How To TWITCH JIGS For Salmon & Steelhead (IN DEPTH FISHING TUTORIAL)

[Music] hey guys it's cameron with addictive fishing in this very special tutorial we're going to be going over all things twitching jigs for salmon now when it comes to twitching jigs it's a fairly new technique it hasn't been around as long as bobber fishing and as long as drift fishing so the technique is constantly evolving and so we figure we're going to put this full seminar length video together for you guys to answer a lot of your questions about how to do this extremely fun technique we're going to go over some of the bases equipment colors of jigs styles of jigs and then we're actually going to fish a couple of these holes on the river and then a little later on we're going to hop in the sled and show you how to use some strategies on targeting salmon from the boat using this awesome technique now before we get to the fun stuff and we start fishing these rivers here i really need to talk about the equipment that you're going to use because you know like most of the techniques in the northwest where you can float fish with a longer rod and then you can drip fish with it you know you really need to have equipment that is specific for this technique using a shorter faster action rod is going to put more action on the jigs with less movement in my arms and it's going to entice more salmon to bite now one of the rods that i really prefer to use is the akuma guide select pro the 761m it's got a really fast tip and it's got a really strong section it's also a one-piece rod because like i said before when we're using these jigs and we're fishing heavy covers sometimes you've got to pull those fish and you have to put the wood to them to get them out of those spots using a really light rod isn't going to lend well to doing this and then also we use a half ounce a three quarter ounce even in even up to a one ounce jig so having a heavier shorter rod is gonna do a lot better than using these nine and a half ten and a half foot soft rods that are really loopy and flimsy now whether you're new to twitching or you've seen this a lot in the videos you'll notice that we use a lot of spinning equipment there's a couple reasons for that first off castability and ease of casting you know especially if you're a newer angler or you don't want to deal with the backlashes that a bait casting reel will give you the other reason too is because the balance of the rod when you're constantly twitching and you're constantly working and you're fishing you know six seven eight hours a day kind of a thing having that spinning rail underneath and having that weight there it balances very nicely in your hand instead of trying to hold that casting reel on top of the rod the whole time now if you're looking to purchase an actual setup for twitching start with that spinning reel size in a 30 35 and maybe even up to a 40 but i wouldn't go outside that size range just because you're gonna have too big of a reel for too short of a rod and the balance isn't gonna be real good so now we're gonna line our reel up with a type of tough line preferably in a 20 to 30 pound test it's really imperative that you go with a tough line because you get sensitivity and you get zero stretch when you're trying to detect that jig along the bottom or whether you're trying to feel for a fish or whether you're getting into a snag you're gonna lose that sensitivity unless you're using a braided line so i know i've already talked about it a lot but having the right rod reel and the line is gonna help you catch more fish when it comes to this technique it's really one that you don't want to step too far outside of what i've explained because we've seen it and as this technique has developed and we were starting to use eight and a half nine foot rods well the second we dropped into the shorter rods and the faster action rods we started catching more fish the second we went to braid we started producing more fish the second we used spinning rods and we realized that how much nicer they balanced in our hands we started catching more fish so like i said if you're going to get into it be sure to get some technique specific equipment so if you've been to the fishing store lately you have seen that there's a lot of different twitching jigs on the market but what i'm going to be using today are the addicted tail out twitchers and i kind of want to go over exactly what is a twitching jig for you guys so most of these twitching jigs have a large head whether they're a half ounce three quarter ounce or one ounce and then they've got these these bodies that are made from these brushes right here and they've got this little extra mylar that adds a lot of movement adds a lot of flash to this jig you're trying to get these salmon to do an instinctive strike you need to get their attention and sometimes we're fishing in conditions that only have a foot or two of visibility so using stuff that has like high contrast colors a lot of brightness a lot of flash a lot of movement will get you guys more strikes so when it comes to colors as you can see here i've got lots of different styles of twitching jigs you know it pays dividends especially when you are on the river and it's really crowded and there's a lot of pressure to have something different than the other boats are seeing especially in clear water like i know a lot of people think that clearwater you want to go with your basic purples and your basic blues you know something that's a