saturday 23rd

oh yeah, and my brother hooked and landed one but he got it on the swing with a wooly bugger and no weight. the fish broke water on his fly. in my opinion, he did better than anyone else i saw on the river. it's not all about the numbers all of the time...

F Pinners.

hi,i,m new to this site.i have been steelhead fishing for three years now.i started out spinning for them ,but was introduced to pinning which i enjoy very much.i can understand your frustration with getting cut off by people,but that is just plain rudeness,regardless of what style of fishing some people prefer.
last year i was fishing the area of the"wires",where that little island tails out into the river.i had caught my first fish on the pin there,it was a beautiful fresh gold colored brown trout with bold black spots on it.it only went around 4 or five pounds,but none the less,i was proud of it.
as i was backing up to beach the fish,i heard foot steps behind me.a group of four guys had walked up to me,ducked down below my line to get by me and proceeded to fish right in front of me,i had just gotten the fish beached and didnt even have the hook out of his mouth yet.
i took a pic of the fish and sent him on his way to fight another day.
no longer having my spot,i went further down stream and set up again.
the guy i was now fishing near had told me that he saw that the group of guys saw me with a fish on,nodded to  each other,while pointing at me and then converged on my spot.all i know is these guys didnt speak english.
these guys were doing chuck and duck(not saying thats bad,but they took my spot to do so)
sorry,dont mean to blah,blah,blah.like was said earlier,we can all get along ,if we ALL give it a shot,mutually.
                                      thanks,
                                mike(aka: mcfishy)  btw,great site! hope we can be cool with each other.
 

one of them did have a white ball cap sarg... maybe the same guys. these guys were having far from a bad day though. i probably saw the 2 of them hook around 50 fish between the 2 of them and they had a spot locked up. i gues i could've squeezed in their spot or got in from across but i don't do that. but for some reason they didn't consider or appreciate mine or anyone elses actions while they squeezed my first time up buddy. they each hooked 4 fish in my spot. i hooked 2 in 2 casts but chased them each 150+ yards and landed them both. if those guys didn't come in my buddy and me could've had maybe an hour of straight action. i can't complain with 9 hookups, but the general principal factor really urks me. especially since my buddy missed out. were these guys in DSR you encountered sarg?? they were season pass holders so i will see them again. they heard what i said out loud i'm sure but when i see them next i will calmly let them know how i feel and i'll be sure to point out how nobody pressured their spot...and if they tell me it's a free river, i will say ok, then good luck fishing when i'm around because i carry scissors and can cast pretty far...

DB - gotta watch out for the pinners - even in Dec-Feb time frame..
 
I pasted this section from from wikipedia:
 
Centerpin fishing, also called float fishing, is a fishing technique which uses a noodle or mooching rod, reel and Roe or fly. The method is used behind boats for steelhead fishing in salt water, and is currently popular with freshwater salmon anglers who drift their floats downstream.
 
Although centerpinners (sometimes called "pinners") use a fly, it is not really fly fishing, which involves more skill and less salmon roe. Centerpin rods are generally better for catch and keep fisheries, such as salmon, because the long lengths of line and lack of drag make it much harder to release the fish unharmed. The technique originated in Europe. It is a stealthy method of fishing, effective for catching many of the highly prized European rough fish.
 
The popularity of centerpin fishing in the Great Lakes tribs has dramatically increased in recent years. However, this has caused some animosity between traditional fly fisherman and "pinners" who have a tendency to employ hero drifts of several hundred feet and snatch salmon & steelhead from the feet of the unsuspecting fly flickers.
 
You gotta laugh (or cry) at the part in bold text...
 

Hey Dime,
In my never ending career of trying to find out how to consistently catch Steel in the River and tribs I have discovered large garden hackle fished just like small streams for regular trout to be quite effective. Now with guys switching to bobers there seems to be more written about using a smaller rubber kind of worm ( never used to hear of that).Love drifting the real ones on tailouts of holes- WHAM.
Need some advice about the legality and or pros and cons of using mid size shiners the same way. I never hear of that and cant see how it wouldnt be very productive just like the hackle. Have considered this for years and have never tried it out.
  The only drawback I could envision is of deep hooking causing a release issue. That doesnt seem to occur with the garden hackle though or with the bobber and rubber worm guys that I'v heard of. Maybee circle hook would care for any potential issues there.
  Reaching out here as I am thinking about it for later this week. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Drake- guess I'm just an old fashioned bait on a fly rod guy. Gotta love it. When I was  kid I used to fish for natives with the fly rig and would catch my bait streamside. Never took any with me.

maribou jigs are killer....

WOW, talk about quick replies -Much appreciated. Yea I'm really thinking about DSR again after a few years of layoff. If I do it though I would probably want a perfect day ( for me sunshine and nice temps -amount of fish be darned) Later this week looks like a wet one on deer stand with a homey warmup and short afternoon on the river. 

good points drake, but for me, i use long fly rods and spin rods, and never carry a net, and land a lot of fish. but there defin itely are certain areas and situations that can make a longer rod more difficult to land a fish...

They feast on those baitfish in the lake, and Mysis shrimps. Right?

sorry,meant to say "brakes on it!"

ORIGINAL: retired guy

Hey Dime,
In my never ending career of trying to find out how to consistently catch Steel in the River and tribs I have discovered large garden hackle fished just like small streams for regular trout to be quite effective. Now with guys switching to bobers there seems to be more written about using a smaller rubber kind of worm ( never used to hear of that).Love drifting the real ones on tailouts of holes- WHAM.
Need some advice about the legality and or pros and cons of using mid size shiners the same way. I never hear of that and cant see how it wouldnt be very productive just like the hackle. Have considered this for years and have never tried it out.
The only drawback I could envision is of deep hooking causing a release issue. That doesnt seem to occur with the garden hackle though or with the bobber and rubber worm guys that I'v heard of. Maybee circle hook would care for any potential issues there.
Reaching out here as I am thinking about it for later this week. Thanks in advance.

I have a friend from college who is the best trout fisherman I have ever fished with.  He always out fished everyone at least 2 or 3 to one.  Fished black nosed dace threaded with a treble hook pulled back into the vent.  He uses this rig in the Erie tribs with great success.  I know he had some big days in the Salmon R. and Oswego many years back.  Now I guess you can't transport bait fish any more.  He used a #4 single hook up in NY instead of the treble.

Since I have been out of this game for a while, and my casting skills are not the best, if some pinners moved in upstream from me and were doing those long drifts right in front of me, it would be difficult for me not to (quite often) hook their line and float.  Of course if they would move downstream from other fishermen, then I guess it would not be a problem.

I get the feeling that a lot of the bad stuff we are seeing tooooo much of this year is because of the flood and relatively short salmon run it made for most weekenders. The have had to stack up on the top of the river instead of watching and waiting for pods all along the whole fishery. The cramped fishing has just made what has always been happening become very condensed and more visible and more of a pain in the butt.