Northwest Fishing Reports

52. That is the number of Steelhead both wild and hatchery fish my fiancee Pam and I caught in 2009. 29 keepers with our biggest being around 17 pounds. That is not the biggest steelie, but for us it was nothing sort of amazing because I am a Bass and walleye/panfisherman. A good friend showed me the ropes not long ago about how some guys are the elite in the art of consistantly catching Steelhead when everyone else just seemed to be scratching thier heads wondering how they were doing it. I gotta admit that the Combat fishing mayhem at Drano Lake was a bit intimidating. And it was a rude awakening when I encountered my first taste of some unfriendly types at the lake. But then there were some awesome guys and gals fishing there as well. So we took out my flatbottom boat and used the depth finder and found several great looking transition areas where there were active steelhead away from the boat crowd flotillas near the "Basket and river channel. Pam and I set up with slip bobbers, 3" cigar types with medium sized corkeys on thier top. I pulled the styrofoam down the bobber shaft to the bottom of the post in order to keep the upper 1' of the boober and the corky about 3" above the water after the cast. Next, 2-1/8th oz. bullet weights and 1- 3/16th oz of the same type weight, a 3mm red bead # 10 black barrel swivel, 3 feet of P line flourocarbon 10lb leader and an egg loop tied #2 red Owner octopus hook. The next key fixture was rigging up the dyed prawns. The debate rages about the how to...but for us this technique worked great: namely piercing the tip of the hook 3/4 th's back on the thorax of the shrimp. Run the hook gently thru so that the tip comes out just behind and centered behind the eyes. Run the egg loop around the thorax. Straighten the shrimps tail and run a half hitch around the upper 1/5th of the tail. It should be hanging head down. Next: genlty separate the shrimps leg's so that they stick straight out. Then apply Mike's shrimp or sand shrimp Pink gel scent down the legs and up the belly of the shrimp. Pink gel on a deep purple shrimp was our go to combo last year. It resulted in 19 hookups in one day down at Drano. Be sure to adjust your depth too. In the area where we had the 19 fish on, we caught them at 17 1/2 to 16 feet. In my next post I will share home dyed shrimp secrets. It's fun ,cheap, and effective making your own dyed shrimp at home. Comments and questions? Ask me here @The Jigmiester