip downstream with the boat. At this point, it’s almost like fishing with a plug-and-diver rig—your gear will be down near, but not glued to, the bottom. Oddly enough, a lot of the grabs you’ll get fishing this way will be incredibly violent, rip-the-rod-out-of-your-hands type of affairs, so hang on!

 Technique

In some spots, all you have to do is let the lures drift back behind the boat as you would with traditional flat-lining. Once they’re back the desired distance (usually 40 to 70 feet), click the reels in gear and put the rods in the holders. Other areas require a bit more work. In certain holes where I know the fish like to sit on the break or perhaps tight to the backside of the slope, I’ll let the plugs out slowly, maybe 10 feet at time, for the first 20 feet and then go the rest of the way back in freespool, with my thumb allowing the line to slip steadily off at a rate of about a foot every couple seconds.

As with any plug-fishing, be prepared to really let the fish chew on the lure before setting the hook. If you’ve got an itchy trigger finger or perhaps some newbies on the boat, the best bet is to get the lines fishing and then put the rods in the holders.

For more tips, tricks, videos & more, check out www.fishwithjd.com

Finally: A Salmon Season in the Sacramento Valley

After three long years, anglers this summer and fall will have a chance to get back out onto the rivers of California’s Central Valley and pursue chinook salmon. An epic crash of the species in recent years prompted the closure of both fresh- and salt water fishing in the Golden State (and salt water in Southern Oregon) for the past two seasons.

As recently as 2002, the Central Valley was home to some of the largest chinook runs on the West Coast. That season, nearly 800,000 kings made their way up the Sacramento River and her tribs! In 2009, things had fallen completely off the map and the runs hit an all-time low of 35,000 fish.

The cause of the collapse has been well documented but the basic gist of it looks like this: Record-setting water exports to Southern California and extremely poor ocean conditions (warm water and no food) combined to make a perfect storm of salmon destruction. Of course, you can also throw pollution, too much ammonia from wastewater in the estuary, agriculture and urban run-off, poor water-management practices, etc. into the mix as well.

After the fishery went into freefall in 2006-2007, fishery managers had to act to try to preserve what remaining fish there were and opted for the sweeping fishing closures that began in fall of 2008. For the first time in history, ocean sport, commercial and in-river salmon anglers had to sit on the sidelines.

Of course, the closures cut deep and hurt a lot of people. The sport guys lost their favorite fish; the commercial, charter and guide fleets lost their livelihoods…as did all the support industries like boat dealers, tackle shops, motels, restaurants, gas stations, etc. In short, it’s been a big, fat mess in California in recent years.

But there should be some relief on the way…

Open ‘er Back Up!

In May, the California Fish & Game Commission adopted regulatory language that allows for a (albeit limited) season in 2010 on the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers. Earlier in the year, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council opened up a fairly liberal ocean chinook season for sport anglers off the California Coast and also allocated 8,200 fish to the inland fishery.

All of this was made possible by favorable ocean salmon abundance estimates, based largely on increased jack counts in Valley rivers in 2009. Interestingly enough, these fisheries were opened despite the fact that the fall adult counts hit an all-time low last year. But hey, let’s focus on the good stuff here and not get involved in playing armchair biologist.

And that leads us to the fishing part…

Return to the Rivers,

So as I mentioned earlier, Northern California salmon anglers are going to be able to get back out on the rivers this season. Here’s a quick glance at what the seasons are going to look like and how things may play out:

Feather River

The Feather River, which is a major tributary to the Sacramento, will be the first stream to open this season. The mayhem kicks off July 31 and will last through Aug. 29, during which time anglers will be allowed 2 kings per day. The open stretch of river extends from 1,000 feet below the Thermalito Afterbay Outfall near Oroville, downstream to the mouth at Verona—a distance of approximately 30-plus miles.