little more toned down but sometimes if every boat or every angler in front of you is throwing that color it pays to show up with a really bright yellow and pink or really bright yellow head with a green body something different so as you can see here these are this is my one ounce assortment and i've got lots of different colors that's going to match the different variables and for the pressure that's going to be on the river and so besides color with the addicted tail out twitcher we've come out with a different variety of sizes and this is really important when were trying to adjust this technique into the different styles of water and the different styles of fishing which we'll be going over here in a minute but one key thing that i want to show you guys is as you adjust the size of the jig you're really not doing much to change the profile what i've got here is i've got the half ounce the three quarter ounce and a one ounce addicted tail out twitcher so a lot of people will be like oh well a one ounce jig that that's too big for coho like you shouldn't be using those you shouldn't be casting those well the reality is is the one ounce profile is just about the same as the half ounce like so you're not really changing a lot in that but what you are gonna do with the one outs is be able to fish heavier water be able to keep that jig down in those strike zones being able to dig them out of these boulders and stuff and so you're gonna you're gonna catch more fish and you're gonna feel more uh while you're doing it but for the most part i do end up using a lot of the half ounce and the three quarters so if you're going to go out there maybe get a good rich assortment in the half ounce and three quarter with a couple one ounces just in your pocket just in case now the addicted tail out twitcher is a very good very durable jig the paint that stays on the head is going to be stronger than anything else they're out there on the market the jig is going to last long and it's going to fish really well but guess what those tail out twitchers aren't the only gig in the market because now we're going to talk a little bit about some of these hoochie jigs so i've got my addicted tail out twitchers now why would i even want to bring a hoochie jig to the river well it's because this jig has a much different action and a much different style when it comes to fishing this this jig when it has the eyelet right here on top of it it comes up and as it falls it doesn't it doesn't just fall straight up and down like a twitching jig it's going to slide to the side it's going to dart it's going to have some erratic movement and even on the uplift it's going to shoot off to the side and do some weird things that sometimes when you have fish that are really really really wary and you need that extra little enticing action to do it hoochie jigs will do it also they work really good for if you're having to fish if you're having to flutter the jig above cover and trying to get coho to come to it the reason why i say is because they don't sink as fast which can be good and can be bad depending like i said what type of cover you're trying to fish so you get into a spot that's really snaggy maybe even a little bit shallower maybe it's only one or two foot deep three foot deep you don't want that twitching jig to fall right to the bottom without giving you a chance to put a little movement on it or to flutter it along and these hoochie jigs work really well for bouncing down and instead of falling right into the snag kind of working along the side and giving you a chance to put some action on it and get some more strikes so when it comes to colors guys it's just like the addicted tail out twitchers i just want to have a good assortment lots of whites pinks glows you know for when the water's muddy or a little more turbid and then i also want to have a lot of blues and purples and blacks for when the water is clear you know you're still just matching kind of those salmon colors and also you want to have that assortment like i said if that pressure is on the river and you just want to be different from everybody else now we're going to take the rod over there we're going to show you guys how to work these jigs start catching some salmon [Music] all right guys you got the equipment you've got the jigs now we're going to talk about actually how to work these in the water so i'm not in a real fishy spot but i'm a good spot to show you guys what's going on here and basically what i'm going to do and what i'm looking for with a twitch is i'm looking for something that's probably from like my waist to about the top of my head when it comes to movement on my rod i don't want to be a guy that's twitching way up here because what happens is if i'm twitching up real high and i get a strike or i need to pull a jig out of a snag or or a spot that's kind of grabby if i'm already twitching up this high in the water i have no room to come back and i'm not going to get a good hook set into a fish and i'm not going to be able to pull that jig away from what i'm doing so most of the time that when i'm twitching where i can my action and my jig i'm going to try to keep the rod in front of me and i'm going to try to keep the rod tip from like i said the waist maybe just over the top of my head one key thing that i'm always looking for with twitching jigs is the fall of the jig i don't want that jig to slowly sink to the ball i want to fall that fall is what entices a lot of strikes whether i'm