Archive for January, 2011
Slip Floats
Slip floats do as the name implies. They slip on the line to a predetermined stopping point, allowing you to fish any depth you desire. Most floats can be used as slip floats. Any float with a central hollow core from top to bottom will serve. To rig the slip float, you need only two [...]
How About Trout and Salmon
Many of you must be wondering if these techniques would work as well for trout and salmon. The answer is an emphatic yes. In British Columbia, where the float is used by almost every river anglers thousands of salmon and tens of thousands of trout are taken each year. The line control and natural presentation [...]
Testing The 300 Coby Ultra Magnum
Wildcatters and cartridge tinkerers seem never to be satisfied with the performance of factory built ammunition thinking they can always do better. In some cases they can, as is the case in many of P. O. Ackley’s designs; however, often their efforts go unrewarded because only marginal performance increases are attained. Imagine our surprise when [...]
Fishing Tips: Depth Control
The first step in steelheading with a float is to adjust for proper depth. Your goal is to place your bait or lure about one foot above the bottom. If your float continually drags under or tips downstream as it drifts through the run you a dragging bottom. Shorten the distance between float and lure [...]
Fishing Tips: Detecting Strikes
Veteran steelheaders tell us the one skill that separates the top rods from the wannabes is the ability to feel the subtle pick-up of a steelhead. Learning the elusive difference between a pick-up and a rock is vital, but difficult. With floats the angler immediately sees that a fish is mouthing their bait. Even the [...]
Fishing Tips: Precise Line Control
Another advantage of floats is the ease of placing your lure smack-dab in the middle of a steelhead’s lie. Suppose you want to fish a long seam where slow and fast currents meet. No problem. Simply cast your float past the lie and retrieve line until your float is just at the edge of the [...]
Fishing Tips: Upstream Casts
Upstream casts with a float are as simple as down and across casts with conventional techniques. All you need to do is flip the float upstream and begin reeling in line as it moves downstream toward you. Your float and lure glide in a natural drift just above the snaggy bottom – hang-ups will not [...]
Fishing tips: Steelhead
Nineties anglers are discovering a “new” and deadly technique for tricking Steelhead. This “new” technique, as is so often the case, is simply a variation on angling methods used centuries ago by the pioneers of our sport. The float, or bobber, as some persist in calling it, has been in use for hundreds of years. [...]
Autumn fishing in Santa Barbara Channel
This is my favorite time of year for fishing the Santa Barbara Channel because of the long periods of glassy flat water when a trip to the islands seems like a short comfortable run. Water temps are still up and the food chain is very active. Summer gamesters are still around, winter fish are beginning [...]
Summer fishing in Santa Barbara Channel
As water temps rise, the surface gamesters of summer ride the warm water currents up the coast and fan out along both the mainland and the islands. This is when we tie on casting iron such as jigs and spoons, and give our drag systems a good test on bonito, barracuda, and the occasional yellowtail. [...]
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