Clearwater steelhead

[bpeay4]

Anybody on here fish winter steelhead on the Clearwater?

This is my first year trying after moving up here from Twin. Fished hard last two days in the NF with no luck. Mostly fishing a bobber and jig or bead from the bank.

Next outing I plan to make up some spawn sacks as I saw lots of dye and eggs on the bank from other anglers using bait. Am I on the right track here or should I try other methods of fishing such as plunking or spinners or coon shrimp?

Either way I'm excited to experiment new tacticsI. 'm determined to catch one this winter!!

 

[sethkuhl]

We were down this past weekend as well. Landed two steelies and a coho. Lost 4 other ones in four days. Bottom Bouncing Corkies. It is very enjoyable with the weather we are having this year and "winter fishing" The masses that are down there in the spring has taken all of the fun out of it for me!

Also numbers are only a fraction of what they used to be, but it is still a great way to get out in the winter time. Have fun and good luck!

 

[David658]

Winter steelhead fishing is the best. Grew up reading about it as a kid in Tennessee, dreamed of doing it, then we moved to Oregon and I got to! Our hopeful move to ID will get us back at it, so much winter fun.

David
NM

 

[Goodfish]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done it but the guides I went with used eggs and yarn balls on the Clearwater and shrimp in the Snake and Salmon. The counts were a whole lot higher then and the fishing was amazing. Best of luck!

 

[4oh6hunter]

I prefer fly fishing for them. Although it isn't typically a very productive way of catching them, it is a lot of fun when you hook one. But a group of us spent a few days swinging it last week. We landed two fish in 3 days between 5 of us, slow fishing but still a lot of fun. We also saw a few guide boats that were catching fish on gear pretty consistently, looked like they were fishing corkies and yarn.