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[Spawn Sack]

I love tying and fishing jigs. My favorite way to float fish actually. I do fairly well using them to target salmon (primarily chum), but have never got so much as a sniff using them for steelhead. Last year I lost all confidence in them for steelies and eventually stopped using them altogether. This s/h season I'm determined to give them another go, fish them hard, and hopefully catch something on them! I also notice that not too many guys are using jigs for s/h, so I figure they may give me an advantage if most of what they've seen is roe, rubber worms, gooey bobs, etc. I'm hoping you jig nuts can teach me a few things I may not know that I can use on the river. Lemme know what you think of the following

Colors:
-Most jigs I'd tie up for steelhead are pink/white, pink/purple, chartreuse/pink. Nothing terribly original.

Materials:
-Most I'd tie up are usually rabbit body and schlappen collar, polar chenile body and schlappen collar, or palmered marabou body and schlappen collar. I'll also add in flash, rubber legs, ostrich hurl, etc as I see fit.

Some materials I'm thinking of incorporating this winter are rea (used in intruders...I figure why not jigs?), dubbing looped fox tail for a butt (again used in intruders as an "umbrella" for the marabou or whatever), mylar tubing tail. Possibly some other materials used in intruders etc...need to go through my meterials and see if any light bulbs go off

Weight/Hook size:
-I nornally use 1/4oz lead heads or the larger pin heads. I typically use #1 hooks but will go 1/0 if the water is murky.

Adding bait:
-Like with chum I'll often add a chunk of raw prawn. Also I've tried small salt water hardened egg sags. Gonna try squid tentacles as reccomended by a few guys on this site! I've tried adding curly tails but don't really like them...

Leader length:
-I've heard a lot of ppl say "you need to put it in front of their face!" so I generally keep my leaders SHORT, somewhere between 1 foot and 18 inches max.

Jig depth:
-I typically take a guess how deep the water is and set my float so I think I'm a foot off bottom. From here I'll usually keep going deeper until I hit the bottom, then I'll bring it up a foot or so.

Knot:
-I used to use an improved clinch, but have switched to a non-slip loop knot as IMO it causes the jig to bob around more = more action.

Fishing tactics:
-Generally I'll start at the head of a run and make my first cast very close to shore. From here I'll cast out a bit farther each time and add a bit of float depth as I get farther from shore. I might do this twice in one spot, then move down river 10-15 steps or so and repeat. Basically I try to "grid" the river so any s/h out there will get a good look at my jig.

-I "dead drift" my jigs and apply just enough spool tension to keep the line off the water.

-Sometimes I'll tap the spool on my levelwind while the jig is drifting to tug on the line a bit and cause the jig to twitch. This worked well at times for chum this year. Twitch...twitch...BAM!

It seems like I know what I'm doing but I've had many days when guys (using roe or whatever) have pulled fish out of the same water I was just casting into with my jig So either the fish got a look at it and didn't like it enough to smash it, or I was not fishing it right and the fish never got a good look at it. Gotta be something I can learn about tying up jigs, adding bait to my jig, or fishing the jig on the river.

[CoastRider]

In my opinion, Jigs are best in deep, clear, slow moving water: particularly canyon water.
Therefore, i life to use a long leader, do keep the weight farthest from the jig to allow it to really use its motion. This is how i have caught the majority of my steelhead on jigs.
From what I've seen, jigs are one of the few baits you do not want directly in front of the fish. I was always told 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down the water column. (7 feet down in 10 feet of water).

My favorite jigs are the beau-mac style, with two beads and a maribou tail, it gives the jig great action and looks as though it is swimming.

Finally, I tie a loop knot on to my jig in order to give it more motion and allow it to stay horizontal as it drifts through the run. For this reason, I do not tip my jigs with bait, as it interferes with the natural drift

Cheers

[CoastRider]

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/72647/size/big/cat//ppuser/6359

[Spawn Sack]

Thanks CoastRider, yup I agree about the water for jigs: I like to fish them in slower + deeper water. I find they don't work so hot when you hold back on them like a colorado blade, etc. I like to dead drift them and give the line an occasional twitch if I know there are fish present and have thus far ignored my offering. Works well for chum/pinks etc.