using a hoochie jig or an addicted tail out twitcher how i'm doing that is as i'm twitching i'm watching my line every time i lower that rod tip i should almost see like a little bit of slack or a little bit of that line just hang in the air just a second because if i'm not putting any tension or if i'm not putting any movement on that jig it's going to be free falling that free fall is super super important so now keeping in mind that i want the jig to free fall i also got to put movement on it so it's a delicate balance of being able to cast out move the jig allowing it to free fall and taking up a little bit of line almost in between every single beat now depending on if i'm casting upstream or downstream or what the current's doing every time i cast i need to be able to feel that jig being lifted up off the bottom or else it's not going to even have a chance to free fall but if i was to cast out and not do any reeling especially if i'm going to cast out some slack or water stagnant water every time i lift that rod that jig is coming towards me a little bit if the current's pushing it towards me it might be moving a lot if the current's pulling away from me it might be allowing me to lift this rod every single time and to be able to feel the jig every time and move the jig every time that movement is what gets the strike so a lot of times i'm going to have a lot of varying degrees on how much i'm going to want to reel in between beats or in between lifts of that jig so let me just demonstrate here i'm going to cast upstream and since i'm going to be casting up streaming the current's going to be coming at me it might take a couple cranks to where i'm feeling that jig every time now if i cast downstream where the current's going to be keeping tension on the line and the jig every time i do this i can feel the jig being pulled down by the current but i'm probably not going to want to be reeling too much because it's going to be lifting that jig up it's going to be getting it out of the strike zone there's going to be some spots down river and in the sled that i'm going to be able to demonstrate this more but just understand that it's not a half crank every time between the beats or it's not no cranks or it's three cranks you really have to adjust the amount of line that you're taking up in between beats to where you're fishing and how deep you're fishing now one more thing guys i want to point out and even though i'm standing here on the bank if you're working in a draft boat a raft or a sled and you're drifting with the current downriver if you don't have a lot of cross currents and a lot of seams it's almost like you're taking the current out of the equation and that's going to be a totally different setup so we're going to talk a little bit about that when we hop into the sled here a little bit later but for right now we're going to go down and hit the bank and hit a couple holes and show you guys different angles of approach and different ways to fish out some of these spots when you're targeting salmon [Music] so we got to our first spot right here and it's kind of an upper watershed kind of a canyony bouldery hole but one thing about right now is the water is really low and clear and one and i i've got my braided line tied directly to the jig which honestly works about 80 percent of the time but because it's so clear because the sun's out because it's just like like i said it's really low water i'm going to want to add a bumper of about six foot of ma a fluorocarbon line to this jig i'm going to show you how to do that real quick now like i said before adding a bumper line isn't necessarily the only thing that's going to be the difference of not catching a fish but man just because the conditions are calling for it right now what i've got is some excess fluorocarbon by tough line and some 20 pound and i'm just going to add a six foot chunk of that to the jig now that i've got my bumper line attached to my jig i'm going to use a crazy alberto knot and attach that piece of bumper to my braided line now you can use a uni to uni a blood knot there's a few other lines that attach a heavier fluorocarbon leader to a braid so use what you prefer but once i attach that up i'm going to be ready to go fishing so we're going to start here in this canyon we've got some bouldery water we've got some riffle we've got a main current that's kind of moving down the middle of the river but we've got all these little pockets and little side seams now i don't think it's going to be very productive today for fishing because i don't think a lot of these fish are going to be on the move or moving they're going to be sitting down in some holding water which we're going to get into a little bit later in the sled but what i'm not going to do is i'm not going to show up to these kind of spots take a couple casts in the middle of the river and then walk away and think oh i fished the spot the water's low the water is clear these fish are going to be tight to cover they're going to be up underneath the riffle they're going to be against a boulder they're going to be sitting up against some bedrock in a pocket and they're going to be really tight they're not just going to be sitting out in the open you know they want to hide from us as much as they want to so what i'll do is i'm going to start a little bit closer to the bank i'm going to work a couple seam lines that are just right here and a lot of times too when i'm doing this when i'm picking this apart these