Northwest Fishing Reports

Ok everyone. Lets hear about some secret concoctions in the bait world.I want to read what do people actually use for certain species and what weird bait was used.
For instance: When fishing the lower Columbia we would take the large herring or Anchovies and salt them then they went into liquid Ivory soap.This kept the human scent off and firmed up the herring.
Another was putting salmon eggs in your lower lip to firm up the eggs.
Those are a couple of mine. I read about pickle juice??? Tell the secrets on your fav brine or interesting bait set-up?

The only bit of info I'll part with is...Costco raw frozen shrimp.

Kirkland Signature 31-40 Tail-On Shrimp 2 lbs

lower col. wd 40 straight up the butt of a hole herring lol

Im not talking about your magic tricks ,just some of the odd ones.

saltyseadog wrote:lower col. wd 40 straight up the butt of a hole herring lol

Salty all I'm gonna say is you're a sick man!

saltyseadog wrote:lower col. wd 40 straight up the butt of a hole herring lol

Used to do basically the same thing on the lower Columbia with my great grandpa for sturgeon. That was years ago though.

hi, folks been a long winter already so, i'm exploring your site. ( I like it ) lots to see & learn and much better than the 16 deg. high for the day at my house. But more to the point. in the glory days of my youth when fishing for sturgeon I used a brine on squid that would pay off with appx. 500 fish per yr. between my beautiful fishing partner & wife of 36 yrs. simply formula 2 cups white vinegar 2 table spoons uniodizoned salt 1 tb. sugar and a good squirt of mikes herring oil into a costco big mouth nut jar. wouldn't want to have problems getting them out in the early morn.before they thawed after all. I would buy 20lb. bags of squid cheap when I would go to illaco and purchase 6-7"total length ones make mass containers and freeze them. I've fished them from Illaco to grand coolie on the columbia and had great success including being written up in wash. fish news and oregon fish and game back in aught 2 and 3
but, I really think they just wanted the pictures of the pretty lady ( in the bikini ) with the 8 footer. sturegon like fresh bait that smells distinct but not bad like a catfish might prefer (according to ledgend) but i've even caught them on this in the snake above ice harbor dam. hook up is the key in the old days when 2 single hooks were allowed 1 floated loose on a 3' dacron 100lb. leader and the 2nd one was snelled on to the terminal end. then simply insert bottom hook thru eye of squid and half hitch up the body to about 1" short of pointy end and poke floating hook thru. this kept the bait hydrod????? on plane with current and laying flat ( not twisting up your line ) today' you would sub a lg. swivel for the floating hook. since your only allowed 1 single barbless hook. my gosh, youv'e just created a large tube bait with floppy litte tenticle and a wonderful scent storage area, and should you be fishin in janurary or just be fishing out of position on the hole pull it up every so often and dip it or squirt more herring oil up it's skirt. these can last for yrs.if necessary


I learned about wd-40 when fishin drano lk. for salmon & stealies back in the 70 d's before all the scents really became known but, it made a difference when sprayed on your wiggle warts and if I used herring I would spray the whole package. didn't think about an enima to them back then but,live, learn,and fish.

anyone ever see charlie whites vidio " why fish bite " he created some great shows with what i believe was the first under water camera trolled behind his boat off vancover island B.C. and the fraiszer rv. (rivers inlet) alaska??? and after trying all kinds of items with good success, he than utilized scents as a factor on all the previously presentations when he realized that motor oil was good he tested the bilge water out of his boat. IT WAS NASTY with oil leakage Yet this proved to be preferred 3 to 1 by salmon. quite unbelievable but, vidioed proof. charlie was ????? is???? the main man at vancover aquarium.


Gonna, have to get me one of those new fangled digital vidio or camera's all my fishin shots are on mini vhs or 35 mil stills and if I'm going to play with you other kids, I'll have to get the right equipment.

he also proved that ciggy smoke made NO diff. to hte fish at least the salmoids species

Back in my worm soaking days, I would use a syringe with a hypodermic needle and inflate a night crawler with air. When using a slip sinker on the line, the crawler would then float above the weeds. It worked pretty well.

