Steelhead 101: A Beginners Guide To Float Fishing Setup

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] guide service today I'm going to walk you through a beginner's guide to setting up a float fishing setup to fish in the Great Lakes for salmon or steelhead today we're going to set up a spinning rod but this could be used for a center pin a bait caster or a spinning rod whatever Rod technique you want to use so we're going to go over the rod and reel setup that I'm going to set up today as I said earlier this could be a spinning rod a bait caster Rod or a spinning rod like we're going to set up today so here's the rod that I use every day with my customers this is a lamb glass the closer this is the 12 foot model it also comes in a 13 foot model now in terms of Rod length you could use a nine foot 10 foot 11 foot 12 foot 13 foot pretty much anything that's a steelhead Rod that you have and it fits the stream size that you're going to fish I fished medium to large water so I need longer rods to get the lineup off the water get us a little bit smoother Drift But if you fish smaller streams a 9 or 10 foot Rod might be perfect for where you're fishing now for the reels I use I'm going to use a I'm using Shimano van Fords this is the 4000 size reel now the reason I use this reel is it's a little bit larger reel to pair with my Long Rod and it allows me to have a smoother drift as the line comes off the Reel this rod and reel setup is what I choose to use every day fishing with my customers and I think that this could be something that could be used by anyone in the Great Lakes so the line that I prefer to use for this float fishing technique is p-line tcb8 braid connected to P line cxx in Moss green now the reason I use a high Vis line is so that we are able to track our drift through the current being able to see your drift and where your line is allows you to get a little bit smoother drift through the holes runs or tail outs that you may be fishing so I'm utilizing about six foot of P line cxx and eight pound test moss green and at the end of that I'm going to utilize a spro swivel size 10 power swivel this swivel is rated for 35 pound test so it exceeds the braking strength of everything else in my setup so I don't have a terminal tackle failure so now that we have a monofilament line tied onto our high Vis line we can connect our float to the monofilament so the way we're going to do that is we're going to use two pieces you could also use a third piece of surgical tubing that's sold with any of the floats the way we're going to attach the float is just simply to slide these two pieces of tubing onto our eight pound test and then once they're on what we're going to do is we're going to connect the float by pushing it through the tubing on one piece on the bottom stem and one piece on the top stem so now as you can see the line runs along the outside of the float so that now we can adjust the length of our setup by sliding the float up or down the line to adjust to the depth of the water that we plan to fish by setting it up like this it allows you to change the depth from the top of the run to the bottom of the run or from one hole to the next a fixed float that is adjustable is the easiest way to be able to adapt to changing conditions in the Great Lakes so now we're going to tie the spro swivel onto the line today I'm going to use a Palomar knot I'm going to show you how to tie the knot and if I go too fast I'm sorry and there's many places online that you could look up to find how to tie this knot at a much slower speed so I'm going to take the fishing line feed it through the eye of the hook now I actually am going to double this back through and run it back through the opposite way that I had it originally so now I have two pieces of line through one end of the swivel as you can see here it's doubled through my next step is to make a loop of line and I will reach through the center Loop to grab the the tag and loop now the third and final step is to reach through the tag end Loop and grab the swivel now when I tighten all this down I'm going to moisten the knot to increase the maximum strength of the knot that I can get as I said we're going to reach through get the swivel bring it just barely tight moisten the knot and pull it tight now my knot is complete I'm going to tr trim my tag end with a pair of scissors now you don't need to trim it really ex super tight but you do want to keep your knots nice and slim with small tag ends to increase the stealth of the rig so there's a completed Palomar knot on my spro power swivel and we're ready to attach our fluorocarbon now when we're fishing in the Great Lakes we utilize fluorocarbon from the swivel to the hook the reason that we use fluorocarbon leader is that the Great Lakes can run quite clear especially in the wintertime months and the invisibility of the fluorocarbon under the water greatly increases our chances to get a steelhead or a salmon to bite for us when utilizing this rig so when we connect our fluorocarbon leader this is sunline FC sniper in six pound test you could utilize anything from 4 all the way up to 10 or 12 pound tests depending on what you're fishing for and what you're using for a bait I find that six through eight pound test are the most versatile pound test to use in this style of fishing so when we tie this on to the other end of our swivel we have to use a different knot other than the Palm or knot and the reason being is we don't have the ability to pull the swivel through that Loop end of the knot so here I'm going to use what we I call the 100 knot this was it's made it was invented by the Orvis fly fishing company and the notest height like this we feed it through the eye of the swivel one time we wrap the tag end around the main line one time we feed it through the hole and then we take our tag end and run it through this hole that we've created two times now again we're gonna moisten the knot pull the tag and then tighten the knot down another very small knot that once we trim the tag end is very in line and very small which adds to the stealthiness of our rig so now we're going to attach our hook to our fluorocarbon leader I typically use about two foot liter now there are times that we use a little bit more or a little bit less depending on water conditions Clarity and water levels the lower and clearer the water typically you want to use a longer leader so that the fish don't see your weights you're swiveling all the other terminal tackle coming through the water but as a general rule of thumb two foot