casts are real short and quick chances are if there's a fish there and he's going to strike he's going to do it within the first couple of bumps once i put it right in his wheelhouse so i work that inside seam i'm gonna go to the outside seam there pick it apart i'm letting it flow down the stream it's pretty shallow water so i'm not letting it sink all the way down to the bottom because like you basically if you drag a twitching jig for any amount of time you will be breaking it off and you'll be buying another addicted tail out twitcher i got a far pocket seam over there we're gonna let it go i'm having a reel a lot more because it's working down into the current a lot of times too as these jigs move into the bottom end of the current a lot of times i like to do is just let them kind of fan out and let that current push that jig over to the side and as long as i'm feeling that jig and still able to let that rod fall and let that line kind of float in the air to show that the jig is falling as long as it's doing that i'm okay with fishing that jig all the way to the end now because there's all these different currents and because there's all this different water moving in different directions the other thing i'm not wanna the other thing i'm not going to want to do is just fish one spot so i kind of worked through this i'm going to move down onto that rock and i'm going to change the angles of where i'm casting into because there might have been a fish over in that other pocket but because i was straight across from it when i casted the jig out the water just blew it right out of that pocket even if i was using a three quart or a one if i get down below it and i cast up to it it gives the jig a lot more of a chance to settle down and to sink down a little bit further and like i said you've got to get these jigs sometimes in their wheelhouse to get a strike so i'm going to take a few steps downriver and give that a shot so now that i'm here i'm going to cast upstream into that a little more it's going to give that jig a little more of a chance to sink i'm just going to make sure there's not a fish in there before i move on before i start changing my spots on where i want to cast i'm having to reel a lot because the current is pushing at it but i can tell i'm bouncing along the bottom there all right no dice there so now i'm going to adjust my cast i'm going to pick another little spot that i need to fish and because i'm casting and now the current's more straight across as i'm lifting that jig i'm not having to reel as much as i did on that upstream cast just kind of working it down in the rocks and now as it's getting a little further down in the run every time i'm lifting that rod i'm feeling that jig i'm still able to let it free fall i'm changing kind of the cadence of my twitch the speed that i'm twitching at just to make sure i'm getting a little bit of a good fall in there and i'm gonna work it out to the end of the run got some rocks right here in the middle i'm just gonna kind of like throw behind it just to make sure there's not one laying in there letting it sink a little bit a couple twitches making sure there's not one kind of chilling there in the middle and maybe i'll even make one really close to the bank because a lot of people will miss those fish and like i said sometimes i'm not even reeling sometimes i'm reeling a lot just having that mentality and honestly it's just going to take a lot of practice you're just going to have to go down you're going to lose some jigs you're just going to have to go down to the water and you're going to have to just like i said have that mentality you don't want to be an automatic guy that twitches the same lean that reels the same time it's just not going to get it done especially in spots like this as we move down to some more flatter water some riftly water or even some like back waters where the water's stagnant there's not a lot of current yeah you can get away with that but if you end up fishing some of these spots like this especially when the water comes up rain fish are moving up river you're going to catch a lot more fish all right guys so i spent some time picking this apart i changed my angles i kind of want to look but a couple things here you know i didn't see any fish following my jig in so a lot of times especially coho salmon they really like to show themselves they like to roll in the hole when they're holding they like to follow jigs in and i didn't really see much activity so i'm going to bale down river uh i'm going to bale to actually a different river but the second thing is too is if you're just trying to learn this technique try to seek out some of the water we're going to go to here in these next couple segments because stuff like this can be a little more difficult to fish especially when you're trying to get the right rhythm try to find some of those backwaters try to find some of those more steady or current spots this just worked out really well because we were just filming up streaming it's a good hold of fish and we wanted to see if there's any fish in it so i think we're going to run back down and hop in the sled i think we might get a couple more people to join us and let's get after it [Music] so [Music] so [Music] all right so i came to one of these little steadier spots we hopped in the sled switched to the rivers and got out on the bank here because i want to kind of demonstrate how i'm going to work down this run that's got pretty even current from