Last-Chance Steelhead
With winter steelhead season winding down, there are still fish moving into some rivers. While numbers may not be what they were a month or two ago, steelhead are still out there, you just have to find them.
Over the decades, some of my best late-season success has taken place in low-water conditions. Specifically, casting into small pocket water where fish are holding, has paid-off many times. Casting lightweight drifter setups into small sections of water can be the key to pulling fish from these tight spots.
The thing about these small pockets, they’re often so small, many anglers pass them by. On a recent trip, two boats were ahead of a buddy and I. They hugged the left side of the main current and side-drifted right through the fast, shallow, main current. The closer we got to the spot, it appeared too fast and shallow to hold fish. I thought we might latch into a traveling fish in this water, but since the two boats just fished it with no luck, we approached it differently.
Rather than fish the main current, we casted into small pockets, behind boulders and bedrock, well off to the side of the main current. Over the next 75 yards we caught two steelhead. Before the day was over, we’d hook and release six more steelhead, all of which were taken from pocket water well off to the side of main currents, less than five feet deep.
Though these small pockets will find you casting multiple times and covering very short sections of water, it’s worth the effort if that’s where fish might be holding. Drifts may cover as little as five feet of water, so use enough sinker to get the terminal gear down fast, and pull it out before getting hung-up.
Plugging shallow water is also an effective option. This can be done by way of backtrolling or sitting on anchor.