"How-To" Drift Fishing For Salmon, Trout, And Steelhead

hey all you addicts out there welcome to another tutorial by addictive fishing i'm jordan Kannagi and today we're out here on the river and talking how to drift fish for salmon and steelhead [Music] drift fishing for salmon and steelhead it's probably one of the most effective and very oldest ways to try to catch the salmon and steelhead in these fast-moving rivers what we're gonna start with talking about today is our rod selection rod selection is huge for this kind of fishing what we have here today is a nine-foot Okuma guide select Pro 8 to 17 pound the key and drift fishing is to have a very very sensitive rod so not a very long rod is key we want to have something that's from eight and a half feet to about nine and a half feet not much longer than that because the longer you go with your rod selection the less sensitivity that you have so the guide select Pro is a wonderful model for this because it's very light it's very nice fits very well in the hand it has a lot of sensitivity that travels from that braided line all the way up to the forefinger or you're holding on to this rod and feel every little rock and piece of gravel and stick and finish in that in that run that you're fishing so your other option for rod setup and probably the most popular way for fishing a drift fishing setup is with a bait casting reel using a nine-foot rod with your bait casting setup once you've graduated up away from the spinning gears to casting with one of those bait casters is really one of the more effective ways to fish these setups because of the way the rod sits in your hand you're able to thumb line out to let that drift go down the river and also the way you're holding it in your hand allows for a lot more sensitivity transferred from the rod tip down to your hand feeling that bite as it goes through the hole the Helios bait casters see 3,000 or see 4,000 or a great option for fishing with this 9-foot setup with the 40 pounds so keep that in mind graduated up to that rod it works very well we have this line with a chi Mar C 40 does this has 40 pound P line braided line on it Teflon coated the hive is so you can see where you're fishing as you're drifting down through these Boulder gardens and rock gardens that you're gonna be fishing with these type of setups what I have here on the end of this 40-pound is a bumper this bumper is not as key as far as length I like a lot to use a bumper with that braided line because you don't want to be snagging up and breaking this braided line off in the fishing holes because it ends up creating a big bald up mess of line that you can't get rid of and you keep snagging on over and over and over again so having a good 10 to 15 pound to 20 pound bumper on the end of that 40 pound test is key so that if you do break off you're not creating a mess in the bottom of the river what we have here at the end of our 20 pound bumper is a three-way swivel and I used a piece of pencil end there's a couple different options that will demonstrate for tying this pencil head on or using a Dave's tangle free one of the most revered methods is using a piece of line off the bottom of this three-way swivel just a piece of 20-pound test with a with hollow core lead that you put on that line squeeze tight so that when that lead get stuck and your snag all you do is pull back and that lead slides off and doesn't break off your whole setup so that's very key to this it's choosing the kind of lead that you want to use the kind of weight that you want to use to get down into the strike zone on the end of this here I have 12 pounds pline floor OSS fluorocarbon here all the way down about three feet anything over this and we'll go over this dispute over flossing and snagging with a drift fishing setup the thing that separates the two is leader length so I like to go no less than about three feet no more than about four feet with my leader length with whatever kind of setup I have on the end here for my business end so I'm about three and a half feet of 12 pound fluoro all the way down to a nice little orange soft egg anything works down here one of the most classic ones that would either be a yarn ball or a Corky of some sort with a little bit of yarn put on my hook here with an egg loop so what I'm doing here for my hook is either number four or number two hook bait is another really really popular way to the drift fish is by using bait whether it be sand trip or kun kun shrimp or a guava eggs here I have an egg loop on my hook but all I have on here is yarn and my soft eggs this is what I'm gonna drift fish today this setup is really the best because it's not very long as a lot of sensitivity and it allows you to get down get through the strike zone and back up before snagging which is very nice so the bumper is key you do not want to leave a line of mess in the river stay tuned we're gonna show you guys how to fish this hole so now we're going to talk about what drift fishing water is how to identify a spot that you would want a drift fish what's key about drift fishing water is that it moves faster than most of the water in the run what we got behind us here is our iconic drift fishing water we have a fast current coming out of a rapid slowly slowing down into a tail out but the top part is deep fast and swift why we want that kind of water so that we have enough resistance from the current to drag our drift fishing setup down the river bottom because we're not in the boat we're drift fishing from the bank here and even if we are in the boat we want to be able to drag that presentation with the water current down through that run without getting snagged or hung up on any of the rocks or boulders so you want to pick a run that doesn't have really