one shore to the other you know when these cohor are moving around they could be holding back in this tail out they could be moving through the river so i'm just going to want to make sure that i comb this water completely and as like jordan likes to say and i really like that he says this fish with your feet you know i'm not going to stand in one spot i'm not going to walk out cast into that one spot take two casts and turn on walk away i mean look at how wide the spot is those fish can be laying absolutely bank to bank and i've got nice steady current so really they could be anywhere in here so we're going to start getting to work so i've got a nice little soft current seam line here water is about four or five feet deep but like i said before those fish could be moving all the way through there so i'm just gonna start out by casting maybe just slightly upstream and i'm just gonna work this twitching jig back to me every time i'm lifting up i'm making sure that i feel the jig and then every time i'm dropping that rod down and making sure i'm putting a little bit of slack in the line jig gets close to the bank we're gonna work it out a little bit further like i said i'm combing water i'm hunting these fish i'm working [Music] letting the current just kind of drift it down picking up a little slack when i need to working it down the run i'm going to give one more cast just to go just a little bit further like i said they could be holding out on that main current water is real clear still pretty bright outside giving it a chance to settle down there sink for a second and now i'm gonna start to work it now i wouldn't necessarily consider this a holding spot there could be fish scattered throughout this run like this is not a spot i don't believe the fish are gonna really cake up and crowd up we're going to get to those spots here in just a minute but if i got fish moving it's early in the run you know just coming off of a good rain or maybe even if the water's coming up these would be kind of the areas that i'd look to target working it down felt the bottom every now and then made sure my jig was down low all right now i'm going to move down a little bit in a normal fishing situation i would repeat that process i'd work it out making sure but i've got some of this wood structure down here and i happen to know that it's a little bit deeper off this edge so as i approach spots like this especially if on the bank like i'm going to try just to get that jig down and just to work it right by try to hover that jig if you will because if these fish are sitting tight to cover and if there's something hanging on that log or in that ledge i'm going to work it maybe i'm going to go a little bit out past it working in it trying not to snag the jig of course i'm just gonna work it and now i'm not just gonna walk away from a spot like that i'm gonna walk down below it and try to work up to it and just to change that angle because what if those fish are sitting like directly behind the log or tight to it where i'm not able to swing that jigging to that structure i'm going to need to get below it and maybe they're sitting in that pocket water behind it so i was walking down but honestly it looked so good just gonna do a little flip there and try to like [Music] drag it up into it i said i'm bat i mean i'm bass fishing salmon at this point you know what i mean i'm working structure doing what i can and then you know heaven forbid i hook a fish right there i'm gonna make sure that i have the right rod the right line and the right equipment to rip him out of there because honestly if i hooked one right there and that's why it's going to get pretty rowdy so as we were walking around the boat it kind of dawned on me too to say this to you guys don't seek out certain spots of water and only fishes twitching is one technique that you should be able to do pretty effectively from the top of a river system all the way down and even into tidewater so like as you see spots like this as i show you spots like this don't think that these are the only spots that you can look out to like i said there's times where like you know buddies and i clients and i float rivers where they're twitching top to bottom through transition water through pools through tail outs through riffles i mean through through it all so like don't seek out necessarily like this the exact these three or four spots that i'm showing you right now just realize that you can just about twitch anywhere so i've got some of these logs that are sticking down below it quite quite a ways but like i said water's clear fish aren't too busy of a move they could be just sitting all underneath that real tight so [Music] if i would only try to fish these logs from the upstream side i feel like if there was fish in there the jig wouldn't even be getting in front of their face you would have no chance at those and you'd walk away and you wouldn't do it so let me give it one more shot just up in there and like i said probably not efficient here we are kind of doing this a little late in the season but you guys get the idea fish with your feet move around change your angles really dig for those fish d use those jigs get it into structure get it against edges dig them out but i tell you what we need to go catch fish and i want to get in the boat so we're going to run out the boat we're gonna go fish some stagnant water for you and we're gonna also fish from a moving boat uh as well right now [Music] okay guys so marlo and i