Most of the fishing pressure will likely be concentrated around the mouth, Shanghai Falls and the Oroville Wildlife Area—and there will be a ton of it. In fact, I’m thinking of staying home on the opener because it’s going to be an absolute zoo of bankies and boaters. Historically, the infamous Afterbay Outlet Hole held more salmon than all the other holes in the river combined, so with that closed, anglers are going to have to search around a little more to find concentrations of fish.

The timing of the season should put anglers here in line to pick off some older springers, along with the leading edge of the fall run. Back-bouncing Kwikfish or eggs will be the ticket for boaters, while bankies can toss No. 5 Blue Fox spinners in the early mornings and then drift eggs later on. 

Sacramento River

The Sac this year has been divided up into upper and lower sections, each with its own seasons. On Sept. 4, anglers will be able to hop over from the Feather to the lower end of the Sacramento—in this case, the stretch from the Highway 113 bridge near Knights Landing downstream to the Carquinez Bridge. A two-fish limit is in play here all the way through Oct. 3, which is the final day of the season.

There’s lots and lots of water to spread guys out in that portion of the river and there should be plenty of fish moving through at that time. The problem is the Sac often runs miserably hot in September and water temperatures are often over 70 degrees, which can make the bite tough. So, pray for a mild summer and cooler water temps and we should be in business!

In that portion of the river, trolling or fishing on anchor is popular. Locally-made Silvertron Spinners are a favorite, as are sardine-wrapped Kwikfish and FlatFish.

The upper section of the river that will be open to salmon fishing extends from 150 feet below lower Red Bluff (Sycamore) Boat Ramp down to Highway 113 bridge. Salmon will be legal targets in that reach from Oct. 9 through Dec. 12.

The water’s cooler in that stretch of river—especially as we get deeper into the fall—and this area could yield some nice catches for boaters boondogging or back-bouncing eggs and pulling Kwikfish. There’s not a ton of bank access in that area, but there are a few places you can get out and drift bait or chuck hardware. In both areas, you can keep two kings a day.

American River

Flowing right through the heart of the Capital City, the American River is the first major tributary chinook come to as they head up the Sac. This season it will be open to salmon fishing Oct. 30 through Nov. 28 from the SMUD power-line crossing at the southwest boundary of Ancil Hoffman Park downstream to the mouth.

That will give anglers who like to troll the lower end of the river around the Dredger Holes a good shot at intercepting fall kings. Drift boaters and bankies fishing near the upper limit should also be able to hook fish on plugs, spinners and roe at River Bend Park, Gristmill and Howe Ave. Not too many years ago, I would have given ya pretty slim odds of catching a fish in that stretch in November, but the runs here have gotten later and later and that actually puts you on the water when some fish should be around. The downside is the upper Sunrise Flats and Sailor Bar—where most of the fish hang—will be closed this year. As with the other rivers, the limit here is two salmon per day.

Good Luck!

I really took the salad days in the Central Valley for granted and I guarantee you I’m going to appreciate every fall chinook I lay my eyes on this year. It’s going to be crowded out there…but I’m hoping that these years of closures may have brought us all a little closer together and that we will be a little more patient and courteous to one another out on the water.

Good luck and see you out there!

Feed Summer Trout the "Meat Rig"

Summer's here and one of the truly great ways to spend a weekend this time of year is to head for the high country and do a little trout trolling. There's just something so cool about being on a high-mountain lake at dawn, watching the sun come up over the peaks—the Sierras, Cascades or Olympics—wherever you are. Then you throw in the prospect for some really good trout fishing and, well, all kinda seems right with the world for awhile.

