ZOG BLOG: Methow River 2009 - the reality vs. the hype
POSTED Oct. 24, 2009 / 5:40 p.m.

It’s hard to ignore ...

This summer, over 27,000 summer steelhead negotiated dam after Columbia dam to finally breach Wells Dam, just below the town of Pateros at the mouth of their final destination, the Methow River.  Normal numbers before WDFW opens the river are around 12,000 fish.

It’s hard to ignore ...

Trollers and their ilk at the mouth of the Methow - dragging Wiggle Warts - were hooking multiple steelhead per rod. Big rains came (the same ones that finally raised Westside rivers last week) and sucked all those holding fish upriver. The state upped the daily limit of hatchery fish to four, letting anglers take advantage of the steelhead plethora.

Three months of media hype. We at Northwest Wild Country guilty as any, reporting on the outstanding opportunities currently provided by the Grande Ronde, Snake and Deschutes rivers. I personally cannot shut up about it on the air. Past fall trips to this Montana-esque, fast boulder stream has produced some of the best steelheading days I’ve ever had in Washington. The scenario was cosmic overload: rains bringing up the run into the river, absurd numbers of fish, over generous limits- the fishing just has to be DefCon 5.

The weather was ideal, 57 degree days, 40 degree nights. Sun/cloud mix. Perfect, right?

"Too many steelhead!" they say.

I have to go, or my head will certainly explode.

Let the games begin
As steelheaders, we all know about the evils of fishing reports. By the time you hear them, you've missed out. A day late is as good as a week. However, the Methow is usually good through mid-November, and with this many fish, well ...

Over several Methow trips a few seasons back, Nick Amato and I averaged 15 steelhead apiece each day. Yes, F-I-F-T-E-E-N. Landed. Any sleep the night before this trip was no more than a suggestion. 

How good? THIS good:

1). “My God, the beavers are building dams out of them, there are so many”

2). ”You have to hide behind brush to tie up or the seething hordes of  steelhead will maul you”

3). ”The only two things you can see from orbit is the Great Wall of China and the massive schools of Methow steelhead”…

Driving along the river (which closely follows Highway 153 north from Pateros) just before light Tuesday, one major obstacle to success was all around us. At every single pulloff, every bridge, any wide spot in the road, we encountered vehicles with anglers pouring out of them like clown cars at the circus. Hype is a two-edged sword, as this bonanza has been rammed down the collective throats of everyone owning a pair of waders from Canada to northern California.

Here is the result: They're ALL on my river this morning!

Years past, there were perhaps a handful, a dozen anglers spread over miles of water. Never a problem finding open water. This year, every spot I wanted to hit was already occupied in the pre dawn. There were 20 times the number of anglers this year, and now there are rafts all over to boot. The Methow is a small river, running an average 500 cfs and air clear. Curious to see how this newfound pressure would affect the quality of fishing.  

That answer: IT DID.

Before we find out how we did, howver, let’s discuss how we find and catch Methow summer steelhead.

This is not a Westside fishery, my friends.

My name is Bill and I'm an addict ...
To be successful on the Eastside, particularly on the Methow, you have to know that these fish have reverted to their trout side. They look and act just like a native rainbow trout. Quirky, to say the least. Unlike the summer fish from the Grande Ronde and the Deschutes, these steelhead absolutely positively will not hit a drifted spinner, spoon or swung fly.

Bastards.

Nor will they bite, with any semblance of consistency, a drift bobber or plastic worm. Bait is illegal, so get that out of your mind. What they will take, and well, is a dead-drifted black, purple or dark red fly or jig.

Period.

Since steelhead fly fishing to me is done on the swing -I won’t dead drift - I’d rather pick up a spinning rod with bobber and jig.  

Alright, I can hear you, you know: “Herzog is jig fishing! Ahhhh, I knew it!” ... yeah.

Well documented are my opinions about “training wheels” and all, but here is the reality on the Methow: if you want to catch steelhead, it’s jigs or go home. And I may say how easy it is - and I have a good time poking people in the ribs with my take - but there is a lot of skill to do it right.

Did I ever mention how fun it is watching the float go down?

It’s a relief, you know, finally coming clean about my jig habit. For so many years I had to hide my addiction, only using when my friends were not around. When they would occasionally find my fly box full of perfectly arranged jigs, I would say “Oh, I’m just holding those for so and so” or “Those aren’t mine, I don’t know how those got there”.

I had to buy them through mail order, dare I not go into the light of a sporting goods outlet, lest someone spot me buying jigs. Walking to and from the truck, I would tie on a spinner, changing to a jig and bobber when out of sight. 