We would also use hellgramites, boy, what a killer bait that was. We used to buy them from Bill Butler at North Silver by Medical Lake. Today, you can't find them anywhere. Bill used to trap them and sell them at his resort. I am now in the process of trying to come up with a realistic, easy to tie fly pattern that looks like a hellgramite. Trout just love them.

A little modification of the wooly bugger should do it! How big is it?

marc just look down around your feet in the river rocks look for little volcano shaped cocoons with sandy grit attached and you would find them
in the early 70 ds I was on the west side fishin the cedar, green, snoqualmie, and were always fishin with them for trout rigged white fish style
don,t know about east side rivers since my fishin has evolved to other species. and I've never really looked, when I was on the shore it was only to launch the boat live, learn, love, & fish


OOOOOOOPPPPPPSSSS MY BAD its been along time and I think my brain is in hibernation cause it was NOOOOOT firing on all cyl. sorry marc, as soon as i saw your lg. pic i knew something was wrong took me till evening for it to click
what I described was a periwinkle NOT a helgamite, once again my apoliges.
SOOOOO MUCH INFO SO LITTLE BRAINSPACE

Bodofish wrote:A little modification of the wooly bugger should do it! How big is it?

They average about 3-4". And yes, a wooly bugger can be used as an imitation. A few years back, I made up a fly that looked almost exactly like a hellgrammite. It took me about 3 hours to tie up. The first time I tried it, a huge rainbow hit it on the way down, taking the fly back out of the water and then suddenly snapped the 3x tippet. It was a killer pattern, but took a great deal of effort to tie up.

Oh, and see those large mandibles on it's head. Those little buggers really know how to use them.

I used to use WD40 on my Spin n Glos. while plunking the Allentown area. It helps give them a good spinning action. We used garlic or anise oils on our hands before cutting bait,thus keep the human scent off.
Ive used wooly buggers in fly fishing. We used them in the Yakima and Rocky Ford /Crab Creek for large trout.

Thanks to all for the great info. I only have a post fishing cleaning tip. I use hibiclens twice and no more fih smell. This is the stuff doctors use before thier operations. Just head the bottle warnings because it kills everything and is dangerous in eyes or if ingested.

http://www.hibiclens.com/

Any other fish smell eliminator tips?

lumpdog005 wrote: Any other fish smell eliminator tips?

If you want to get most any smell off your hands, rub them with a piece of stainless steel. Sounds weird but it works great, you can even buy soap shaped pieces meant for just this purpose. I usually just end up wiping my fingers over the blade of my knife, if it happens to be stainless. Lemon Joy is the other great odor eliminator, works on just about anything.

A couple of tricks I used to use for panfish was to put powdered shrimp or powdered garlic into my worm bedding a couple of days prior to fishing. The garlic tended to kill the worms but if you did not have them in it too long, it made the worms smell wonderful! The shrimp would make them smell very shrimpy too and the bluegill and perch just loved it.

Oh, I used to use helgramites too for bait for catfish in Texas. We would catch them under the flat rocks in the shoals of the river we fished and rig them on a small baitholder hook and fish them on fly rods rigged with braided line instead of the regular fly line. Fishing from an tube, we could swing them right up under the willow trees and next to an undercut bank where the cats would hole up. Very effective and very fun fighting a 5-15 lb cat on a fly rod while sitting in an inner tube.

Another of my favorite baits was cicada larvae (may not be the right stage of the insect but you probably get the idea). They would come up out of the ground at dusk and climb up the trees to hatch out. If you could catch them and kill them before they hatched, they made a fine bait for bass, catfish, and large crappie.

I always keep bananas in my fishing box and rub my lures with bananas before use.

Growing up in Eastern Washington fishing for trout I'd catch grasshoppers, periwinkles, or stoneflies. All were killer baits on the trout streams. Ah, the good old days.

I agree on the hellgrammites.....one of the best trout baits on the planet. I used to trap my own when I was a kid until my Pop blistered my rear end for taking the small bathroom screen down to the creek to catch them!

Trimming this pattern might work....stonefly I believe...