How To Read A River To Catch Steelhead Or Trout (Reading Water Tutorial)

while we're on the Move we're not necessarily and that is reading water for steel head okay so we moved into another hole guys and this is this is a pretty challenging hole they're going to like rocks they're going to want Boulders they're going to oh hey what's up everyone out there thank you so much for tuning in to another addicted fishing tutorial today we're going to talk about a subject that has been asked about for a really long time and that is reading water for steel head so if you want to learn more about how to read water for steel head we're going to talk all in depth today thanks so much for watching it's coming up [Music] next okay Marlin we got a pretty wide hole here where theoretically if you're were looking at it from right right where we're at you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the depth completely everywhere so what are you kind of looking for in terms of speed and depth of the water in a wider hole like this so basically when I'm in holes like this where you have a rapid down below and then it comes up into a nice big flat what I'm trying to find and envision is like where is the deepest pocket a hole where a steel is going to come up and potentially want to rest in he's not going to run this way because it's way too shallow so you're going to basically as you're walking across you're going to try to find the deepest part of the bucket so what we have right here in this hole that we just filmed is we have Rapids down below us that comes into a really shallow tail out but then on this far side of the bank we have just one little cutout in the river and it took us years to find this hole really like we didn't fish it very often until we really figured out like okay that's got a deep cut in it and then what it does is it then starts to shallow up again as you get to the top of the hole so it has a nice deep bucket and all you're looking for is like any little disturbance where it lookss like okay the water looks different right there whether it's a little bit Greener whether it's a little bit darker and then from that point you're going to try to use your float or whatever bait you're using to figure out your depth for sure now when you say deep this uh this section your fishing really isn't that deep in terms of what you would expect with salmon fishing and such so talk about what kind of water even in this low clear stuff what kind of water can steel head hide in still one of my favorite things that bill Herzog always says is steel head aren't very tall yeah so they do not need a lot of water to feel safe so as I'm like fishing rivers if there's anything where I feel like a steel head can hide there I'm fishing it I don't care if it's this deep I'll fish a lot of areas where it just might have a lot of good disturbance on the top of the water cuz you're not just looking for necessarily Boulders they can hide behind or Deep Pockets they can lay in you're also looking for any sort of like disturbance on the top of the water whether it be riffles or White Water anything that they potentially can hide in and that's what we have here like as this gets shallow and comes down down in you have a lot of good current disturbance on the top of the water the seal are going to use that to hide yeah now if the water was darker and Greener and and perhaps you couldn't really see the depths or understand where it is how would you kind of find out with your gear where the buckets are and where the Deep Pockets are so anytime you're poaching any hole and this is kind of what I do I always come into the hole shallow so I'll run it at like 2 ft yeah and then as I want to find the bottom I'll just keep extending my float 6 in 6 in 6 in 6 in until I feel like my float's dragging let me show you what that's going to look like so like right now I'm fishing a bead here and I got about 3T a liter there so my first cast I'm going to cast in short I'm going to cast in super close to where I think the bucket starts to drop off and as you can see my floats straight up and down I'm getting a pretty good float through there it's not pointing down river it's not pointing up River now watch what happens when I go to extend this thing so just for demonstration purposes we're going to take this float we're going to extend it way the heck out there we're going to extend it deeper than what I know this thing's going to be now when I cast out here you're going to watch that do something a little bit different so see how that float is now basically snagging up but also it's pointing down river that's your indication that you're fishing too deep and so talk a little bit about this in this case when you've got a shallower bucket steel head aren't very tall what is the strike zone say you got a 4T bucket it's a little Greener they're protected where do you want that bait to be in relation to that strike zone so I'm typically trying to fish like 6 to 12 in off the bottom always and one of my favorite things Jordan always says is we want the steel head that are going to come up and eat it you want the aggressive steel head but at the same time you also want to cover the hole good enough to where you can get those ones that might need your bait to hit them right in the face so what I always will do is try to keep my stuff 6 to 12 in on the bottom and I'll just keep extending that float 6 in at a time or Jordan will go a bobber length at a time until you find the bottom once you find it then readjust make it 6 in to 12 in from the bottom and you're going to be fishing in the zone but as I was telling you before what I'll do a lot in holes especially if I know there's a bucket is you may drag a little bit in the beginning like your baits may be dragging through the top of the hole but as it deepens out into that bucket that bait's going to fall right into where you want it to fall and a lot of people make that mistake because if you don't fish deep enough because you think it's too shallow cuz