hopped in the sled here and we're going to anchor in the current now obviously i've got my minn kota torova so i don't need to drop my anchor but this is going to be a situation here where we're going to where you'd fish if you're anchored in a drift boat or a raft or a sled with some moving currents so let's see what we're going to do here so we have a fair amount of current here but we've got a nice soft seam up against the edge and since we're going to just be sitting here what we're going to want to be doing is we're going to want to be casting slightly upstream just to give our jigs a chance to sink down to the bottom and get into the strike zone if i casted downstream right away and started twitching the jig would immediately flutter up and it's not going to be away from the fish the water over there is six to eight feet deep or so so i gotta give those jigs an opportunity to get down the more that they need to sink the further upstream i need to cast but like i said kind of judging by what we're doing here and since i'm using a three quarter ounce i'm probably only going to have to cast just slightly upstream get up against that edge give it a second maybe even detect the bottom and start twitching from there now every time i twitch as we talked about before you can see a little bit of slack line that line is just kind of floating in the air letting that jig sink putting some good action on it but as i get down to the bottom of the runner when i'm getting down to pass maybe 45 degrees here i'm not having to reel near as much if at all because the currents keeping that line tight if i was to reel every time like right now that jig would just be coming up into the top of the water column it's not going to stay in the strike zone as long as i as long as i could have it be in the strike zone let's sink a second as you guys can see with marlin's high vis line every time he drops that rod tip there's a little bit of slack line floating in the air basically that's signifying that that jig is free falling and it's going to get struck more by doing that let you know that jig's down and working [Music] so now essentially i've picked up my anchor by turning off my minn kota and i'm just going to drift with this current because we're going to cover this little expanse of water here most of the time the fish that we find are going to be laying up on this shore and now i'm going to be covering ground moving around doing like what i've talked about like every single one of these spots that we fished you know changing our angle moving moving moving looking for those biting fish so since i'm moving with the current i'm kind of taking the current out of the play here it's not really having a lot of effect on my jig so i'm just having to reel in just a little bit every time just to make sure that i'm not pulling that jig too close to me without sucking up some of that slack or else like i said before that jig is not going to be moving it's not going to be twitching but other than that when you're doing this this can be extremely effective because you're like i said covering ground and you're looking for biters [Music] there you yep we're letting this one go but yeah not exactly not exactly the target it's a nice big beautiful b run we wanted but but we get questions a lot people asking if they if they eat if they if chinook eat them well there's a chinook and she ate it yep let's see go make some babies [Music] [Music] all right guys you've seen us fish a couple areas from the boat and from the bank but one other key type of water that you need to seek out when you're twitching for salmon is backwaters or dead water areas since you're putting a lot of action on your jigs and your hushy jigs you know you're able to get those fish to bite in those back wires especially when the rivers come up and they get real high and the fish are pushed out of the main bodies of water into those back waters it can be an extremely effective time to twitch for salmon all right guys we've fished a lot of different spots we've fished a lot of different water i'll tell you what though if you guys enjoyed all those awesome b-roll shots that we put throughout this video all those snippets and all those clips are on our addicted fishing youtube channel so go check them out after this video there's lots of great episodes where we're utilizing this technique to catch a lot of fish all right with that being said we're going to get on out of here and we appreciate your guys's support and we want you guys to really share out this video to all your family and friends but you know what all that awesome b-roll footage that you guys got us here just tap this little video right here and check it out because it's all over our addicted fishing channel we've been doing this technique for a while and man we've been catching a lot of fish with it see you on the water

Channel: Addicted Fishing

Views: 51,785

Rating: 4.9323754 out of 5

Keywords: how to twitch jig, how to twitch jig for salmon, salmon fishing with jigs, how to twitch jigs for salmon, twitching jigs, salmon fishing tips, salmon fishing tips and tricks, how to twitch jigs for coho, twitching jigs for coho, twitching jigs for salmon, how to twitch jigs, salmon fishing, fishing, addicted fishing, coho fishing, coho salmon fishing, fishing for salmon, river fishing, fishing for coho, coho salmon, salmon, twitching jig, coho, how to, fishing tutorial, fish

Id: IO_lPH66Vy4

Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020