The last week and a half has seen the steelheading continue to be very good. Most areas still continue to hold fish. Still target fast water but I've noticed more hook ups in the deeper holding water in the last week. The fishing has began to move to a more typical steelhead bite, that is, on and off, like a light switch. First light typically produces fish but now they are prone to turning on and off through the day. If the bite your fishing shuts off, be patient and hang out, it will turn on again. If you're not patient, then move around and try different areas, you'll find the bite again.
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| Erich Gaston with a dandy Salmon River steelhead. 11/20/2011 |
The Atmar to Pineville area still has tremendous numbers of fish, but you'll have to share you fishing areas with others. The steelhead crowd at this point are more the 'dedicated' steelheaders, those who don't mind the weather and would rather stand knee deep in water during the winter than sit in the Lazyboy waiting for winter to end. These guys are usually advanced in their skills and have fine tuned their equipmaent and approach the the river and the fish. Hanging out with these fellas can be very rewarding.
Pineville and down to Pulaski sees less angling pressure and the solitude of the river is awesome. From the driftboat I see very few people down stream from Pineville and the Sportsman, it's a thing of beauty. Not a lot of boat traffic as the water is still low, about 450cfs at Pineville gauge.
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| Even I get to fish a little with clients sometimes. I landed it on a 10' 7wt indie fishing with a chartreuse w/ pink dot glo-bug. 11/18/2011 |
I've been primarily fly fishing with clients and the indie fishing is good. Glo-bugs continue to produce well with chartreuse w/pink dot and straight Steelhead Orange being the top producers. Eggs will produce, stick with blue or chartreuse sacks. Beads will work, try mottled patterns in charise and glow roe in chartreuse. fish these in 8 and 10 mil. I am using all leader/tippets on 6lb P-Line florocarbon.
