Recent content by BaldTexan

Last Friday I fished 3 different rivers and had one bite. My first ever December steelhead as I’ve only targeted them one time before January. Had an extra fin so back in he went. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Spinners are excellent for the fall bay run of chinook! x2 on the book mentioned above. It also has good info on building your own spinners but nowadays there are plenty of YouTube videos you can find for the DIY person. Making your own is a lot of fun, saves on the cost, and you can make...

Old school Texas rigged curly tail worms. When I fish bass tourneys back in the day, on days the bass were finicky or not biting, I could almost always get them to take a 7" worm or big skirted dark jig bounced off the bottom.

You're kidding right. Many would love to be the one who caught Haggus! I won't be wasting my time tho

Fished Crane Prairie the last 2 weekends. Crane Prairie campground on the NE side was the only ramp open. Weather was cold and windy, plagues of gnats swarming constantly, but we caught some nice fish between 17" to 19" so all was good. No hawgs landed. Fishing the flats in 8 to 10 foot of water...

The 1/8 in yellow has been pretty good to me for cutties and gold/silver for rainbows. The gold blade/black body 1/4 and 1/8 was pretty effective last season on summer steelhead early in the morning before the sunlight hit the water.

You'll need heavier gear at West Linn. The water is deep, shaggy, and heavy current. The average sturgeon you'll hook out there is 4' to 5' and chance of bigger fish. I use a heavy weight rod with 100 lb braid and 7/0 hooks. I've had really big fish break the braid and have had several...

Sea lions and seals just below the falls and fish ladder have been having an all you can eat buffet for weeks.

I'm interested. Couldn't make it last year as family was in town visiting

I leave the factory trebles on Blue fox spinners. I have NEVER had a salmon or steelhead take a spinner deep. Always corner of the mouth. DIY heavier bullet body spinners I use a single point siwash because I bounce them off the bottom a lot more and it reduces snagging.

Nice catch! One of these days I'll make it out to give surf fishing a try when the conditions aren't unfishable. I swear every time I've planned a trip to surf fish the wind and surf comes up but reports like yours make me still want to give it a shot

^^ Nothing like blunt honesty! My preferred "fly' fishing for winter steelhead is with a spinning setup, weight, corky, yarn, and scent :) Kidding aside, swinging a fly for summer steelhead was my first attempt and my first success at it. Haven't tried for winter steelhead on the fly since...

I've used some VMC treble hooks on some of my plugs. Be careful not to go too big. Match the hook size to the plug or you'll kill the action.

Hit or miss this season. Caught a nice hatchery fish and a nice large native first week of January followed by a couple of skunked trips. One day was just bad luck out with a buddy, Troutmasta, and myself. 0 for 4 that day but at least we had a chance to wrestle a few for awhile. Some days there...

My go to is silver/gold #4 and silver/blue spinners, but I also do well with 10 mm beads. Having said that, I caught my first ever winter on a black/red/white worm rigged as above but without the corkie. I also like rigging them under a bobber but hook them perpendicular to the hook shank right...