big boulders and you want to pick a run that actually has some pretty good current speed to it you want to be able to drift as long as possible without getting hung up so what we have behind us is one of those runs what we're going to do now is turn around we're gonna cast into this run in this fast water which is going to take all about the angles we're going to talk about the angles and how you need to cast at certain spots to be able to fish through that give and run so the key to the angles that you use when fishing through a run with a drift fishing setup is about casting to where this your gear will get down to the bottom and make a good presentation again from your 45 so you're gonna fish this almost like a spinner 45 - 45 without with actually letting a little bit of line and feathering line out at the end of your drift to continue that drift further down what we're gonna do here is I'm going to turn it around I'm gonna identify what I have in front of me I have nice fast water here I have really slow current on the inside so I'm gonna want to start my cast about halfway across the river I'm gonna go middle too far with this not so much with the clothes the closer is gonna be really hard to make go down the river because we don't have any any water turn any surface currents to actually take our line and pull it down the river so we're gonna start about halfway out in this run the key as you start to drift fish and as it hits the bottom it's all about your rod tip angle you always want to have it at about a 45 degree angle over the water surface following your line all the way down what a lot of people do wrong is that they keep that rod tip in the exact same spot and let the line work down the river and that's completely wrong we want to be able to follow our setup down the river and walk it along as it goes in front of those fish and wait for that pipe the line has to be just taught enough to feel almost everything so what we're gonna do here we're gonna turn around I'm gonna cast at about 45 degrees upriver to make sure that this gets down because there's pretty heavy current 45 degrees upriver it's gonna land I'm gonna immediately gonna close my bail and reel up my slack until I feel bottom I found bottom now I'm fishing I'm gonna keep my rod tip at a 45 degree angle over the water slowly feeling every little rock and bump as it goes down the river I'm waiting for that fish to grab as it comes down to the end of the run here I'm gonna slowly point my tip back down till the river letting it finish that drift and waiting to feel any snags when I do feel a snag er I feel like I've fished this all the way to the inside I'm gonna lift my tip up and I'm gonna reel it back in now the key to what we just did was that we followed that fate that that drift fishing set up all the way down the river with our rod tip and kept the taut line you don't want to keep it too tight to actually swing it through there and you'll feel it come off at the bottom you want to be able to choose the amount of weight you have by having different sizes of dangle fries or this hollow core and or the hole punch led like I have have different pieces in my pocket right now to match the weight that I need for this run so I'm gonna start with a lighter weight and I'm actually gonna work my way up if I can't feel the bottom we want to be able to feel the bottom and have our gear working at about a walking speed through the hole no matter the amount of current that's the beauty of the drift fishing setup is that you can slow your presentation down in a really fast current and pick fish up in spots you didn't think they lived so what we're gonna do it again here I'm gonna show you guys I'm gonna cast a little bit further all the way to the other side of the river here I'm gonna close this bale again reeling up that slack until I feel bottom tip at 45 walking it going exactly with the pace of my gear straight down the river at this point I'm actually even gonna open my bail give it about five feet and continue that drift to cover a little bit more water and I'm only gonna do that when I have enough surface current like I do here on this inside so I'm bringing my way down to the end of the drift there it got stuck on bottom and I'm gonna reel it in so last but not least with this drift fishing technique we're gonna talk about the business end of it the pike when that fish actually grabs it because that's probably the biggest question I hear from people is what's it feel like when a fish grabs the drift fishing set up a lot of times it does not hit it like a freight train it's more of a trout bite it's not like you're catching it on a spinner or on a plug or something like that where that fish is aggressively swimming over and grabbing your lure or bait what the fish are doing with this drift fishing setup is they're picking it up much more like a trout that setup is coming by them you're drifting your bead or your eggs or your yarn down past these fish they're moving out from behind the rock there behind grabbing whatever your setup is and going back to where they were so a lot of times all you feel is a very soft trout bite on the tip of your rock you always want to set the hook when you're sitting here drift fishing because you need to be able to stick that fish once you feel that trout bite what I don't mean by trout bite is a big one pump and feel that really big smack because what happens a lot when you guys are drift fishing is they you drew actually drift you're set up right across the back of the fish whether the fish bites or not but you don't want to wait for is a very hard smack and kick because a lot of times that's you going over the top of the fish and then kicking away from your lure and excuse-me your bait and actually