….voluntarily endorsed by Allaroundangler.com ~ with permission from Northwest Guide Baits …..these things really work.
During a steelhead trip in mid January with the excellent guide, Chris Vertopoulos, I was introduced to an ingenious little product I had never seen before. I thought I had seen them before, but I hadn’t. I had seen a lot of different egg baits before, but none I wanted to take time writing about in my blog. What am I talking about? The EZ Eggs product from Northwest Guide Baits. There is now a link provided directly to their website located under the ‘blogroll’.
When Chris was explaining to me that he had some new baits that are flat out ‘proven’ producers….I looked at him squarely and he didn’t wince. I knew he wasn’t kidding. Later that day I could certainly see why. These ‘plastic-like’ egg patterns are actually latex, which make them SUPER buoyant. Point of fact, I can float a number 4 hook with one egg or a number 2 hook with two of them. Like I said, super buoyant.
Not only that, but unlike Jensen Eggs, Berkley Baits or even Puff Balls just don’t stay high up on the hook. You all know what I mean. If you’re running yarn in your egg loop with an egg imitation just below it….after a coupla casts your egg imitation will have worked enough gap where the hook goes through it….and IT WILL inevitably slide down to the bend of your hook and hang there….all sad looking. I know this next sentence will make me sound like a paid employee of NWGB, but trust me, I am not getting a dime for this. “Now, with EZ Eggs, I never have to worry about that again.”
Seriously though, the consistency of this latex is such that it just won’t move down the hook. In fact, I’ve never really fished a plastic bait (even back when all I did was Bass fish) with this feel or consistency. Whatever it is, latex or some space age plastic material, it’s amazing. I can see how a fish would turn it’s head after munching down an EZ Egg bait and think it was a real cluster. On the thirteen pound fish (my biggest winter landed, not hooked, this year so far) I got in this story, the fish literally turned and pulled three times before I even set the hook (Guide’s instructions) and by God it worked. Like I said, I think the EZ Eggs had a lot to do with them.
If you wish to see more, I have placed a link to their website in my ‘blogroll’ list over to the left of the main page. Thanks again to Joe and Matt for their communication on this. Tight lines, everyone.
I know there are some of my readers out there that will find some value in some ‘tech talk’ from time to time….after all, it’s an electronic world out there and we have to get our fishing videos out there for everyone to see! Besides that, there’s a lot of questions that come when it comes to taking media from a device to a computer. I’ve heard plenty of them myself, so I know you have too, at some point. The following post is for anyone looking to get better at formatting and making movie shows.
One of the coolest things I’ve ever found on line for free came yesterday, last night rather, while I was trying to figure out how to insert .MOV files fishing videos (very popular digital camera format) into my Windows Movie Maker. Most of you have WMM on your computers and probably don’t know it if you haven’t looked for it. I never knew I had it, until one day I just did a search of all the programs that came with my MS Office Suite. Anyway, if you’ve ever tried to make a compilation of your fishing videos using this program, then you’ve had the same problem I have…….the WMM won’t accept .MOV files….which is ridiculous because of how popular they are. For example, of the 77 videos I have on our Allaroundangler, over 60 of them are .MOV files. So, I started thinking…..I could make some pretty cool video compilations if I could get a way to convert those videos in one of the acceptable files types.
So, from there I started to google the phrase “convert .MOV files” …..and of course I was presented with a lot of options of software to purchase. For those of you that read my blog regularly, you know I don’t have a job, which means purchasing software for fishing movies wouldn’t rate very high…..So, I continued filtering through the search engine returns until I found the following youtube video posted by a concerned blogger who wanted to help. Amazing. I will post it below in case you need to do this yourselves. I can’t tell you how awesome this is if you have a lot of fishing videos. I will be able to make some sweet compilations, so stay tuned for more of those!
Here is the “HOW TO CONVERT .MOV FILES INTO .AVI FILES VIDEO.
If you need any further help, I can say I have done this conversion successfully several times since last night. The process can be as lengthy as putting something on Youtube, so not too bad. Very intuitive.