you're dragging at the top but then as you get into the middle of the hole you're not dragging anymore so a lot of times you have to just help that bait work through that first little shallow section so that way when it gets into the bucket it actually drops down in perfectly so this hole has um some good depths for a float and jig and such in that bucket area but what about if you're fishing through a long area where the depth changes a lot how would you approach that so in holes where you have a lot of variation in the depths I'm still going to float fish it but what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick it apart a lot more meticulously so what I'll do is like and if the top of the run is only 3 ft I'm going to fish that top of the run and I'm going to keep my float at 3 fet if it continues just to go like this throughout the whole hole I'm just going to keep it shallow I'm just going to run that thing shallow through most of the hole if I don't get anything and I fish it then I may do some dragging and let those baits kind of drop down into those holes people think that if you're dragging you're not going to catch them but the reality is there's a lot of holes especially for steel where you have to drag through areas to then get down into the buckets for sure so when you got a bucket like this and you've put some different baits through it uh when do you decide to move on when you have low clear conditions like this if you fish a bead a worm in a jig and you've spent 20 30 minutes in that hole it's time to go like the fish aren't there or if they are they don't want what you're giving them and they're probably not going to bite so it's really important especially on these low Clear Water days hunt you are hunting you are not letting those fish come to you you are moving from hole to Hole to Hole presenting all your presentations in the best way that you know how and hoping to get lucky and that's the most fun way to fish too oh sure there's days that fish are on the move you know and you can sit in one spot and wait for them to come to you but it's a lot of fun hunting for these steel heads so why don't we uh go check out a couple other holes it's uh no we fish this one good yeah we've been here 20 minutes 25 minutes guys we we ran a bead We've ran a worm We've ran a jig um we've covered it good enough I don't think there's anything any willing biters in there so we're going to move down to another hole and show you guys some more holes this next one will be nice cuz we'll have an upward camera angle at it so we can really talk about just the current and where the fish might sit versus where they [Music] won't okay everyone here's another perfect example of a hole that I feel like is very very drastically overlooked by a lot of Anglers we have a really big gravel flat right here only about 6 in to maybe a foot deep in some spots but then we have this big clay Rock right here what this clay Rock has done is it's formed just a perfect little bucket that runs down into a run for these fish to sit in so Lucas identified as he was walking down like oh man that looks like it could hold a fish so again you're going to want to fish this very similar to how I said where you want to drag your bait in the first section of the hole and then let it drop down into the bucket to the depth that you're going to want to fish and I'd start out at a foot and 1/2 2 ft deep maybe and then keep extending as I see fit yeah this is one of the few spots that they could feel secure uh in this entire section yeah I mean this surface disturbance at the top is what's basically helping you read the water as you get those little boils or any little sort of disturbance in the water that then drops down and forms a hole that's how you can start to identify where these fish are going to sit also what you're going to notice is like the disturbance on the water even though this isn't very deep I I know from previous years of fishing it's only like 2 ft deep in there but it's got plenty enough cover on the surface of the water being formed from the rapid to be able to hold a fish yeah all right everyone another perfect example of just a absolute amazing money holding water spot for steel especially in low Clear Water we have these big rocks in here these big boulders that have formed just an amazing again I'm going to cast up in and I'm going to show you fill my bber outs I'm going to show you about right where I think the fish would potentially sit anywhere through there right in there is like the sweet spot that's like see how my barber just slowed down and really started kind of move it oh my gosh that went under did you just see that that got me atcts I was like here we go another fish on a tutorial but as you can see my bobber as it moved down and got out of that current it slowed down perfectly into just a perfect walking speed I always like to describe people if if you can find a run that's about 3 to 6 ft deep at a slow walking speed Pace if there's steel head in the river it's almost a guarantee there could be one sitting in a hole like that what kind of bottom structure does steel head like in terms of size of rocks and Sil it's really so Lucas is asking what type of bottom does steel like to sit in they're typically Ally never going to be sitting in sand silk dirt anything like that that's going to continuously blast their gills with stuff that they don't want in there they're going to like rocks they're going to want Boulders they're going to we're going to go down folks we're going to go down okay so they're going to want oh look just this was God telling me to just take a seat they're going to want rocks Boulders I typically will look for runs that have rocks that are say about that big in them but then they're also going to have big boulders that fish can use as current braks within the hole so but really to answer that question is it's hard Lucas cuz I feel like I've caught steel head in like every b as long as it's Rocky steel head could be there now what what