“Went Springer Fishing”, just couldn’t keep the Trout off. Leave a reply

“Went Springer Fishing”, just couldn’t keep the Trout off…

Sometimes you just have to say the heck with the boat dealio and revert back to a much less involved, relaxing kind of day. I love these kinds of spring days.  The ones where you call up a fishing buddy and say, “hey, let’s go bank fish for some Springer’s”.
Now let’s face it, there are a couple of rivers I make it a point to steer clear of.  The Cowlitz is one on my list, however of the few on my list that I avoid, MothA’ Cow is one that I will spend just a few days on per year.

So here we go, heading south to go bank fish the Cowlitz for Springer’s. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that hanging out at the Cowlitz is such a bad thing, I just really enjoy fisheries on a bit of a smaller scale. I also enjoy fisheries where I spend an entire day in my drift boat. There are the periodic summer trips I will take down the Cowlitz, in my RivTech. I will spend a ten hour day, pulling bait divers with Coon-Shrimp and having good success. The water level is also at 4500 cfs, or lower and I actually enjoy that.
This however is not that time and the Cow is at 11,000 to 12,000 cfs; give or take, every few days. I have done it and it is doable, but lets get back to my original statement. My intent was to simply “revert back to a much less involved and relaxing kind of day.  Truth be told, I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to row. So, bank fishing seemed like a pretty good plan.

Started the morning off with the go to set up for the stretch we were fishing. Egg and Shrimp cocktails suspended under a float would be the ticket. This produced a couple take-downs, unfortunately nothing stuck.  We continued to offer-up our Pautzke Fire Cure eggs and sand shrimp for a few hours with no success. Finally a guy way up river hooked a fish, the first one of the morning, “awe yes, there is a chance”. About a half hour later, still nothing. OK, time for a change. I re-rigged, got rid of the suspended rig and went to my old stand-by, stick lead and float drifting presentation.

The stick lead and float drifting, did in fact within the first five minutes produce a take down, some head shakes and then off, “Doh, friggin Springer’s”. After presenting good bait through the drift repeatedly for a better part of the morning I needed a change. So back to the tuck I went, dug into the Ol’ cooler and pulled out a jar of my Coon-Shrimp.
Back at the drift, still rigged to Float Drift, I loaded up a Coon Shrimp and let it fly. As it worked its way through the drift, float down, come back, nothing there, bait gone…   OK re-bait, flip it into the seam, fifteen feet into the drift, and float down. Chrome bright, lots’a power and taking off. Of course I’m thinking Springer.  After a great fight, I work the fish back up river and yes sir, that there is a nice bright hen.

Yep, sure-nuph, Steelhead when your Springer fishing.

That’s ok, the Springer bite seemed a little slow this morning, so for now this will do.  Now the guys with me are changing up and all three of us are fishing Coon-Shrimp. A few more hook ups and a few more lost.  Then I’m able to land another, kind of a dark buck so back he goes.

The bite basically shut off and now even the Steelies didn’t want bait, so time for a change. I figure, let’s try some jigs.  Well, jigs for the next couple hours seemed to be the ticket. We proceeded to hook a few, land a few and lose a few.

This of course didn’t go unnoticed. With no fish action, pretty much up and down the river a few more guys started migrating our way. Why not, it’s the Cowlitz right?
Our morning basically started out like this. Just me, Steve and Mark (aka the Kokanee Dominator).

After a few more of these brought to hand……

Our day started to look more like this.

You don’t even want to know how crowed it got after a few more fish.

Then the questions started, what are ya using? How deep are your fishing? Mind if I step in? All the while I’m thinking Cowlitz, Cowlitz, Cowlitz, why is it I keep this on my low list of priorities to fish?

Actually it wasn’t that bad, All the guys where very nice, only one guy brought a net, so we used his services repeatedly.  Everyone got along great and believe it or not cast in order.  It was a great afternoon, we ended up going six for eleven, as once they get to the fast water, they be hard to turn, Ha..

As we were cleaning our fish a few guys came over to ask some particulars. I helped them with a few minor details to improve their chances. A few guys actually hooked up while we were still there.  Driving home, I thought, should I have told them about the home-made Krill Paste I was putting on my jig-head. Awe what the heck, they can read all about it on the Pautzke’s web page and make some to have for next time.

Duane Inglin
The Outdoor Line
710 ESPN Seattle
www.theoutdoorline.com