by Jason Brooks, November 06, 2016

I was inside my grandparent’s truck as the rain continued to pour down wondering if it would ever stop and my grandfather and I could start fishing. The wipers screeched across the windshield as the heater blared keeping the windows from fogging up. I was about eight years old at the time and this was when my grandfather taught me the most valuable lesson any fisherman could ever learn. He turned to me and said, “You can’t catch a fish with your hook out of the water.” Of course he was meaning that we can’t catch any fish sitting in the truck waiting out the rainstorm. I really didn’t want to get wet but I stepped out of the truck anyway and walked to the water’s edge. I cast out my worm under a red and white plastic bobber with my closed faced spin reel and waited. About a minute later the bobber began moving around and I figured it was a small bluegill and began to reel in the line. As it pulled back I fought the fish to shore and we both got excited at the sight of a two pound trout. That fish was enough for dinner so we ran back to the truck and out of the rain.



My grandfather has long since passed away but I will never forget that day or his advice, so I would like to think. A while back I had some friends from Spokane wanting to come over to Western Washington where I live and do some winter steelhead fishing. We made the plans and they booked hotel rooms close to the river. I was able to talk a guide buddy of mine into helping out so we could take two boats. This trip was planned for a Wednesday float just after Martin Luther King’s Day weekend in January. Figuring we would have Tuesday for the fish to rest and more fish to move into the river that the waters would be void of boats and loaded with chrome steelhead. Then as the date came near the rains just stopped. Sixteen days went by without a raindrop. The rivers ran low and clear. Fearing the river would get picked over pretty hard during the three day weekend and with no freshet in sight I called my arid side of the state friends and explained to them that it would be a waste of time and money to drive all this way. There would be no fish left in the river and the conditions would make navigating the river really tough. They didn’t understand but figured I knew what I was talking about and we rescheduled for mid-March.

The guide buddy I had swindled into floating with us that day couldn’t figure out why we canceled. I explained to him that my friends were driving over three hundred miles and spending a lot of money and I felt guilty about the water conditions. He called some standby clients and was able to fill his boat, with steelhead. Mid-day he began texting me photos of the fish they were catching. That night I called him and he explained that they went three for four with all three fish landed being mid teen hatchery fish. I couldn’t understand how and why he was able to find fish in such low and clear water for this time of year. He explained that sometimes you have to go fishing when you can, not when it’s ideal to go. That’s when I heard my grandfather’s advice echoing in my mind. The guide said the water was flowing so low that he switched to summer steelhead tactics. Throwing small baits with light weight and downsizing line and hooks. When he spotted a run downriver he would pull the boat over and have the clients walk down stream in the brush and keep low, casting above the fish and letting it drift down into them. Even with the temperatures in the low 20’s he simply fished like it was mid-July.



The opposite situation occurred a few winters ago when a fishing partner and I decided to float the Humptulips for late Coho two days before Christmas. Since we both have full time jobs that don’t allow us to take time off during ideal water conditions we kept our plans and both stated that no matter what the weather was we were going. As we neared the Hanson Road put-in the rain came down hard. We noticed that there was almost no bank for us to turn our truck around in so we slid the boat off the trailer and pushed it to the river’s edge. We began floating down the river twitching jigs along the bank. The water continued to rise as we anchored near the hatchery. We began hooking fish in the stained waters and landed two bright fish and losing another couple Coho. Two guide boats came by and I noticed that they had everyone in the boat throwing spinners. As the rain continued to come down the river came up, way up and it wasn’t long before we pulled anchor and flew down the river. Later that afternoon we came to the takeout as the two guide boats were cleaning fish. Showing them our two in the box the guides were a bit amazed that we picked them up on jigs. Of course they had limits and that was when it hit me that they were using spinners because of the rising waters that were becoming cloudy and visibility dropped.
This brings me to another point which is realizing water conditions not only for navigation purposes but also for tactics. Like the low and clear January or the high and muddy December you need to realize when it’s time to switch up gear. If I had switched to pulling plugs or throwing spinners on the high water day we would have limited out the boat but since the jigs worked right from the start I never thought of changing tactics even though the water conditions changed as the day went on.



My friends always give me a bad time when they float down a river with me. I have more rods in the boat than they have in their garages. Tackle boxes stacked up in the back and various baits in the cooler. I try to explain to them that we want to make sure we can fish any kind of water conditions at any time of the day. Last fall I was floating the Satsop with a couple of buddies and putting on a clinic twitching jigs for Chums. That is until my arms started cramping up and I realized I had a few miles left on the oars before the takeout. I put down the twitching rod and floated eggs the rest of the day. Though I didn’t hook as many Chums that afternoon, I was the only person to land a nice Chinook. Of course this has little to do with water conditions but instead fatigue, however I was able to keep fishing because I came prepared and knew I had to keep my hook in the water if I wanted to catch a fish.

Not only being flexible in tactics but also where to fish will help keep you on the water and into the fish. You and a couple of buddies decide to hit a river mid-week so you put in for the day off a few weeks in advance. The day nears and for one reason or another the river you want to fish isn’t a possibility. Instead of calling the trip off and trying to explain to your boss that you decided to save the vacation day for another time instead have a back-up plan. This happens a lot on the Olympic Peninsula when a river can blow out in a few hours yet another river a drainage over doesn’t get the same rainstorm and it keeps in shape. Or maybe you go a few hours in the opposite direction like drive over to fish an eastside river such as the Snake or Grand Ronde instead of the Queets or Sol Duc. You can even go to the extreme and say to yourself that if a steelhead or salmon river isn’t fishable then grab the fly rod and head to the Yakima or Rocky Ford Creek after all the “tug is the drug”.



By keeping your options open you can plan a day’s fishing well in advance. Being flexible on where to fish and remembering that you need to fish to the water conditions not the time of year will allow you to stay on the water. Most importantly remember this; “You can’t catch a fish with your hook out of the water.”