But you've got to have an edge.
Obviously, summer is the peak time for angler traffic on higher-elevation lakes, so the fish are going to be seeing a lot of stuff go by. Additionally, warming water temperatures and intense sunlight can also make the bite tougher. To constantly be successful, you're going to need a little something up your sleeve—a little trick that nobody else is using. Luckily, I've got just what the doctor ordered: The Meat Rig!
I'll bust out the Meat Rig, which is basically a live (or at least fresh) minnow rigged for trolling, when the chips are down and fishing is a little tougher, and it rarely (if ever) disappoints. Using real minnows really makes sense when you consider the fact that the most popular trout trolling lures like spoons, spinners and plugs all try to imitate some sort of baitfish. Why not give the fish the real thing?
There's a bunch of different ways to rig up a minnow for trout fishing. Here's a super-easy and extremely effective method to get you started:

Meat Rig

Before we get too far along here, be sure to check the regulations governing the lake you plan to fish. On some lakes, live bait is prohibited, while on others you can only use minnows that are native to the lake.
For this article's sake, let's assume it's legal to fish with the standard variety of minnow you can get at most bait shops. For a full day of fishing for two people, I normally buy at least three-dozen baits. As with any kind of fishing, the more often you change out your baits, the better your results will be. I generally use medium-sized minnows on most waters, unless there are browns, landlocked kings, macks or super grande cutts or bows around. In that case, I will often bump up to large or even jumbo minnows.
Anyway, this rig requires a large sewing needle (approximately three inches long), a treble hook, a snap swivel, some fluorocarbon leader material...and of course, a minnow. Depending on the size of your bait, you'll need treble hooks (Owner has some very nice thin-wire models) in sizes 2-8.
Prior to fishing, I'll pre-tie a bunch of leaders. To one end goes the treble and then I'll tie a loop knot in the other end. The length of your leader kinda depends on the situation, but I generally keep them short (10-16 inches) if I'm running my baits behind a dodger and a bit longer (18 to 36 inches) when using flashers or running the bait “naked” without any attractor blades.
To rig your bait, start by inserting the point of the needle into its side, right along the lateral line and just aft of the dorsal fin. Push the point right along the minnow's backbone until it just starts to come out the fish's mouth (I guess I'm a bit of a softy because I knock the fish out with a flick to the head before I impale it alive!).
At this point, run the loop in the leader through the eye of the needle. Now, continue running the needle (and the line) through the fish so it completely passes out through its mouth. Bingo! You've got a threaded minnow. Slide the bait down the leader until it rests against the treble hook and you're in business. Tie a snap swivel to the end of your main line and attach the leader's loop to it or clip the leader into the snap on your attractor blades.
Before you start fishing, watch the bait in the water at trolling speed next to the boat to see how it runs. You want a nice, slow roll with an occasional jerk to one side or the other. If the minnow has a quick, tight rolling action, reel back in and adjust the hook position. Often, you just need to slide the eye of the treble a little deeper into the needle hole in the minnow's side to get the right action.
When the trout are finicky, this rig is deadly! The scent of the bait, along with its hypnotic roll are often too much to resist.

Taking it to the Next Level

While the basic Meat Rig works wonders, there are ways you can make it even more deadly. As with river and ocean salmon fishing, brining your baits can kick your success rate up a notch or two. You can go with a standard brine of rock salt, anise, and a few drops of Mrs. Stewart's Bluing or try a commercially produced product like Pro Cure's Brine & Bite. Toss your minnows into the brine the night before and you'll have some super sharp looking baits the next morning!
This, of course, leads me to the subject of scents. By injecting or slathering your bait with scent, you increase your bite potential. There are a million choices out there and I generally go with a scent that I feel the fish will find familiar. In other words, if there are threadfin shad in the lake I'm fishing, I'll go with a shad scent. Know that the fish key in on crawdads? Go with a crawfish scent…and so on. I will say, however, that there are some strange instances when something totally out of the ordinary will work—like garlic or sardine.
Dying your baits can also make a big difference. In a couple of the lakes I fish, for example, some extra red coloration seems to really make the fish bite for some reason. To get your bait to turn colors, soak them in stuff like Bad Azz Bait Dye or Pautzke's Nectar.
Try fishing the Meat Rig on your favorite lake this summer. I guarantee you'll see some pretty spectacular results!