I don't know of any "canyon water" where I normally fish on the Vedder but I learned a few new runs for salmon that I know are going to be good steelhead jigs runs

Also good tips on depth of the jig. I did notice when chum fishing that if the jig was too deep - not hitting bottom but probably near botom - I generally got nothing. Reducing the depth so the fish were looking up at the jig seemed to be the ticket. I'll keep this in mind when s/h fishing.

I have a few beamac jigs and like them. I wonder how they tie off that marabou and make it look so tidy at the back of those beads??? It's like they somehow tuck the material under the beads. Also I find when I drill out my beads they often crack Generally I do not use beads that often in jigs I tie myself, although I have heard s/h like bead jigs.

[MoeJKU]

Here is one to try, a white or silver jig head, red rabbit, then palmer black marabou around 2-3 times.  They seem to work well for me.

[zap brannigan]

That's the nightmare jig, works well for red spring aswell.

[MoeJKU]

That's the nightmare jig, works well for red spring aswell.

You are correct.  Its a good go to if water conditions are tricky and the fish are finicky. don't want to give away all my secrets, blue works relatively good as well.

[Fishawn]

That's the nightmare jig, works well for red spring aswell.

Zap, do you find that red and white chinooks have a difference in color preference when it comes to jigs?

[Spawn Sack]

Here is one to try, a white or silver jig head, red rabbit, then palmer black marabou around 2-3 times.  They seem to work well for me.

I've tied up some nightmare jigs with a painted white lead head, red chenile body, and black marabou tail. Honestly I haven't fished them much, and probably only when I was first learning to fish jigs a couple years ago and didn't really know what I was doing.

A couple questions: 1-Do you use cross-cut rabbit or straight/zonker cut rabbit for the body? 2- With the marabout do you tie it in tip first or butt first, and do you strip one side or use bith sides?

I like pink and purple jigs for steelhead but, given that I haven't caught one on a jig, I am willing to try different colors + materials for sure. I'll tie up a couple with this color sceme and try them out this winter.

[typhoon]

Not sure color really matters that much. I have caught Vedder steelies on:
red over black
white over orange
black over purple over fuschia
purple over fuschia
fuschia over chartreuse
black over blue

I prefer using straight cut rabbit for the body - it stands out better, and nice webby schlappen for the head.
Marabou doesn't flare well in faster/choppy water so I don't use if for Steelhead. Yes for Chum and Coho though.

If fished at a dead drift in walking speed water the fish really shouldn't see the head.
Jig head colours are for catching fishermen - I have caught just about as many fish on plain lead heads as I have on metal or painted heads.

[CoastRider]

Like all baits, half the time its just the issue of getting the fish to see something, so as long as you are confident with your drift, the colour of the fur usually isnt as big of a factor as how the jig is sitting/pulsing etc

[zap brannigan]

Zap, do you find that red and white chinooks have a difference in color preference when it comes to jigs?

I got lots of whites on pink/purple chum jigs this season, the red/black cuts through the coloured up freshet water that the reds are found in so it works well.

[Spawn Sack]

Interesting comments Typhoon and CoastRider, so it sounds like it's not like fishing for coho where sometimes they only want a CERTAIN color or appearance. I've heard from many guys are long as you're fishing something that the steelie would like chances are they'll smash it if you're fishing it right and they can see it. Like me if I go to a buffet - if it looks half decent and smells good - I'm tryin it!

I think as long a I'm confident in my jig and am fishing it properly i'm bound to hook into one sooner or later

[Animal Chin]

Not positive on this.. but I think last year was a relatively tough year for steelhead.

That's my excuse anyway.

[CoastRider]

An interesting technique Matt Guiguet always used was fishing jigs with a spin casting reel. He felt that it was easier to cast when you are fishing 6-8 feet from float to jig and that it allowed for a more drag free drift. He would use braided line down to the leader because it floats and allows you to keep the line off the water, and he would open the bail and pump the rod to allow line to spool out freely. I saw an episode of sport fishing BC where he took Pendlington on the stamp using this technique.