Thanks to all of you out there who have been religiously performing your own versions of the long celebrated ‘rain dance’ in order to chug along what’s left of our 2008-2009 winter steelhead season. Some people, such as Double D, Big Tone, Jedeye and Sal have already moved away from steelhead in search of early spring chinook; the gold medal of sorts of salmon to catch, by the way. I say that because I’ve only ever caught two of them in my life. That’s right. You heard it here. But I have a boat now, so look out……well, maybe not ‘look out’….but maybe just watch for me out of the corner of your eye. Anyway, I have caught a lot of steelhead, and that’s what this post is about, not spring chinook (lucky for you since I just admitted to only catching two of these).
SOME SUGGESTIONS AS YOU HEAD BACK OUT THIS WEEK….
In my experience, after a long dry spell like this, whether in the summer, winter, spring or fall……steelhead always seem to follow a similar behavior pattern once the rain comes back: Move your a**. The fish I mean. They move their a**. The fish that have been sitting in deep, safe water waiting for the pressure change….well those fish are gone by the time you are reading this article. However, there are a whole bunch more fish that never came into the tributary to begin with. You see, here in the northwest, we have these major waterways like the Columbia and the Willamette that allow fish to enter them in any weather condition. The difficulty comes in two forms for the fish at this point:
1) The water temp of the bigger water becomes too warm and unhealthy for the fish to travel through…so maybe they enter fresh water on time, maybe they don’t.
2) The tributaries that these fish need to enter in order to spawn and in some cases, return, to the ocean….they need to have water in them, as well as appropriate habitat. Sufficient enough for the young fish to exit, and the adult fish to enter.
It’s true successful runs are predicated on the notion that a river has significant enough flow for the fish to navigate. However, they are also predicated on LOTS of other stuff that we don’t know about. Why is the Clackamas (large river) so horrible this year? I have no idea. A river that big certainly always has enough water in it. So what is the best case scenario for a river like the Clackamas, which has record low winter returns at the time I am writing this? Is it that the pressure change and heavy showers we’ve had will flip a switch for these fish that are presumably not in the system yet? If after a few of these weather events and feeder creeks like Eagle Creek don’t get any more fish to their normally successful hatchery then we’ll know the fish just aren’t there.
Right now, I’m thinking positive. For now I agree with Sal’s earlier comment on another post that “March could be one helluva productive month”…..and he was referring to steelhead. So, to those of you fortunate to be able to get out on the river right after a dowsing like this; start very high in your respective system and fish down river. If you have success right away, you will be able to tell if you are into fish that have been in the river a while or whether you are into brand new fish.
From here you know what you are dealing with, most likely. You will be able to find fresher fish lower in the system. If you don’t have success right away, like most of us won’t, it’s important to remember to continue to fish with confidence. Continue to switch things up. Important small things such as changing your leader size or going to a very small hook or certainly a inordinately small ball of yarn or puff ball is mandatory. Rarely will a steelhead hit something large in lower water. Almost never in my experience.
This shot of weather we are having will not be enough to significantly raise river levels, but it will move them. Some rivers in my network are so low that even being raised a single foot will be a 22% increase in water level. Not a ton, but PLENTY for steelhead to consider migrating further upriver. Consider also, that is some of the water you may be fishing, you will have what I call a ‘clear water rise’….which means the level will have come up slightly, but the color remains high clarity. Maybe more visibility than you’d like….the trick would be to ’stay small’ but just increase your lead…
Another little trick that I do so I don’t get stuck fishing one spot for too long……I will imagine the perfect water level of the water I am standing in right at that moment. Once I’ve imagined that, I try to decide on a scale of 1 to 10, where the water I am fishing right now would rate. Even if the runs looks killer, it may not be the best flow to fish it. It might fish better higher, or it might fish better lower. Just keep your mind tuned into the water you are fishing, rather than just the casts you are making and you’ll do just fine.
Remember no to go out to your favorite spot hastily without checking around your own network of resources for reports, water clarity, etc. Also, try to get in the mind set of being flexible with the number of times you move around. There isn’t so much water that you can use high water tactics, so you must still focus on specific pieces of water that would hold a fish. Even if it’s just a boulder. Steelhead can roam a river like a lone wolf. These aren’t a pack fish, although I’m convinced that often two fish move together. So you too mush keep moving. Please keep me posted on any trips you take yourselves, as we can always learn from each other in one way or another!