Been caught once. Targeting hatchery winter runs on a small Peninsula river last year, here comes Todd Ripley from Rvrfshr Spoons around the corner. Busted with a spinning reel, bobbers and jigs. He vowed silence, but the look on his face was priceless.

Break it down: a jig and float is an artificial lure. This method does not kill baby fish, as do small hooks and bait. For catch and release, 99% of all steelhead are hooked in the upper lip, andnever is there a bleeder. 
 
There. Happy now?  Mr. Metal plays with foofy little jigs.

Jig, jiggier, jiggiest ...
I have been fortunate enough to hang around the best jig fishermen in the Northwest: Nick Amato and Dave Vedder. Nick was tuned into jigs way before they became mainstream and he is quite frankly the best steelhead jig fisherman I’ve ever seen, going as far as calling him the real innovator of the technique. As I ribbed him for years about his “crappie rig”, don’t think for a second I failed to notice the great numbers of fish he was catching under low, clear water conditions.

Every nuance of mending, color, size, type of float, you name it, he came out with it first.

And I took notes.

Rigging jig and float for Methow steelhead is simple, yet you better be precise. Rods better be 9½-foot, minimum for casting (loading) light jigs and floats, and for ease of keeping mainlines out of the current when mending. The Lamiglas X96 LLS, 9½ foot rated for 4 to 8 worked well for all Methow situations. Spinning reels filled with 6-pound Maxima Ultragreen or clear 8-pound Trilene XL was the choice in the air-clear water.

For terminals, start with a float that comfortably supports ¼ to ½ ounce. The Thill Turbo Master 3 (another Nick Amato gift to the Northwest) is the best performing and most stealthy bobber on the market for clear water, spooky fish.  Jig sizes, colors?  All black, all purple, dark red or any combination of the three work well. Marabou tailed jigs seem to work best for Methow fish, rabbit strips a distant second.

Remember, Methow steelhead have reverted to in-stream rainbow habits, plus all we want in clear skinny conditions is a suggestion of presence. A 1/8-ounce jig head paired with a #2 hook is ideal.

Okay, Where Do You Hide 27,000 Steelhead?
My partner Nick Goins and I had a difficult time during our two-day trip finding fish. We landed 16 beautiful desert steelhead, four thrilling natives (which fought three times as hard as the hatchery fish) in the mix of 4- to 9-pound hatchery steelhead. Now, normally 16 steelhead would be considered great numbers, especially if you were out on the coast in January. But this is the Methow, where that number is usually per person, per day.

Theories abound, but here is mine from fishing 12 miles of water over two days, plus talking with dozens of other anglers: The fish are indeed there, but pressure has made them tight-lipped. In the past, we had the luxury of working many virgin pools during the day. This trip, due to the great amount of anglers, we would get one, maybe two runs in the morning before sharing the water with fellow fishermen the rest of the day.

Rarely did we hook a steelhead in ABC (already been covered) water.

The fish? Wow. For being in fresh water for three months, traveling 200 miles and crossing 195 dams, these are special steelhead. Some still very bright, most have a vermillion gill plate and stripe down their heavily spotted side. Not large, average size is 5 pounds. A 10-pounder is a trophy.

Matter of fact, we only hooked four steelhead in actual “normal” holding water. Remember these fish have been in fresh water for months, therefore they are holding in “trouty” water. If you travel to Montana, Idaho, in these type of rivers rainbow are found in  riffles, water as shallow as a foot, perhaps two foot. This is the type of water we targeted and found the majority of our steelhead, in non-typical choppy water between the holes approximately 2 feet deep.

You see, most if not all Methow anglers pass this water up to get to the meat of the runs. This left a lot of water untouched, even in areas of high traffic.

You would think setting the jig 18 inches below the float would scare fish. Nope. Our #1 terminal setup was a black head/red marabou tail 1/8-ounce jig set 18 inches below a #3 Thill float. All but two of our steelhead were deeper - fo those, we still only set the jig 2-½ feet below the float.

No fish were negotiated in flat surfaced water. Even though we watched good numbers of steelhead roll in deep, bouldery tanks, fish would not be aggressive unless the water surface was broken and relatively shallow.

Weird, although the bottom was in plain view most of the time, the steelhead were there in the shallow chop.

We left the Methow feeling a bit gypped on numbers of steelhead, mostly due to being spoiled from past trips. However, after interviewing so many other fishermen who only found one, two fish a day, we did better than most.  Hey, every trip to eastern Washington in October is a great trip.

And for goodness sake, do not call this unique special river “The Meth”.  It’s pronounced “MET-how”. It’s where I’ll be back next week, as I still have to find the other 26,884 steelhead.

Bobbers and Jigs To The End,
-The General