How to read water for winter steelhead fishing 2023

they say steelhead are a fish of a thousand casts but I'm hoping to show you how you can make steel ahead a fish of only 10 calves [Music] if you cast you have to have some conditions that are working for you and you can't always control that but for most deal headers the challenge it isn't just the conditions it's also finding these elusive fish right water is completely up to you and it is how you get it done why is it so hard to find steelhead first of all there's fewer of them compared to Salmon dramatically fewer but the good news is steelhead are usually excellent biters in fact I think much better biters than salmon a little crazy whoa which puts finding out where in the river they're holding and traveling at an absolute premium if you want to be in the 10 who catch 90 of the fifth they won't travel very far in these cold winter water flows we have so you have to put it right on their nose to get them to bite in the past video on how to catch winter steelhead I I talked about finding walking speed watering looking for steelhead and tail outs and right before the the bottom starts to rise uh at the at the right at that tail out spot and they like that water because steelhead are uh our fish that like to conserve energy in the river they're not in a huge hurry like a fall Chinook is to get to the spawning grounds they're trying to conserve energy because they can oftentimes survive the spawning process and go back down river and back to the salt water to revive and resuscitate and then return again for more spawning events which means they're going to prefer gentler flows easier currents and so just like we we showed looking for steelhead and tailouts I'm going to show you how to find steelhead in the soft edges next to fast water and current scenes that is the focus of this video I've been running out to the coast this winter and dealing with all kinds of uh challenges with high water conditions and gear restrictions keeping you away from using bait in the state of Washington on the coast and smaller run sizes so uh finding Steelhead and being successful to hooking them has been put a premium on fishing the right Waters so while I've had success cooking I still had the last few weeks on the coast I want my friend and I Connor wanted to hire a tribal guy to try to put the conditions in our favor and fish one of the rivers on the coast that is that is on reservation land and so we hired Frank Anderson and we headed into this just absolutely gorgeous beautiful River on the Olympic Peninsula and there were there were plenty of steelhead around but even in this situation conditions were not optimal because uh flows had been dropping for for over a week and the the water was very clear uh and flows were definitely on the lower side now what that means is steelhead will be concentrated in certain parts of the river where they still feel like they have protection and where they don't feel like they have protection they're they're not going to be very good biters and we saw some steelhead in in some skinny water that you know we put uh our best best gear in front of them many times and and they could not get them to bite and even in these conditions of lots of steelhead around and holding versus moving through uh out of the 20 fishermen uh that were on the bank that morning only my friend Connor and I had a steelhead on the bank so odds were still not great [Music] Chrome [Music] but I I think reading water knowing what water to fish it makes a huge difference in in the success rate and why we had steelhead on the bank that morning you're still looking for uh water that has appropriate death you know maybe three to six feet of depth but adjusted for water Clarity if you can see the steelhead in the drift that's usually not a good sign now I get it polarized sunglasses right angles on the water a lot of times fish that feel comfortable and are at enough depth to bite uh you can still see them with the polarized sunglasses but you don't want to be seeing them in a couple feet of water uh and they could see you and and you know your bobber splashing down that's not great a great situation so you want to have the right depth of water uh you also but the other the other thing if you look at this you look at this diagram what's Illustrated here is on the the top of the diagram is is this faster water and if you throw your your bobber in there it's just gonna it's gonna zip on by and it's not gonna be that walking speed or slower water that steel I prefer but as soon as you get to that that break between the fast water and the slow water that's called the seam and that is prime steelhead travel water holding water in the right conditions and then you can also find steelhead in that inside softer water between you and the fast water and a lot of times this presents on a river in water that you you can't quite see the bottom of it's darker just like in this drift and then this picture right here this this is what we're looking at it's darker but it's inside of the main flow and the main fast water and you will absolutely find steelhead here when the right conditions exist this is the water you're gonna find them so you fish this water at the right depth with the right presentation and you are going to get bit and it's not going to take you about 1000 gas to get it done so luckily I was able to capture all of the footage on GoPro of battling both of these Steelhead and I I don't know what it is what it is what is it about winter steelhead that's so uh Thrills us and excites us and gets us out in some oftentimes crummy conditions cold weather rain blowing sideways the snow ice to chase these just incredible incredible fish these sea run rainbow trout that that come back so full of energy and vitality and and uh just incredible uh incredible Fighters one of the other things I want I want to um highlight from our from our trip here to this this Coastal low clear steelhead stream is that you know some you know you hear the old outage you never leave fish to find fish well there's times when that's not very helpful you know when when the fish that you're fishing at aren't biting because the water flow and the conditions aren't right or whatever like it or maybe there's too much pressure on them from from other Anglers like that's there's time to it's time to move it's time to look for uh to find fish that and steal it in this case that are in better conditions for uh for for getting a bite so in this case we we walk to the to the um to the tail out uh which is always where you should look to safely cross a river