kind of currents you know you'll find salmon in some areas that have kind of churny water uh what kind of uh water direction to Steel headl steel head are inherently a pretty lazy fish so they don't want to sit somewhere where they have to use a ton of their energy and a ton of their willpower cuz they're trying to save it to spawn so again like I said walking speed slower currents not you don't want to be fishing big old boily holes I know salmon like that stuff but steel head typically won't be in that now pop off over the years has kind of changed my mind on that in a few different scenarios in some of those Coastal Rivers where I have seen steeled sitting in weird boily type currents yeah but it's not the common like if I had an option and the guy gave someone said hey here's your three holes and two of them are like walking speed and one of them was boily I would never choose the boiling run yeah so if you could choose the ideal depth for kind of low Clear Water what what what would you like to fish I'm going to fish 4 to 10 ft deep with stuff that's got a little bit of a current disturbance on the top but also just has a nice slow Envision yourself going on a nice Sunday stroll with your family walking along not moving fast not trying to get anywhere in a hurry that's what you're looking for is just a very nice consistent flow cuz what'll happen is the steel will just find a spot and a lot of times they'll just sit there and all they have to do is just barely flutter their fans and they can just sit there and rest forever yeah also usually guys in these type of bucket holes like this I'm going to make maybe three to four cast and I'm out of there like these things are so small these little pockets that if there's a willing biter in there you're going to get him in the first few casts and how far apart are you going to cast each cast when you're covering oh what was that when you're covering a hole how far you know how far apart will you make casts so depending on the hole I'll typically Go Out 3 fet every cast so I'll make my first cast super close in go out another 2 to 3 ft another 2 to 3 ft and just kind of walk my way across the river and then you don't want to send it too far down river cuz if that float or anything that you're fishing gets too far below you you're not going to be able to get a good hook set so I'll let it run maybe you know 30 to 50 yards below me and even that can be a lot so you're going to want to do it based on your comfor how comfortable you are at setting the hook and how good you are at picking up that line and getting a good hook set in there but you know then take another couple steps down river and continue that process into the hole okay so we moved into another hole guys and this is this is a pretty challenging hole to fish and understand especially from a depth perspective you don't have anywhere where you can get a good overview angle of the hole to really understand how deep it is so one of the things I want to stress is you're trying to learn how to catch steel head learn how to read water nothing beats time out here you know this hole over the years we've just learned it by fishing it consistently and consistently consistently and understanding The Depths it's such a flat just riffy hold that you don't really know how deep it is until you just go through there with a few times of your float and really pick the thing apart to understand how deep it is so one thing about this hole is this is the perfect hole to put that method of 3 ft out and then step down two steps so I'm going to show you kind of how far you should be running your float down you know sometimes I'll get a little crazy and I'll run it too far down and it's it's bit me a lot of times where I've lost fish because I've done that so I'm going to slightly cast out just up River slightly at a 45 you don't want to go way up River cuz it's going to be too hard to control your float too hard to control your M as that float's coming down put that Rod tip in the air and then you're going to let that float just drift down as nicely as possible so then as it gets below me I'm going to do one last Bend I'm going to lay that line behind it and then I'm just going to start slowly letting line out and right about there is where I feel like you're comfortable you know I was probably 30 yard below the float maybe 40 you go too much like I said if you start letting that float extend way down below your drift I promise you you're going to miss fish you're going to lose fish so Marlin uh you know in a situation like this where we're fish in a river with a very small return of fish uh how important is it to cover water like this efficiently and uh what you know what would you say is a good pace for people to take throughout the day when they're just searching for that one bite guys I if I'm if I'm fishing a river especially one like this in low Clear Water I'm not spending more than 10 15 minutes in a hole and I'm out like I am covering it fast you know this one's a little different because it it's a big long hole so some of them are going to take you longer to fish but the reality is if you feel like you've gotten a lot of nice drifts through the hole and You' covered the hole nicely don't hang out in it move go somewhere else [Music] okay so one thing that's happening here is while we're on the Move we're not necessarily ooh so early this winter we had a really high water event and so the river that we're fishing today is not the same as the one that we were fishing and fall for coo Rivers change you know as water goes through based on the structure around it the the gravel The Boulders the rocks or the lack thereof um high water events are going to change the holes we're looking at an area that is De out the next hole that we're going to uh the direction of the top end of the hole has changed the the lower end is fairly similar to how it's been in years past but and you know this is a year where we don't have a lot of numbers so we are having to pick apart every possible