Keep Your Bobber Straight Up (And You Might Catch Fish Like This)

My son Doug caught this Steelhead this morning. Without a guide, on his own gear, and from a river bank.

This gorgeous, anadromous rainbow trout was 29-inches long and weighed over 10 pounds.

Only a miniscule percentage of fishermen enjoy such bragging rights with the wily steelhead. The vast majority of fishermen never even catch one steelhead over their entire life.

According to fish and game department catch results, it is estimated that an average (steelhead) fisher will drown bait for somewhere between 30 and 50 hours for every fish caught. And they’ll usually need the assistance of a guide to reach those numbers (like mine last winter).

Accomplished fishermen, of course, do much better. Doug was on the river all of two hours this morning, in an area new to him, when he blew away the stats.

His wife is out of town for a couple days, so he decided late last night to give the Skykomish River a try. The part of the river he fished is about 40 miles from downtown Seattle.

A good fisherman does his homework. He knew of the river’s fine reputation for summer steelhead and did his research on the best spot to fish.

In recent years the method of choice to try to hook one of these beauties has been to drift a (sometimes) colorful feathered jig under a float or bobber. But it has to be the right jig, the right kind of bobber, the right weight line and leader and the right pole (at least seven feet long with a sensitive tip).

At dinner tonight, while we savored some filets from his deliciously prepared catch, he explained the technique.

The bobber is streamlined (so it will cast easily) and has opposing knitting needle-type points jutting out from the center float. You cast the rig upstream and “mend” (remove slack from) your line so one of the bobber “points” is straight up (which of course means the opposing point is straight down).

This is the only rig posture at which the fish will strike, as it means the jig (bait) is directly under the bobber and both are moving at exactly the same speed as the river current. Any other presentation angle spoils the action and fails to deliver.

When his bobber disappeared on his umpteenth cast, Doug’s instinctive reflexes caused him to pull back and set the hook. He felt resistance.

The fight was on, and 20 minutes later, after deftly extricating the line (and fish) from some underwater foliage while at the same time fighting the fish, he eased the chrome-sided hen onto the shore.

Let me tell you, episodes like this are a fisherman’s dream. And if you’ve never tasted the delicate flavor of a fresh, properly marinated and barbecued steelhead, you haven’t experienced one of the great culinary delights of life. You can’t buy steelhead at the store, so it’s a rare occurrence when you can enjoy it for dinner.

To even have a shot at it, though, you’ve got to keep your bobber straight up.