Columbia steelhead 101

[cohoho]

Good write and pics, makes it a bit easier for folks like me that have never fished for Steel heads...  One day I'll have to give it try after I master the Sturgeon of course....

[WDFW Hates ME!!!]

Coho i will be fishing next weekend from the bank if you would like to go...

[cohoho]

Love to but looks like we are scheduled to head to Lake chelan for that weekend, friends have a house and they invited us out for boating and jet skiing.  Me - I'd rather go fishing and exploring, but heck some wet RR might be just the ticket. The following weekend, hey what you doing?

[fishunt247]

Hoyt--
I'm running a single hook- 1/0 Gamakatsu- running the hook through the meat and out the front of the head without a SpinGlo or spinner. I've experimented with the double hook set up similar to how you showed and ended up just hooking them with the upper hook anyway. I don't miss many bites, but how often do you hook a fish on just the back hook alone? With the single hook, the shrimp stay curled, spinning and waving from side to side. Do yours have action when they are straight as well? Also, sometimes I have an issue with the hoods on the shrimp popping out. Would a few wraps of thread keep that from happening? Thanks.

[fishcrazy]

Sometimes they don't like it spinning and twirling around. 

[A4effort]

Great write, thanks for sharing with the pics, for some of us vitual learners!

[Hoytstaffshooter83]

Hoyt--
I'm running a single hook- 1/0 Gamakatsu- running the hook through the meat and out the front of the head without a SpinGlo or spinner. I've experimented with the double hook set up similar to how you showed and ended up just hooking them with the upper hook anyway. I don't miss many bites, but how often do you hook a fish on just the back hook alone? With the single hook, the shrimp stay curled, spinning and waving from side to side. Do yours have action when they are straight as well? Also, sometimes I have an issue with the hoods on the shrimp popping out. Would a few wraps of thread keep that from happening? Thanks.

I use  2 hooks due to losing quite a few fish on a single...... today we landed 6 in about 2 hours..... 4 of the 6 were on the back hook only..... thats enough for me!

[fishunt247]

Alright, thanks

[fishcrazy]

I allways try and run 2 hooks when running bait. Especially eggs. Gotta love a ball of eggs with the stinger hanging out. Why not double yer odds if you can.

Kris

[Hoytstaffshooter83]

Thats my thought on it, why not increase your chances?

[fishunt247]

It's just that I don't fish my shrimp straight like you, but curled like they come. So if I ran two hooks, keeping them like that, I guess I could just leave the trailer hook to dangle. A 1/0 hook covers nearly a whole shrimp, but maybe I'll experiment with the two hook system.

[fishcrazy]

fishhunt,

Are you running them curled for steelhead on anchor? Or are you running them while trolling for salmon? I would tend to run them with a curl for trolling for Salmon and uncurled and not spinning when Back trolling or on anchor.


Kris

[fishunt247]

Curled while anchored for steelhead. Landed 9 in an hour and half Wednesday evening. Hooked 14 this morning, landed ten of those. Three came off before my dad realized he must have bent his hook oddly earlier in morning and fish kept coming off, until he changed leaders. I've fished them curled like that for steelhead since I was 9, back in 1997, and can't argue with it's success. Seems to me that it is quicker to rebait this way as well, instead of two hooks and wrapping it. But hell, maybe that way hooks more fish, I don't know.

[fishcrazy]

Fishhunt,

I always like to see other things and ways of doing things. One more thing to try for me when I get my boat going. Their is never a wrong way of doing things. LOL  Just different ways. I was taught to run them straight when on anchor but now I will have something els to experiment with. I am always trying new ways of doing things.


Kris