long is a great starting point for this rig so we're just gonna attach our hook now for hooks I use both daiichi and fire hooks I I use both in a size 10 or a size 8. either one of those is a proper size hook to use when using spawn sacks beads fire worms or anything else that you want to try and trick a steelhead with so again we're going to be able to use a Palomar knot here so we feed it through the eye of the Hook Once we come back the opposite direction so again just as a reminder we have the eye and the hook with two pieces of line through it we're going to double it over and make a loop through the middle we're going to grab the tag end Loop and then we're going to come through this same Loop and grab the hook and pull it through and tighten it up now we're going to pull both the tag end and the main line to bring it taut and that is an incredibly strong knot that won't fail when you're trying to pull on a big salmon or steelhead in the Great Lakes so the most common question I'm asked day in and day out about steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes is how do I figure out the shot that I need to put on the line or shot pattern let me tell you one thing people think way too much about it it is not as complicated as everyone wants to make it out to be so I utilize Sure Shot it's the name brand and as you can see here this is the size of the shot I do use many different sizes of shot based on what the water conditions are but I'm going to show you how to attach them and then we're going to take a quick break and I'll show you the completed shot pattern so the way we're going to attach the shot as a general rule of thumb is on the swivel end of our rig the split shot will be smaller than the split shot that I attached to the line directly below the float the reason for this size difference is that the bottom speed of the river is slower than the surface speed so our bait needs to be slowed down slightly less than our float needs to be slowed down as it's drifting through the current I'll go into that once I have the completed pattern and show you the difference but to show you how to connect the shot to the line is really simple so we're going to take one small split shot here we're going to put it on the side of the swivel that the float is on not the side of the swivel that is the fluorocarbon leader that goes to the hook so we're simply going to lay the monofilament into the opening in the split shot and you will crimp the split shot closed with a small pair of pliers or but don't tell my dentist this I do put them on with my teeth so so I just lightly crimp the shot so that now it's firmly in place on the monofilament line not the fluorocarbon leader now that the shot's connected to the line we're going to show you what it looks like in the taper of the pattern down to the swivel as you can see up by the flow we're starting with a bigger shot and we're going to taper down through smaller as we go overall on our on our monofilament we have about 10 to 12 split shot three to four of each size varying from Buck size under the float down to size 1 or size 4 just above the swivel now it is important to keep in mind that if you cast out with this amount of weight and your float sinks on its own you would need to do one of two things you either need to go to a larger float or you do need to take some of your shot off your line now when you're watching your float drift down the current it is important that the transition between the high Vis top and the natural wood color whether it's black wood clear the transition between the high bays and the non-high biz is sitting at or near the water line you don't want to see the high Vis underneath the water and you also don't want to see a vast majority of the float that's not high Biz standing up out of the water the reason it is important to have that high Vis transition somewhere near the water line is it increases the sensitivity of the float so that when you do get a strike the bobber sinks more easily letting you know that you have a fish so when we choose a bait to run for a salmon or steelhead in the Great Lakes the most common one that I utilize would be a spawn sack so these right here are what we would call spawn sacks so these are using Atlas mics three by three spawn netting squares with Atlas mics Miracle thread in clear or any other color that you prefer then we utilize potsky's premium trout eggs now throughout the Great Lakes you many Anglers also choose to utilize other types of eggs right here I do have some steelhead eggs that are cured in potsky's four axle fire natural as you can see it turns out an absolutely beautiful product that steelhead brown trout and salmon all really do gobble right up so I'm actually going to show you how to tie a spawn sack that we can then use to fish with so here's a one square of Atlas mics three by three netting and this one I'm actually going to use the premium trout eggs so premium trout eggs are great for Anglers who really don't want to harvest a fish whether it's due to catch and release reasons or or fishing regulations or even the inability to get eggs prior to their trip to Thai so that they have bait for their trip so I'm going to tie a nice medium-sized spawn sack that's versatile in many conditions so here we have maybe 20 to 30 trout eggs that we're going to lay out on our square of mesh we're gonna fold the spawn sack in half now I bring up all four corners so that it's touching now we're going to slightly twist the top of the material to help make the spawn sack nice and round and tight so that you have a nice presentation drifting through the water we're going to utilize Atlas Mike's Miracle thread here and the beauty of this material is that all you need to do is wrap it around the connection between the extra spawn netting in the eggs themselves I made six to eight turns One Way pulled hard to break the thread and I'm going to do six to eight turns the opposite direction and also pull till the thread breaks now we have this extra material at the top here we don't fish it quite like this the last step we do is we're going to come in here with a pair of scissors and trim this extra Material off right at the top of the elastic Miracle thread now our spawned at our spawn sacks ready to be fished so now that we just tied our sponsor I'm going to show you how to hook it on so we have our spawn sack and we have our hook now I choose to hook the spawn sack through the bottom of the mesh and run it through maybe five to eight squares of The netting so that now when we're done fishing