hitting your line like it's a strike what it's always gonna be easier they're gonna feel nothing you're gonna be drifting along and you'll start to feel a slight head shake and it'll be instant fish on or you'll feel a very sensitive trout bite that's why these sensitive rods these shorter rods are very crucial for this kind of fishing because you need to be able to feel that very subtle bite the key is when you get and you start graduating into drift fishing you need to memorize the bottoms at the holes that you're fishing or else you're gonna constantly break off so you know where the big boulder is you know where the stick is you know where the the pile of sand is and you memorize that as you work down through the run with your drift fishing setup because it's all off of feeling sensitivity so when these fish but it's very light sometime very sensitive give a good hook set and enjoy that fish on alright everybody so now that we've talked about our rod setup in selection our technique and the kind of water we want to fish we're gonna talk about the terminal end of this the business end the kind of tackle we want to have on the end of our drift fishing setup so what I have here next to me or for my very favorite setups that I like the drift fish with that worked very well you can kind of tweak and customize each method that you want here with different colors and different things but the idea of each of these setups is what I like so first off we have what you guys have already seen basically fishing a garni and a soft egg leader length is the real important part of all this so all on each of these setups my leaders about 3 or 4 feet long not any longer than that or else you're really not in the strike zone and you stand a lot better chance of actually just snagging these finish rather than drifting it in front of them and having them bite so the yarn ball yarny soft egg one of the best ways to catch a fish one of my favorite one of the first things I'd throw into a hole very intimate and very unobtrusive way to try to get out these fish so second option second best thing I would say would go with is with a bead same thing I have here I have this bead tagged about three finger lengths four finger lengths above my hook number four hook nice and light so that drifts through it never gets hooked on the rocks again on about a three three and a half four foot leader right in there so this color you can fish for teens you can fish twelves you can fish ten eight six all the way down to whatever size you want to beat and it works very well because it makes the the presentation go even slower then your actual bobber dog setup all you have resisting against your line is your line and the current so you actually can slow down your presentation and keep your keep your bead or your your set up here in front of those fish for a lot longer than you could pop it on you third tactic here is on a little bit bigger hook this one I have in number two here I have just a normal peach colored Corky with a little bit of eggs grilled natural presentation on a number two hook again on about a three and a half to four foot leader so very very good way to do it you can peg this there's quirky up above your bait but a lot of times you can let it slide freely on your line and sit right on top and this is probably one of the more old-school and more effective ways to try to catch a salmon steelhead your bait that you use on this really batters if only on preference you can use a sand shrimp you can use a shrimp you can use the betta eggs or whatever you want or all of them so this set up here with a little egg loop on that number two we're number one hook works really really well for catching these steelhead and now last but not least it's our wacky worm what we have here is a mad river worm of any one of your color selections I got a whole pocketful of them here but what I do here is I rig this either with a worm feeder or I just feed the hook through the body of that worm a lot of times you can add a bead or a Corky in front of this worm but this works really well just the way it is drift fishing this worm again on about a three to a four foot leader doing the same methods that we talked about earlier 45 to 45 and actually dogging this worm along the bottom having it float right in those fish's face and allowing them to swim up and grab it so all these what all these methods work really really well in drift fishing for steelhead and or salmon so keep them all in mind to have all of them on you when you go out there they all work just as well as one of the other all right everybody we hope this video made it a little bit easier for you guys to pick up the concept of drift fishing it's not something that's completely easier the first thing that you should go to if you're learning out of salmon and steelhead but as you get a little bit better and graduate in the different styles of fishing it's definitely one of the most effective ways to catch a fish so keep that in mind use all this knowledge we've shared with you guys to get out there and catch these beautiful fish we'll see you guys out there on the river [Music]

Channel: Addicted Fishing

Views: 257,292

Rating: 4.8469124 out of 5

Keywords: drift fishing, drift fishing steelhead, drift fishing salmon, drift fishing trout, drift fishing beads, drift fishing eggs, drift fishing salmon eggs, drift fishing for catfish, steelhead fishing, salmon fishing, steelhead, trout fishing, river fishing, fishing tips, steelhead trout, steelhead fishing tips, winter steelhead, addicted fishing, fishing addicts nw, fishing addicts northwest steelhead, river, bank fishing, winter steelhead fishing, bottom bouncing steelhead

Id: JOWSWhJgwoM

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 02 2019