Steelhead fishing give to us fishermen a great opportunity to try various method of angling. It’s one of the top things that draws me to venture out after them. I enjoy working the Spey rod with a recently tied fly, but I also enjoy the thump, thump feeling of drift fishing. Other times it’s casting a spinner or floating a bobber with a lead head jig. The other day I went retro and took the D.A.M. Quick reel and rod out of the rack and put a few spoons into the tackle box. It had been a while since I had fished with a spoon from the bank.
I ventured out to the Sandy River’s Dodge Park, with a full thermos of coffee, and my pipe tobacco pouch loaded. I enjoy my pipe when casting and always like fresh hot coffee on the river.
After a quick review of Spoon Fishing for Steelhead by Bill Herzog, I was ready to go. It’s a good book along the lines of Jed Davis’ book Spinner Fishing for Steelhead. Although spoon fishing is a simple method of fishing it does have certain techniques that make it more effective if those techniques are used. One of the techniques is working the tailouts from the top of the pool down. The sweet spot being the seam along the tongue of the tailout.
When I arrived at Dodge Park there were three guys fishing bobbers. They seemed to have a good patter down and I knew my casting a spoon would not work out well with their rhythm. I passed and walked on over to the Bull Run River and had the pool and tailout to myself. There is a reason why I was alone, there are no steelhead runs up the bull run. That was ok with me as it gave me plenty of room to swing the spoon. Spoon casting is like both spinner casting and spey casting as far as setting a pattern and covering the water. Sometimes it’s just enjoyable to be out on the river and casting. The bottom picture shows the tongue of the tailout by the rocks.
Later I went back over to the Dodge Park hole and cast the spoon without any action from the steelhead. The bobber guys had moved on with out any luck also, but that’s fishing. It’s also the Sandy River since they stopped with the Big Creek Steelhead. The run is later now, and that is just fine March can be a good month.
Next trip I think I’ll drag out the drift rod and see how often I can hook up in the rocks. If I hadn’t sold the drift boat I might go pull some plugs!
