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Float fishing for winter steelhead on a PNW River
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Feb 5, 2025
Floating fishing for winter steelhead with lower than normal water flows. Describing the "process" of float fishing, how deep to fish, adjusting depth of bobber knot until you find bottom or find fish.
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0:05
welcome to my latest video from Pacific
0:07
Northwest best life I want to talk about
0:10
the techniques used to hook the
0:14
steelhead pictured in the in photo here
0:18
Skookum Chuck has run at incredibly low
0:22
water levels you can see from the river
0:24
level graph here showing them CFS yeah
0:30
normally it runs at 300 or 400 tfsnews
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you can see it's down close to to a
0:35
hundred and that presents some unique
0:38
challenges when angling for steelhead
0:41
for one thing they move up much slower
0:47
through the river system typically and
0:51
the stress on them is a lot more as well
0:53
as the water is harder to navigate and
0:57
then a lot of fish headed back to a
0:59
hatchery or terminal area
1:01
fishing can be steady in low water
1:04
because you're sort of getting slow
1:07
funneling of fish versus if we got high
1:10
water no doubt low season we would
1:12
immediately be over the surge of water
1:15
would bring up we bring up all the fish
1:17
what I'm showing here in video is the
1:22
process of float fishing as the water
1:25
level is changing the depth that we're
1:30
fishing at is is going to change from
1:32
day to day or week to week as the water
1:34
continues to drop less water generally
1:37
means shallower shallower conditions and
1:41
the fish may hold in different parts of
1:43
the river
1:46
I like to start fishing shallower and
1:50
gradually increase the depth that I'm
1:54
fishing by moving my bobber stop up
1:57
further up my main line to fish deeper
2:01
as I'm discovering where where the
2:04
bottom is and the depth of the drift
2:07
that I'm fishing
2:10
it typically this drift has bad 5 to 6
2:14
feet deep
2:14
under normal conditions so I'll start at
2:18
maybe three three and a half and then
2:21
I'll adjust down as I'm fishing you know
2:24
more adjusting down initially and then
2:27
and then maybe a few inches at a time as
2:30
I'm discovering the depth as you
2:35
continue to adjust and go deeper now the
2:37
reason why we start shallower and go
2:39
deeper is fish generally are gonna see
2:44
presentations above them they see up
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they're not going to see things below
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them and these fish are typically right
2:50
on the bottom and so if you start too
2:53
low you know you may be fishing on not
2:58
where the fish can see it additionally I
3:01
want to adjust down and I'm gonna watch
3:03
my float and if you've configured the
3:07
amount of weight tier to your float
3:09
rating like we talked about in the
3:12
previous video series or video and
3:14
Skookum chuck steelhead fishing then
3:16
your float should be standing perfectly
3:19
straight when the jig you're using or
3:23
terminal offering is floating above the
3:25
bottom and what happened when you adjust
3:30
your depth down and start hitting bottom
3:32
is your float will start pointing
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slightly forward and in really slow
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water as you can see I'm fishing here
3:41
it's actually somewhat subtle when it
3:45
starts to point forward and or kind of
3:47
stop moving on in the case of really
3:50
slow water and that tells me that now
3:54
I'm fishing I'm hitting bottom and I
3:56
need to adjust my depth up a few inches
4:00
and now I'm fishing right when I write
4:03
where the fish are to properly cover
4:06
adrift the depths are going to change
4:09
throughout the drift and so you may need
4:12
to cover an area and then repeat the
4:14
process as you move to a different part
4:17
of the drift or you know even closer to
4:21
shore or closer to the
4:24
Bank all of those potentially will
4:27
change the depth that you're fishing one
4:32
of the good things about the Skookum
4:35
check on the water is the color has been
4:37
really good so that the fish feel
4:41
protected it's only about two feet two
4:44
and a half feet of visibility so even
4:47
though it's a little water these fish
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are really aggressive and actually
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really pays to be and then the first
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properly presented bait you know to
4:56
these fresh fish that have just moved up
4:58
really helps help to get into the fish
5:01
in fact that's how I've seen all of the
5:03
fish either mine or others be be caught
5:06
down here
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the last portion of this video shows my
5:14
steelhead on the bank unfortunately I
5:15
did not once again get my GoPro on
5:18
during the period where I hooked the
5:21
fish fought it but I got some video
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shortly after getting it on the bank
5:29
today I happen to be the first one down
5:32
to the drift here and with the water so
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low that's kind of the way this has been
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if you can get down here first and get
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pretty good it's kind of what I've been
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doing
5:51
pretty simple drill here with the
5:55
Knightmare jig eight down from Brad's
6:03
jigs a little bit of prawn tip down that
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