Y
yellowjacket
dono if you have heard this cure but just salt them up then dump a shot of wiskey on them and leave em in fridge overnight.... only eggs that have ever worked for me... i used to hate usin eggs cause they were messy and i never caught anything till i heard about that and tried with my next hen and bam...now i live bye those eggs... also thing is i dumped some jd on eggs from store and it worked.. must be sugar in whiskey or sumthing i dono?:think:
Is the magic ingredient the Tennessee Sippin Whiskey or will any cheap rot gut work?Saw a cure somewhere that had raspberry jello in it. Heard of raspberry jello for the best catfish dough so does anyone have experience with the berry jello cure. Maybe something in that flavor jello that gets fish in general to pick up bait??
That's an interesting discussion because the area which is fished also has a lot to do with what "seems" to work better.
The last winter for instance, I have a Friend who fishes a local river every single day for winters. This last year, he saw a very large proportion taken on bobber and eggs. Corkies and even cheaters were dead last as far as catch rate. 3 years ago, it was corkies and cheaters out fishing everything else.
What the difference was? Could be that the first few fish were caught using them and everyone switched to them pushing the ratio higher for whatever was used that year.
Over in the Puget sound area, where most of the surveys are taken, it is corkies and yarn or just corkies that everyone uses. The same people come out here on the coast and can't catch a fish more often than not. When we go out to the Puget sound the same stuff we use out here works fine and often times we out fish the locals, eggs on a bobber and cheaters.
Is it shear numbers of people that fish that makes the difference? Maybe technique, confidence level, experience or something else. Who knows. I know I can catch winter steelhead on a cheater so I use them. Summers I catch on eggs and jigs.
I would definitely say that a high majority of steelhead taken here are taken on eggs for winters and jigs for summers. No ifs, ands or butts about it. I see at least 7/10 winters taken on eggs and 9/10 summers on jigs. Is the way we fish for them here and the methods out fish any other almost every day. What does this mean as far as fact, I can't say because no one who knows these rivers uses much of anything else. What is the ratio of catch when you have 48/50 anglers using eggs and catching 100 fish when the other 2 using corkies and yarn catch one fish between them? It isn't statistically measurable because the eggs are used by so many more.
Here is what I think if all methods were evenly used, out of 100 winter run steelhead caught the ratio would be like this:
28 eggs
25 cheaters, corkies, corkies and yarn assuming they are presented right
22 live bait
18 spinners, plugs, spoons, quick fish
7 on the ugly whatever that someone gets lucky on.
The point is if you are confident in using something, use it right and know what you are doing then you will catch fish in the situations that suite the way you fish.
I can catch fish on a bar hook with nothing on it if I fish it right and at the right time. It means nothing more than it can be done by me.
As for line shyness of any fish, I don't know about down there but I know 3 people who plunk the Wynoochie river here and use 60lb. Braided Power pro. This stuff sticks out like a sore thumb. They catch summers, winters, Coho, Chinook and even trout using it. They catch fish on it in water that is absolutely crystal clear. Those fish aren't line shy! The same guys throw spinners here in tidal water using the same line and catch Coho just as well as anyone else.
Confidence in your skill and what you are using outweighs anything as far as I am concerned. Scent, line shy, lure type, colors whatever variable. The only variable I see that effects fishing here is store bought vs. home made lures. Is this to do with tuning and shotty manufacturing practices, I don't know but home made lures, corkies, cheaters, jigs, spinners, etc. out fish store bought by about 3:1 here. But there again, those that know what they are doing are making the stuff and catch fish. So is it actually meaningful? Only a relevant survey will ever tell and I don't think that most fisherman are willing to give up their favorite techniques to satisfy a survey and let others know what works and what doesn't. :naughty:
One classic example:
Went fishing for Winter runs, car broke down, spend 2 hours with my hands in the engine helping fix it. Greasy and nasty to beat all hell, all 3 of us were. Got to the river, took out our gear and in 3 hours we all limitted out. Gas, deisel, grease, dirt, gunk and all that other junk wiped off with nothing more than a dirty shop rag. What does it mean? Nothing more than the fish we put our lures in front of that day didn't care and were hungry! All our fish were caught on home made cheaters that day without any bait or scent.
Is the magic ingredient the Tennessee Sippin Whiskey or will any cheap rot gut work?Saw a cure somewhere that had raspberry jello in it. Heard of raspberry jello for the best catfish dough so does anyone have experience with the berry jello cure. Maybe something in that flavor jello that gets fish in general to pick up bait??
luv2fish, I'd be willing to bet, that not all those "others" are corky and yarn! Like Dichro mentioned above, there is the infamous pink worm, rags, and plugs to name a few. The guys that run boats in our local rivers will account for a lot of the "other" votes im guessin', as all boat guys I know personally (only 5:lolfish plugs exclusively for Steelhead.
I have a question for all you Steelheaders, over the years what lure or bait seems to usually work for you. We all have a ton of tackle but if you had to pick one thing to use and be successful with on any given day what would it be ?
I will attach a poll, if you like feel free to reply...
Chuck
The one and only bluefox and the woollybugger fly!
:dance::dance::dance::dance::dance::dance:
Hahaha... Almost! A few of us do run a spinner that over the last few years has out fished similar bell bodies about 7 to 1. My personal observation is roughly 8.13 to 1 this summer. I did have a lot of rod hours in very productive spinner water, but still, they did spank the competition handily.
But I will agree with the one fly...Wolly Buggers. The biggest, nastiest bug you have is bound to be Steel fishy. Gnarly bass flies took some big Steelhead on the Sauk a few years back in a wicked experiment. Spey V. Traddies. The double handers, take on the single flingers. Us, "Traditional" casters spanked 'em on bass flies, while they were swing these gorgeous purple, red, pink, and white super duper flies. They finally got the picture that if you used a sink tip, you might actually get something to bite those pieces of feather art. Still not impressed with the real purtty steel flies, just don't produce in good enough numbers to be worth it for me I guess.
What the heck even if they did come up even I'd much rather be losing $1.50 homemades to the river bottom than the $3.50 storebought BF's.
I make my own too and I will say I have fished them side by side even stevens and outfished store bought 3:1. Started with the store bought caught nothing and switched resulting in a quick hook up.
Different blades than the BF comes with for sure and more often than not my colors are much more vibrant so they are "different" but why make a spinner that is the exact same color with the exact same setup if they don't work that well in the first place.
Do you use a swivel between the mainline & leader or just direct tie?
All the summers I hooked up so far were nightcrawlers (1/2) too. Mighta had a hook & shake on a tequila spoon a week ago on the Middle Willy. Was watching the bald eagle flying over eyeballing me & not really paying attention to the retrieve. Thought I might have hit the ledge I was working but had the feel of head shake. worked that a couple more casts but NADA. Turned to cast upstream & saw a Steelie "porpoise" its back & dorsal but got no other action casting in that direction.:doh: Or the rest of the day for that matter.