THIS IS A CLASSIC UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL LOOK AT HOW HARD OVERSIZED FISH ARE TO PLAY FROM THE BANK! WHO WANTS TO STURG FISH AFTER SEEING THIS VIDEO? I DO! I DO!
I would say his drag is officially ‘toast’ after this 10 to 12 foot fish………you can hear it die a slow death on the video.
We had our first Southern Utah Bass Anglers tournament this last Saturday at Sand Hollow Reservoir. This is always a tough tournament since the water is still in the lower to mid 40’s. Anyways, it was great to get out on the lake and get some bites again. My partner and I finished the day with a limit of 5 fish weighing 9lbs. I knew it would take about 15 lbs to win. Well, the winning weight was acutally about 20 lbs!!! This is freaking unbelievable for February and 41-45 degree water. The winning team hooked into the Big Fish too at 6 lbs 8oz. This is a monster bass anywhere. Man, spring is gonna be great! Anyway, 2nd and 3rd place tied with about 14 lbs, so my guess at the winning weight was close. My team grinded it out, but was one or two big fish away from placing in the top 3. I did catch our biggest fish, which was a beautiful 3 lb 1 oz largemouth. But the best part of the day was catching this fish on one of my Die Hard Custom Baits. It was a blue 4 inch worm with a chartruese tip. I also caught another fish on another bait I poured. This was the first 2 fish I’ve caught with my own baits! So that was pretty cool. Anyway, it’s only gonna get better from here, so bring on spring please! Talk to all you guys soon…..here’s my fish and the 6 1/2 Big fish.
originally posted by The Real D Insane aka Bobby D
I present to you a beautiful steelhead from one of our rivers to the south. I must also note that catching steelhead must run in the family lately…..as this is B Dog’s Uncle Kimo featured below.
The story goes…..he waved down a friend who said he’d picked up a fish earlier in the day. Kimo hopped into his boat and got this gorgeous fish. What a lateral line on this fish!
B Dog, thanks for kicking this story and these pics along…..the low water has me crying the boring blog blues.
I am not breaking any kind of ground breaking news here. You all have the internet. You can all see how devastatingly low our rivers and streams are right now. Take the Clackamas tributary of Eagle Creek for example; typically seeing upwards of a thousand winter steelhead are currently under one hundred. There are less than normal flows, by a long shot, on almost every river around. Except for the first four days of January, we haven’t even seen anything measurable. SO, what does all this mean, you ask? I think it’s time to go plunking for spring chinook.
The thing about fishing the almighty CR, is those spring kings are going to come into the main stem whether it rains or not. That will not be the case for their migration up their spawning tribs such as the Clackamas or the Sandy or even other rivers further up the Gorge. This will of course cause issues for their future stock if they cannot get up there to drop and fertilize. Hoping that is not the case, we’ll push forward with our best effort for catching a fish lately.
There are several places along both the Columbia and the Willamette that lend themselves nicely to a bank chinook plunker. What rod does a guy like that use? A big ass bank sturgeon rod will due just fine. In fact, you’ll pretty much use the same lead you would use for sturegon as well. Considering there is quite a few of us out there with dusty bank sturgeon rods, let’s take this opportunity to target these migrating springers with our big sticks!
The set up is super simple: You will rig your main 30lb line onto the nose of a trolling spreader or a three way swivel. Your leader and your lead lines simply oppose each other just as a trolling rig would. The main difference is the longer lead line required for the bank angler. Simply use a bead on either side of a spin/glo to ensure a friction-free spin. It helps to also use a bead chain swivel on your leader…..usually mid way. You can tip your rig with a bait of roe or a shrimp, and waa-laa…..there is your bank spring chinook plunking rig.
I’m giving it a shot later this week…..I’ll keep you all posted. AND, if any of you find a tributary with steelhead in it…please do let me know.
I want to take a moment to thanks one of my very own, Nookslayer, for his donation of business cards for Allaroundangler.com. You went above and beyond, buddy. Shawn produced over 300 bucks worth of chachki for me. No better way to get the word out about AAA than to hand out cards on the river. I have cards for anyone who wants a bundle to hand out. Brent? Lobey? Del carlo? Who else is out there a bunch lately that can hand some out?
You can click the links below to view each side of the business card.
