Hello all... I've lurked here a bit and I'm finally registered. I get a lot of good information from this site and I'm to the point where I think I can ask questions without looking like a complete mooyak (the guy with the line tangled in the tree, that's me).

After about 15 years of not fishing (and catching nothing when I was fishing) I'm back in to it. About a month and a half ago I caught my first silver on the Kalama and now I can't stop. I'm looking forward to my first steelhead.

I see all this talk about jigs. Could someone be so kind as to point me in the direction of some information? How are these set up? What is the typical leader length, etc? What type of water do you fish with jigs? I was at the Washougal today and the water was running pretty quickly. Do you use a float or just bump the bottom with them?

Thanks to everyone for imparting your knowledge on such a neophyte. Someday maybe I can return the favor!

LD

LD,

It's been a long time since I fished the Washougal regularly (9 years), and I'm no expert jig fisherman, but let me share what little I know.

I fished the W extensively in the 80s, and a lot during the 60's, as a kid. I fish it once a year or so now, when I go south for Christmas, but it remains one of my favorite rivers. I used jigs way back when in the fall, but never during the winter. In the fall, a black marabou crappie jig was murder on steelhead.

In the winter, my go-to rig was and is a small pearl pink corkie and pink yarn. Suggest you try that. Ad some eggs if you have them. I like the drifts at Hathaway park, especially during high water, and the Cottrell boat launch, which is the next launch upriver. After that, look for the obvious wide spots in the road, and explore from there. I've caught fish from most of them.

The bobber fishing I have done more recently seems to work best on drifts of even depth and some length. This doesn't describe much of the water on the W very well. I think it is more susceptible to traditional drift gear and hardware, such as spoons.

A little secret about this river. If you get a deep cold spell in December, where you get the cold east wind and freezing temps for a week, go to the paper mill, and fish the section right where the W enters the slough. When the weather is really cold, the steelhead will stack up in there, and you can have some great fishing for a couple of days. You won't be alone, but there is plenty of room. As soon as the weather warms up, they'll shoot up the river, but you can have some fantastic fishing when conditions are just so. This is a once every five years situation.

Good luck.

I find jigs to work in current seams and in rocky runs with medium to slower current as well as slow deep pools, though you can use them successfully in any water. In high water they work well close to the bank where the fish get pushed out of the heavy current. They don't work well in dirty water. Go with a 1/4 oz or heavier jig in the winter below a float. Stick with lighter brighter colors for most winter fishing conditions, especially this year when it looks like the rivers will have plenty of water. Good colors are pink/white, white, cerise, and the nightmare jig(pearl white head,red chenille body with a black tail),orange combos as well as other brighter colors. Don't count out the pink worm rigged on a jighead and fished below a float. I've been doing real well lately with a pearl pink jighead with black eyes fished with my worm. Keep the jig at least 6 inches above the bottom and you won't lose much gear and you'll catch fish!

:p :p If you haven't checked the tips and techniques Bob has on this site, you might enjoy reading that section which you can access at the bottom of this forum...

I don't know where you're from, but on Wednesday, December 12, at the Renton Puget Sound Anglers' monthly meeting, we're having a guest speaker who has jig fished for years and now develops his own jigs and floats. He's going to be talking about equipment, technique, and is even going to show how to tie some of his patterns. The location of the meeting is here: http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?BFCat=&Pyt=Tmap&newFL=Use+Address+Below&addr=2424+Ne+27th+St+&csz=Renton+Wa&country=us&Get%A0Map=Get+Map

and it starts at 7:30. If you have questions, email me.

D'oh! Yeah, like anyone here actually reads the manual Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely be giving this a read.

And thanks to everyone else for the tips.

JacobF, thanks for the offer but I'm about 2.5 hours south of you and wouldn't make the meeting after work...