Articles & Tips
Good Fishermen Abound On The Clackamas River
By Hellcat, January 28th, 2007
Near Carver, Oregon
I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT THERE ARE SOME FANTASTIC
PEOPLE OUT THERE FISHING OUR NORTHWEST RIVERS AND STREAMS. IT
TAKES A DAY LIKE TODAY TO BE REMINDED OF HOW GENEROUS AND GOOD
NATURED, FISHERMEN REALLY ARE.
POPS AND I PULLED THE DIAMOND BACK OUT ON THE RIVER ONLY TO REALIZE
THAT WE DIDN'T HAVE OUR PHONE. THIS CREATED A PROBLEM FOR BOTH OUR
SHUTTLE SITUATION AND THE GENERAL NEED TO KNOW THE TIME WHEN YOU
ARE DRIFTING DOWN A RIVER.
SO, STUCK WITHOUT A PHONE OR A WATCH, WE DID OUR BEST TO DO THE
FLOAT IN THE TIME REQUIRED FOR OUR PICKUP. WE FIGURED WE WOULD JUST
YELL AND ASK OTHER FISHERMEN AS WE DRIFT PAST MANY ANGLERS TRYING
TO QUENCH THEIR STEELHEAD THIRST AS WELL.
IN BETWEEN YELLING OVER AT SOMEONE FOR THE TIME AND TRYING TO
POSITION THE BOAT FOR POPS TO SWING HIS DINK FLOAT THROUGH SOME
CHOPPY, POCKET WATER, SOMEHOW OR ANOTHER, IT WAS ABOUT THERE THAT
I LOST MY 9.5FOOT LAMMY CERT PRO DRIFTER AND BRAND NEW HIGH SPEED
CURADO OUT OF THE BACK OF THE BOAT.
OF COURSE IT WASN'T UNTIL DOWN RIVER THAT I NOTICED, AS I WAS
REACHING OVER FOR MY ROD TO FLIP OUT MY LITTLE PINK MARABOU JIG AS
WE PASSED OVER SOME BIG BOULDERS.
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY RESIGNED TO THE FACT THAT I WAS OUT 500 BUCKS,
PROBABLY WITHOUT A FISH (GIN CLEAR WATER ALL DAY AND NO FISH SEEN
HOOKED) I BEGAN TO ROW DOWN STREAM. POPS, THINKING RATIONALLY,
SUGGESTED I SLOW DOWN, ASK A SLED FISHERMAN FOR A RIDE BACK UP RIVER
TO LOOK FOR IT. THIS AFTER POPS HAD TRIED TO BRAVE THE BRIAR PATCHES
ON HIS OWN TO VERY LITTLE AVAIL.
ENTER MARK AND HIS FAMILY. I DO NO KNOW HIS LAST NAME, NOR DID I FIND
OUT WHAT HE DOES FOR A LIVING.
I DON'T KNOW WHERE HE LIVES OR
WHETHER THE TWO KIDS IN THE BOAT WERE THE ONLY KIDS HE HAS.
WHAT I DO KNOW IS MARK SAVED MY STEELHEAD SEASON BY OFFERING ME A
RIDE UP RIVER TO THE AREA THAT I FIGURED I MIGHT HAVE BEEN SHALLOW
ENOUGH TO BUMP MY ROD OFF THE SIDE.
WHAT I ALSO KNOW IS THAT MARK AND HIS FAMILY ARE GOOD LUCK TO TEAM
SALMON!
I KNOW THAT WITHOUT THE HELP OF MARK AND HIS JET SLED, I WOULD
PROBABYLY NOT HAVE FOUND MY VERY SPECIAL DRIFT ROD THAT WAS A GIFT
FROM BENT METAL AND IS VERY SPECIAL TO ME.
I GAVE MARK AN ALLAROUNDANGLER.COM BUSINESS CARD AND ASKED HIM TO
JOIN OUR FORUM. WE WILL SEE. I HOPE HE DOES SO I CAN THANK HIM AGAIN
IN THE FUTURE FOR ALL OF HIS HELP.
THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, MARK!
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H3LLCAT
Winter Steelhead Angling Requires Creativity, Some Cliche
By Hellcat
These past few months have been a killer on us river fishermen. We've seen
just about every type of river condition possible, at one point or another. The trips have
been frequent, lots of water has been fished and there have been quite a few successes.
You'll notice throughout the site, pictures from recent trips. It's plain to see we were
blessed with our results as mostly everyone put some nice chrome to the bank or boat-
side.
I've notice the guys in the crew who do the best, consistently, are guys that switch stuff up
all the time. These changes can be minor or major, to be effective. It just depends on all
the variables we might have to deal with.
The most effective fishermen I have fished with from Alaska to Oregon these past recent
seasons never stopped reading the water.
I have found through trying this myself recently, new perspectives on old water can
become a valuable tool we might not have had before, if we had just fished it the same 'ol
way.
Creativity, never stopping reading the water and a couple of hiking legs under ya and
that's about all you'll need to try something creative and new that yields you success.
Try This: Whether your 'cliche alarm' goes off on this or not, it plain old works. It's
the plastic under the corked float rig. That is right my friends. For two seasons now, after
deciding to get creative, we've been fishing fresh and salt water plastics under cork floats
while coveting our wily metal-headed prey! All jokes aside, it works very well in a
variety of different depths, unlike roe, shrimp or jigs that can't be fished as well shallow.
What to do to try this? Just rig up a steelhead bobber rig, with whatever rigging you
might prefer. Those of you reading that we are about to loose right here, please see me
after the show. Seriously though, any kind of sliding bobber rig you prefer. Start with your
stop shallow, so you can watch your plastic on the first coupla drifts to make sure you
approve of the action. I like to run the main line to a snap swivel, using the snap portion
to hold my terminal slinky in place, fixed. The main and leader lines, will run off the same
eye of the barrel part of the swivel. Side note, make sure you have beads and corkies
handy if you are running traditional round cork floats, like I am.
Once you have your bobber, beads, corkies and stop all on the main line, grab a leader.
Leader should be, on average, 3ish feet once knots are tied and the rig is ready to fish.
Before tying your leader onto your swivel, take a moment to slide a piece of 3/16 inch
hollow core lead up onto the mid section of your leader allowing a 'straight-down'
presentation and dead drift.
At this point, at least for the past coupla seasons, I've been starting out most runs with one
of a variety of plastic drift baits. Some of them designed specifically for warm or salt
water, while all of them work very well under a cork float in runs and tailouts. The only
real trick is figuring out your own way to rig them on your egg loop. You want to have a
straight up and down presentation, so keep that in mind. You don't want the worm or
grub bent anywhere. I find that a sewing thread style rig up works well for me and my
hook becomes a dangerous stinger as well.
Take downs, you need to wait a little longer than with bait. Some of these plastics are 4 to
six inches and it takes the fish a coupla seconds to encompass the hook. It's real easy to
pull this rig out of a fishes mouth. Set a light drag.
Try this and see if you can have some success. Feel free to Private Message me on the
forum for any additional information you might need!
Happy Steelheading!
H3LLCAT
Please enjoy some articles from my days as a tackle salesman/writer:
Sorry for the poor resolution. These are old articles.