place a steel head could be just to hopefully get lucky and run into one or two you get surprised you know they're they're going to sit in different areas there's some more predictable holes and then there's some rivers and times where you know especially in higher Waters or during times when the fish are moving around uh you're going to want to try to pick apart literally every spot they could sit certain times there's just too much water and you got to choose you know what looks the best at the time but we're going to go give this a go and uh see what happens I don't want to say see if we can't find a [Music] fish [Music] all right so ultimately we're walking up above here to fish but because we're about to round the bank right up there potentially we could scare off any fish that are holding in the top of this hole so we're going to fish through it a little bit before we walk by and it's good uh you know it's kind of practice from trout fishing but to approach From Below they're looking up and outward if you can fish above them cast above them before you move by got a better chance of getting them so so guys I have Alex zoomed in right there there's a big boulder right in the middle of the run so part of you can come back to me now Alex part of the reason I'm standing up on this hill if you see there's a big like Sandy Hill so I'm standing in an elevated position so I can get more of a bird's eye view of right exactly where that Boulder is and then I can run my stuff right next to it if I was standing down there I wouldn't be able to see where that Boulder's at and I wouldn't be able to get the cast that I need to get so I'm just trying to basically feather my bobber on the front front the back and both sides of that Boulder just to cover it make sure there's no fish using that as Refuge so this hole is a totally different situation than some of the ones we've been at before which is just an even flowing run the whole way through this one has wood structure and there's really only one slot that's kind of moving straight down and it's on the far Edge close to the log structure so this is not a place that you can run a float through the entire hole you've got to kind of run it through that little seam that slot that's going right at that other side fish through and then uh you know maybe try some different techniques in the hole or casting Spinners or spoons but at the end of the day it's just not as much of this as holding water a lot of it not really ideal for a steel head it's pretty much going to be that right there now because this is not an easy hold to float fish it's going to require a lot more mending control and if you watch Marlin he's using his Rod which is a little bit longer he's using it as a tool to basically keep the line from affecting that float as little as possible he wants that float kind of to float naturally down like imagine you took a marshmallow and you threw it in the water you want your bobber to keep going down river just like that and it may look nice and peaceful and simple on the float but a lot of times the angler sitting there doing all sorts of work mending and it is different than fly mending you know you've got these floating braids and stuff like that which make it really effective but it still requires a lot of finesse and then uh also not only letting out line and being able to mend but then being ready to uh to to get that bail over and set the hook and with this hole in particular one of the things that's really important is you can't think of mening is always putting the line behind your float in a scenario like this you have this current where if you don't control that line good enough that current will just suck that float into this dead water and it won't even move so you have to kind of do these front mens where you put your your line in front of the float to assist it through that really slow water to get that to float naturally down if you just kind of let your float do your thing and you keep back mending it's not going to float through this hole right totally yeah and like you said even putting the line in front of it for a short time period he's affecting the bobber but it's in order to get it to the right area so it's kind of like what he was doing before by fishing too deep in a shallow are to fall into a bucket at the same time using that line to move it anywhere necess NE to get it in that zone where a fish might bite it and I'm always going to hold in a hole like this where I have this current that's basically where I have these dead water right in front of me I never want my line to hit that dead water so I've always got my rod like way up in the air to make sure that float is just floating naturally down the current you know and he's got a little bit of a belly of line out behind it um but he could easily set the hook if you need it to I'm going to just keep as you guys can see as it's floating down I'm just going to keep mending real up a little bit of my slack and keep front mending to make sure that that float is moving down the current exactly how I want it and then uh another thing Marlin can do is either you know try to fish down farther or just walk down so he's got an easy uh an easy way to mend right in front of him you know positioning yourself in a hole is huge for when you're float fishing if you're positioned right to be able to fish the water right it's good um and often just walking down further or up higher will make a big difference to being able to keep your line off the water all right everyone thanks again so much for tuning in we appreciate you before we end this episode we are going to finish it off with one of my favorite steel Hood catches that I've ever caught over the years we're going to finish it off with that thanks again for watching I hope you guys learned a ton for this reading water tutorial if you want more of this type of stuff make sure you guys drop some comments hit the thumbs up button and we'll see you on the [Music] river my man by the flppy SM what's happening