and we we fish the next drift down and you can see this just beautiful uh deep green pool opens up to us here in this drift and and uh you know at the head of it it was pretty deep and it kind of fooled us a little bit but as you go down towards the towards the end of it there's like this um there's this kind of like Bedrock wall that uh there's a there's another trench on the other side of this wall and the fish that I hooked down here was right sitting right with it must have had the tail its tail like right up against this Bedrock wall and so my float went all the way down almost to where you think it would snag up at the end and that's where it went down that's where this fish this that's where this fish bit but it actually you know looking back at my video footage it actually only took me uh my second cast to get this uh this fish hook so imagine if you showed up and you looked up the water and said so this is how I'm gonna fish I'm gonna fish this inside scene of this this beautiful drift here uh I I'm gonna I'm gonna make one cast to kind of get my depth dialed in you know I I you can see I raised my bobber stop a little bit and on the second cast bam it's a fish on [Music] yep [Music] going nuts foreign [Music] exactly [Music] yeah at least this isn't uh [Music] [Music] no no there we go all right Roger your uh Rod right there I was like step on it thank you John nice [Music] all right here's the coastal river that I've hooked steelhead in and I'm just show I'm showing you this clip even though I didn't capture the the steelhead being hooked and the bobber down I want to show you the exact water I was fishing and point out to you where in the drift I hooked the steelhead because I want you to learn this model of looking at the water and going right there that's where the steelhead are so as you see this this foot you can see right right as the as the bobber is going right past that that point right there in that in that slower softer current Edge that's where uh that's where the takedown was and again in the same drift further down on it same type of water in this soft current Edge next to the fast water is is where the bite happened I should have handed the rod to you because uh uh if I can get a hand on a tail with these gloves they stick to them they're like the wool gloves uh yeah I'll give you the whole butt I don't know where else it could have uh done that you know now with Connor's fish in the morning you can see from the lighting it's a little it's a little darker off this he you know we had only made a handful of casts before he hooked this fish on the the slower water on the other side of of the fastest portion of the river uh I I was filming from further distance so I don't have great footage of like the bobber down and and you could so you can really see the water really clearly but you can see from like my effort on this part of the river like I'm I'm trying to fish this slower pocket water on the other side of the faster drift and that's that's and even talking to Frank you know uh you know throughout the morning he's like man 75 of my fish come right here right in the slower pocket wire hopefully you're getting the idea this is where you're looking for steelhead to sit they're not going to be in completely stagnant frog water they're kind of like like uh Coho water you look for right or uh for where they tend to school up and spend time or pinks will spend time in that frog water but you so you want flow but you're looking for that gentler softer flow next to faster water and these steelhead absolutely love to spend time in that part of the river and when you find that and you find a river that's got a a a run a condition run a steelhead in the conditions that are optimal you're absolutely going to hook hook a steelhead in these conditions all right well what should you use you know what should you use for your lure or your bait and I got two approaches for you right if you're in Southwest Washington or you want a tribal Coastal River one of these one of these um trips out there with Frank or another another tribal guide uh it's hard to beat using jigs tips with a little bit of prawn like a pinky nails tip of prawn that you get at the grocery store right your your uh Frozen shell on you want the shell on because the shell keeps the the prawn meat on on that hook um so you know you use some scissors and you cut up those prawns and you tip your jigs with that the nightmare jig powder and just works phenomenally that's what I caught my steelhead on I've got many steelhead on that on that pattern other patterns work as well your pinks your ceresis your your whites your pearls oranges right uh these all these all are gonna gonna you know have their place um but on the Washington coast where we're not allowed to use bait I I prefer beads in particular I like I like soft beads and I like bigger soft beads I like big beads and I can not a lot never mind I like bigger soft beads that my my favorite that I've been hooking fish on lately is this 20 millimeter uh orange mottled or neutral soft bead by BNR uh BNR tackle this video is brought to you today by pnw best life that's right me nothing says I support catching shooting killing harvesting my own food more than one of the awesome pnw best life hoodies we got different colors we've got water bottles we've got stickers you want to say hey I support this lifestyle of harvest Recreation get one get some of this merch probably display it your friends will be jealous all right but seriously if you want one of these DM me on Instagram uh at Pacific NW best life email me Kyle pnw best life we'll work out the details of shipping we'll have it shipped directly to you and uh and we'll get it done still have questions about how to find steelhead rivers and and and and looking for help interpreting some of your experiences on the river just trying to get better at hooking steelhead drop a comment or question I reply to everything to to the nth degree because I'm here to help you get better at these different Harvest recreation activities just like I'm in in my own learning stage of this and as I learn I'm going to share that is what we're all about here pnw best life putting the tools you need in your hands and the knowledge to get it done on the river in the forest wherever you're going at it till next time good luck hook a big Chrome bright one post about it I want to see your picks on on Instagram or wherever you're at take care

Channel: PNW Best Life

Views: 13,005

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Id: YhpltHoDb9o

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2023