the spawn Sac it's easy to remove if you hook the hook under the knot which some people choose to do when you want to change your spawn Tech it's very difficult to pull the hook through that elastic Miracle thread so by hooking it through the bottom of the spawn sack you increase the ability to change baits quickly to spend more time in the water and less time fiddling with your tackle one of the most popular baits for steelhead anywhere in the country and especially in the Great Lakes would be rubber worm believe it or not this bubble gum fireworm or any other worm that you choose to use whether it's a different color or different brand is an effective bait for catching steelhead in the Great Lakes I'm going to show you how to how we hook these now obviously you can attach these many different ways but the way I prefer to hook them is on the same setup with our hook that we saw that we used with the egg Sac we're simply going to run the hook down through about a third of the way down the worm we're going to run it about the length of the hook shank we're going to pull our hook through so that our worm sits right on top of the hook shank like this now when we drift this through the current the worm is going to have a lot of action in the water which entices the steelhead to bite another option for rigging this worm would be on a small jig head most likely a 1 64th ounce or also true wacky style like the bass fishermen do we're just gonna stick the hook right through the side of the worm and pull it straight out and there you have a rack wacky wit a wacky style worm another bait that's increasing in popularity rapidly throughout the Great Lakes are steelhead beads now this bead that I'm going to use today is made by a dear friend of mine at Great Lake steelhead company they make hundreds of different size beads shapes sizes colors something that'll certainly match where you're fishing now that doesn't mean that this is the only bead to use there's plenty of bead manufacturers that are popping up all throughout the great lakes and also throughout the entire country I'm going to show you quickly how you rig a bead to catch a steelhead so the bead comes with a hole through the center of it all we're going to do is we're going to slide it up our fluorocarbon leader now as you can see our swivels here and this bead is free floating through on the line the next thing I do is I'm going to tie my hook on again I'm going to use the Palomar knot that we've discussed earlier so we're going to just quickly tie this on again if you need in-depth discussion or instructions on how to tie a Palomar knot there are many great videos to find that will show you exactly how to tie this knot so now we have our hook tied on we're going to slide our bead down and we're going to put a peg through the bead now these pegs are sold by the bead manufacturers greywick steelhead company sells pegs and clear red and orange so we're going to pull this till it's tight now the the peg will Jam right in there and this side actually popped off just perfectly now this side I'm going to need to trim with a pair of scissors now you don't need to trim it exactly flush but you do want it pretty close there so that you don't have a big Lumpa silicone sticking out of the side now in terms of where we run the bead we run it approximately one to two inches away from the eye of the hook now the reason that's done is that if this bead were rigged directly on the eye of the hook this diameter of the bead would block the hook Gap from hooking the steelhead when it bites by simply sliding the bead away from the eye of the hook approximately one to two inches this allows so that when the fish grabs the bead the hook when you you will see the bite and you when you set the hook the hook will come through and hook the fish now check your local regulations as to whether or not this is legal in your state where I fish this is a legal effective method but there are some states in the Great Lakes where this isn't in a is an allowable technique so just make sure you check your regulations in the state you're fishing to make sure that this is something that you can use now when when running beads one thing that we found has been incredibly successful in the Great Lakes now mind you when I first started steelhead fishing scent wasn't something that I was told I had to run it wasn't something that was really utilized in the Great Lakes now it may be by some people or in some areas but this new potsky fire gel since it's come out it's incredible the success that we've seen utilizing on things that inherently have no scent so what I'm talking about is fishing beads or jigs now these two things typically were just always just the way they are now a spawn sack obviously has the scent of the natural eggs now fire gels caught on so much that there's even times that in Ohio or Pennsylvania or other great lake states where they're putting fire Joe right on their sponsac but every day the way I utilize fire gel is simply by taking the bead putting it in the gel and I just roll it around now if that's too much for you you can wipe some of it off now it does stay on there great you can make many many casts and when you reel it in you'll still be able to see the fire gel right on the bead the number three the top three scents that I've personally found for steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes are shrimp anise and steelhead those three scents have worked for me whether I'm utilizing them on beads plugs or jigs in the Great Lakes hopefully this video helped somebody figure out how to set up their rod and reel the float Fisher steelhead or salmon in the Great Lakes now this isn't the definitive guide there's other ways to do it this is just what I use day in and day out to provide a lot of success for both me and my clients steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes laughs [Music] potsky products are available at sporting goods stores near you if you can't find the specific color size that you want make sure to go to potsky.com and as a thank you for watching potsky Outdoors we're going to show you a coupon code to be used for 10 off your next order

Channel: Pautzke Bait

Views: 16,121

Keywords: Pautzke, Pautzke Outdoors, Atlas Mikes, steelhead, brown trout, steelhead fishing, Stephen Shen, Trout Eggs, BorX O Fire, float fishing, float fishing set up, how to set up for float fishing, Miracle Thread, spawn sacs, Fire Gel, fishing, how to fish

Id: klc_5YDgsAY

Length: 24min 53sec (1493 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023