High Plains Drifters – Snake River Steelheading
One of the benefits of steelheading is the opportunity to experience the huge variety of rivers that are home to our favorite quarry. On one end of the spectrum we have tiny headwaters streams, running through lush rain forests – rivers so small that any possible holding water is obvious, even to the novice. On the other end of the spectrum we have huge rivers, flowing through high dessert country – rivers that intimidate us with an expanse of possible holding areas that may take a lifetime to fully unravel. The Snake is one such river. Last November I visited the Snake River near the entrance to Hell’s Canyon. There I found perhaps the most unique steelhead fishery in the Northwest. continue reading…
Two Key Ingredients for Successfully Tricking Salmon – Location and Presentation
Deep beneath the swirling currents of a north Pacific rip tide, a salmon lies, waiting for his next meal. The mature chinook is a voracious eating machine, intent upon loading up on calories. Twenty feet above, a sparkling chrome flasher trailing a plastic hoochie, passes by. That’s not food. He’s not remotely interested. Next, a red and white wooden plug zigzags overhead. He follows it a few feet. His fins begin to quiver. Suddenly, he turns away. Intuition tells him something is amiss. Then, he spies the one thing that always triggers his feeding instincts – a single herring, struggling to maintain it’s equilibrium in the current. The big chinook flares his gills, lunges, and inhales the hapless herring. continue reading…
Getting A Rise: Anglers Can Look for Shallow Bite If Water Levels Swell
When a sudden rise in water level occurs after several months of dry weather, anglers can count on the bass moving shallow. It’s amazing how quickly things can change. One week southern cattle ranchers are praying for rain to nurture parched hay meadows, and the next they’re begging for someone to plug the faucet so they can wage war on marching packs of Army worms before they strip their precious grass stems clean. The 6-15 inches of welcomed rain that drenched eastern Texas in mid-September brought changes for bass anglers well. The cool rains in combination with multiple days of dense cloud cover caused surface temps on most reservoirs to drop as much as 8-10 degrees, naturally putting largemouths in more of a chasing mood. continue reading…
Finding Fall Bass
Season of the year, water clarity, water level and current weather are integral elements anglers should consider when looking for bass. Texas bass anglers have developed an insatiable appetite for informative clips about largemouth bass. Topics depicting new or upcoming hotspots are just as well received as those that explain in detail how to perform an innovative fishing technique or get the most out of a hot new lure. As interesting and informative as they may be, however, directives such as these are helpful in solving only a small part of the bass fishing puzzle. Think about it.
The primary objective in bass fishing is to catch fish. And no matter how much you know about a given body of water, or how many consecutive times you can pitch a jig into a coffee mug at 20 paces, you won’t be able to fulfill that task unless you are able to leap one of bass fishing’s greatest hurdles – finding fish. Knowing how to catch bass is one thing. Knowing how to find them is another. continue reading…
Pre-Winter Bass Love Crank Plugs
Tournament bass anglers have long known that there are three potential ways to a limit of bass:
- Search for and locate schools of fish.
- Determine a pattern which will predictably produce bass from similar structure, cover features or water conditions throughout the lake or river.
- Cover as much water as possible, with as many casts as can be made, and take the resultant percentage catches.
In any of the above situations, the intent is to catch bass as rapidly as possible, for either a bare limit or in order to cull for the larger fish. The common denominator is ‘time’. The majority of us, being weekend fishermen, have a similar constraint. Limited fishing time is precious and we want to maximize it to the fullest. continue reading…
Autumn Fishing
As the leaves begin to turn into their autumn glory many anglers hang up their fishing poles in favor of their favorite deer rifle or their bow and hit the woodlots in search of the wily whitetail. For the die-hard bass fisherman the approaching weeks mark one of the best times of the year to be on the water.
The only other time of the year that there are more fish are in shallow water and accessible is during the springtime. The problem with the springtime is that the fish are there not to feed, but to spawn and are pretty much pre-occupied with this activity. In the fall they are in the shallows for just one reason only… to eat and store up reserves for the impending cold weather that lies just ahead. continue reading…
Spinnerbaits: Fishin’ With Scrap-Iron
One of the most effective and versatile of all bass lures is the spinnerbait. Time and again, it has been proven that this one lure is possibly the best all-season, all-structure bait an angler can tie to the end of her Stren. It is almost like a family of lures unto itself, in that it can be fished fast, slow, deep, shallow and all locations in-between.
While the spinnerbait is actually a jig with a wire extension arm, it can be fished any number of ways. For example, it can be fished slowly along the bottom, similar to a worm. Or, it can be worked on the bottom with a ‘pull-and-drop‘ technique, like the jig it is. It makes an excellent crank plug, too, with fully controllable depth and speed selections. The spinner bait can even be used as a darn good top-water lure. Endless variety, however, can have its disadvantages, for the angler often has trouble selecting the proper blade lure to suit the given conditions of her fishing day and location. This is quite understandable, since the spinner bait comes in many sizes, colors, and spinner blade shapes and are manufactured in a large number of configurations. Selecting the lure often becomes more of a task than actually catching the fish. What the angler, particularly the new-comer, needs is a ‘handy-dandy’ guide to selecting and using the spinnerbait. continue reading…
Rogue River Salmon Fishing
The problem with finding a great fishing spot is that once it’s discovered the word quickly gets out and your little secret turns into a tourist trap. Many avid anglers have a tough time deciding where to spend their weekends or fishing vacations so they can still find abundant fish and not feel like they are crossing paths with everyone else. Fortunately for fishermen there are several North American hot spots for both salmon and steelhead fishing in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in the state of Oregon.
The Rogue River in Oregon’s southwest region flows nearly 215 miles from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean. Rogue is one of the original eight rivers to be protected under the landmark Wild & Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. continue reading…
Catfishing Tips: East Texas Rivers, Lakes Are a Cattin’ Man’s Paradise
When it comes to fond fishing memories, none can overshadow the all those frying-size fiddler cats caught on a lazy summer day spent navigating the Angelina River in deep East Texas.
Best I can remember, it was August of 2009 when my good friend called to invite me along on the day-long float. We were to put in at the State Highway 21 bridge, then motor southward where we’d anchor just upstream from major bends and drift live crawfish and earthworms into the “deeper holes.” continue reading…
Patterning River Bass
All across America are numerous creeks and rivers. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of them. Some are well-known as bass fisheries and others have little if any reputation as a fishery even though the fishing may be outstanding. Some of these waterways are slow running and just lumber through the countryside while others flow steady and fast through several states being the father to several large impoundments and serving as flood control waterways.
Some run deep and cool , while others white water down a mountain valley then settle into a smooth harmless creek meandering through pastures and cornfields. All of these are habitat for the largemouth bass. And the calmer the water the better the bass fishery it may be. continue reading…