Phil so day three we brought our good buddy Ben we decided we needed an extra stick we needed an extra Raod extra bait in the water to hopefully help us complete this challenge look at tiny he's all zifi tiny are you zifi in the most beautiful place in the world this is what we call steel head Heaven everybody we're right in the middle of it we're living it baby at the beginning of the day we're like okay a lot of these fish because the river's so low and it's so clear it's going to be like first or second cast through the hole most likely and these fish are going to grab so we all kind of picked our holes that we wanted to fish on and Ben just happened to choose this one particular hole so we roll into the hole and Ben makes his first cast through bobber starts going bobber starts going just completely drains and we're like oh my God here we go sets the hook nothing and all of us are kind of like what the hell we're looking around but I had already cast it as well so my bobber was probably 15 20t behind his as my bobber goes goes goes bobber drains same exact spot as Ben's I set the hook and I was in for a ride really nice he seagull him seagull him totally seagull him little says little says seagull I got it here we're good just chill just stay in the boat so hopefully you guys can see in the footage but I was really really nervous when I hooked this fish like that I could tell it was big I could tell it was a trophy and I just was praying please let me land this fish please let me land this fish it's a night oh my God it's such a nice fish it is so little update on what just transpired transpired I don't know I can't even talk right now this fish is big like really big I see it I see it my heart is beating a th000 miles a minute so Ben rolls through the we have the cameras on cuz we've been just fishing our butts off and moving as fast as we can down the river and this was the hole too we told Ben we called we all picked holes that we wanted first cast in so Ben was first cast first run through here and this is just all about luck really that was a Oh my God it's such a big fish it's big big big big that was a heck of oh my God it's Big Ben point the camera at yourself and tell them a little bit about how you feel right now feeling about that big right now but hey that's fishing I mean I had my chance and and it's not like I wasn't on him either like I had good line tight and cuz the float landed past the past the R so it's not like I wasn't on him maybe too quick I don't know hey maybe it's another one hopefully we don't blow the hole up when we get back in there I can't do anything with him every dick every time okay here we go we might get a good look at him right here oh yeah y That's right there that's oh God okay I'm going to go down a little bit so you can roll into me you just stay there don't move I'm going to stay right about here dude if I'm not mistaken I I think it's a hatchery fish all right you ready Jordan I think so oh my God he said no he said f you dude I haven't had a fish make my heartbeat like this in a long time I'm going to tell you that right now it's real all the way to your bobber and then lift him not push him nope not doing it okay that might be it no not doing it not doing it okay okay okay we might have him here no oh God I don't want to stop got him I got him yes that's a big fish that was scary it's a giant Hatchery it's a giant Hatchery oh my oh my God does anybody else have anything else to say oh wow my god wow oh my God we finally get this thing in the net and it ends up being 36 by1 19 pretty much a 17lb steel head maybe a little bit bigger it's hard to say from the measurements but a trophy nonetheless this fish had just absolutely amazing characteristics one of the coolest steel I've ever caught it was a hatchery steel head so all the people out there all you wild fish guys that try to say that Hatchery steel head aren't quality take a look at this guy wow everybody now this is what the search is all about this is why we put in the effort the sleepless nights the long drives the icy drives in the morning is to get to shake hands and just spend a couple of moments with a creature that is at this capacity man look at that and it is a hatchery fish really nice one man I just I can't be more happy for I just can't man we I mean we put in two gr I'm like got a lost for words I've never seen marlin so speechless in my life adex look at the color on this fish this is some this is a fish I'll remember forever look at this fish's face two full days Jordan is searching for something like this thank the Creator for that and this isn't a 40in fish but guys this is everything you dream for when you're looking for a trophy steel head and he's absolutely 100% ready to go let's get one more look at him guys we can take this fish a little bit out of the water cuz he is a hatchery fish but we're going to let him go anyway we're going to let this thing go make some other big babies just like him oh he's so ready you ready there he goes look at his back in the water that's nice [Music] yeah man a good luck time it was a major goal accomplished and something we didn't really even expect ourselves to be able to do especially this time of the year and with as much time as we had 3 days is not enough time to try to catch a trophy fish and every angler in the world knows that but we did it it all came together and we did it

Channel: Addicted Fishing

Views: 18,333

Keywords: how to read a river, reading water, how to read water for fishing, how to read water steelhead fishing, finding fishing spots, finding fishing holes, how to fish a river, river fishing, steelhead fishing tips, steelhead fishing tricks, how to steelhead fishing, steelhead fishing, winter steelhead fishing, steelhead trout fishing, steelhead trout, addicted fishing, fishing, steelhead, winter steelhead, catching steelhead trout, fishing for steelhead, how to catch steelhead

Id: lJPFJbrZyc8

Length: 29min 36sec (1776 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024