Jigs

I have been experimenting myself this year with various colors of wooly buggers, jigs, and streamer patterns. For woolybuggers, I like black, white, chartreuse, and olive. In low/ clear conditions, stick to more natural colors, and in stained conditions,  I'm not sure if you're tying your own, but it would be great to get into, as it's cheaper than buying flies/ jigs from stores, and leaves you more opportunity to experiment with various colors, patterns, and sizes. First of all, for woolybuggers, try fishing ones without a beadhead, but instead, build the weight into the fly, by prewrapping some wire around the hook before you begin to tie. Tie white woolybuggers with a crystal chennile (white, chartreuse, etc, both with and without hackle, and coneweights on the heads..
 
Now, I'll share something that has worked really well for me, clouser minnow type patterns for steelhead, tied to resemble emerald shinners. I never even thought of using a clouser minnow for steelhead, until my buddy went on a guide trip, and was outfishing me about 3 to 1. My attitude has changed, and it makes sense, as I've heard of times when the only bait steelhead will take are emerald shinners. I've based these patterns on Don Matthews version,
 
 
He uses bucktail/ yak hair, rainbow flash, chain/ barbell eyes, and brown thread to create the pattern. I've been tying these with both bucktail and maribou, with chartreuse and white, brown and white, and olive and white colors, and once you get the motion/ action down, you will literally be able to see the steelhead coming up to look at your fly and take it.

^ what he said.  It stinks when its cold and fingers are frozen, the last thing i wanna do is keep re-tying, but it works!

Florescent orange or chartruese heads....black or white tails (flash optional)...all ya need.

fisherofmen376

slabdaddy for me clear water is when jigs have worked best for me.  I go smaller than 1/32 though, usually 1/64 or a tiny "trout magnet" type jig.  

I tried everything in a jig that I had, but they just turned their noses up at them. I used 1/64 mini-foos (multiple colors), Trout Magnet heads, Ice Ants, and all kinds of tiny ice jigs in a plethora of colors. Nothing. I always try jigs first, because I like the control that a jig gives me and I like the presentation. These fish would touch nothing with a visible head. Only after losing the jig and going caveman, did I get hits. LOL! Those fish ran a Hell of a gauntlet getting up to me though. They were super spooked. You confided in me once what your "go-to" presentation was. I tried it too. Still didn't work. LOL! Literally tons of fish in front of me and I just couldn't get much attention with anything other than that tiny #18 treb. I went through 4 doz shiners in 2 hrs and only landed 2 fish! Oh well. It was a Hell of a good time anyway and the weather was beautiful. AND I caught my first Erie brown trout! Yay Me!

Tip:
Going small/downsizing isn't always the answer...try opposite.

Ironhed

Thanks Ken. I'll give that a try. Would you have tried a bigger jig head in that situation, than a 1/32? I heard from people that know you, that you are one of the best steelhead fishermen in Erie, so when you talk, I'm all ears man.

slabdaddy

Thanks Ken. I'll give that a try. Would you have tried a bigger jig head in that situation, than a 1/32? I heard from people that know you, that you are one of the best steelhead fishermen in Erie, so when you talk, I'm all ears man.

 
Thanks for the kind words but I don't consider myself one of the best.
 
Bigger than 1/32?  I'm not sure.  Depends on how deep the fish were holding in the particular hole/run you were fishing.
 
The largest I carried with me were 1/16.  Tied "full" and sparse. I also carried 1/80 jigs, tied full and sparse.
 
I think it's more important to note what the jig is tied of and it's density. 
Sometimes they like sparsely tied flash jigs and sometimes they like fully dressed crappie/bucktail/marabou-type jigs.  Sometimes they like it fished fast, sometimes they want it subtly danced in front of their face and sometimes they like it dead drifted.  Sometimes fished with a float, sometimes not.
 
We all have a tendency to try "different" things at the wrong times i.e., when the bite is slow. 
Bite the bullet(I know it can be tough when the bite is hot) and try a new bait/presentation when the bite is hot.  This will build your confidence level up.  Confidence is key.
In the long run, you will build your arsenal up and become a better steelheader.
 
Myself and a few friends used to challenge each other, with friendly competitions, by setting limits with what we could/couldn't do.
Some of the competitions included: Cannot stand in the water, dry flies only, purple egg patterns only, not allowed to use the drag on your reel, no floats, no weight attached to the leader, crankbaits only, etc., etc..
You wouldn't believe how much I/we learned during those stupid games.  Think about it...
 
Ironhed

Ironhed

slabdaddy

Thanks Ken. I'll give that a try. Would you have tried a bigger jig head in that situation, than a 1/32? I heard from people that know you, that you are one of the best steelhead fishermen in Erie, so when you talk, I'm all ears man.

Thanks for the kind words but I don't consider myself one of the best.

Bigger than 1/32?  I'm not sure.  Depends on how deep the fish were holding in the particular hole/run you were fishing.

The largest I carried with me were 1/16.  Tied "full" and sparse. I also carried 1/80 jigs, tied full and sparse.

I think it's more important to note what the jig is tied of and it's density. 
Sometimes they like sparsely tied flash jigs and sometimes they like fully dressed crappie/bucktail/marabou-type jigs.  Sometimes they like it fished fast, sometimes they want it subtly danced in front of their face and sometimes they like it dead drifted.  Sometimes fished with a float, sometimes not.

We all have a tendency to try "different" things at the wrong times i.e., when the bite is slow. 
Bite the bullet(I know it can be tough when the bite is hot) and try a new bait/presentation when the bite is hot.  This will build your confidence level up.  Confidence is key.
In the long run, you will build your arsenal up and become a better steelheader.

Myself and a few friends used to challenge each other, with friendly competitions, by setting limits with what we could/couldn't do.
Some of the competitions included: Cannot stand in the water, dry flies only, purple egg patterns only, not allowed to use the drag on your reel, no floats, no weight attached to the leader, crankbaits only, etc., etc..
You wouldn't believe how much I/we learned during those stupid games.  Think about it...

Ironhed

No drag? Man, that would be tough! I bet you did learn a lot. I need to learn how to tie my own jigs. I've done it one time with a buddy's help, but it was a while ago and I've forgotten how. I need a fly vice.
 
Those fish were about 4.5 ft down, on the bottom. A 1/32 got down to them but they shied as soon as they saw it coming. I would cast way  upstream so as to not spook them. I gave them a bit of a jiggle, then tried a bounce, then tried a dead drift and all the variations thereof. It didn't matter. They shied away. So I did the same thing with smaller and smaller jigs, trying different colors and patterns. It wasn't until I put the tiny hooks on (it was a last-ditch effort) that I started to get consistant bites. Perhaps a jig tied with really long feathers like mentioned above would have done better. I'm still learning. Thanks for all of the info guys.

Gotcha. TY

In my opinion, a lot of people go way too big with jigs in the Erie tribs. I've caught many of my biggest fish there (10 - 15 pounds) on 1/100 oz and smaller. Good colors are white, black, pink, purple and the vastly underutilized yellow. Typical feather (hackle and marabou) jigs work, but I've had more luck with jigs I tie myself that are basically wolly worms tied on jig heads.
 
The most important thing about jigs is presentation. Natural drifts or imparting action as the conditions dictate will usually mean more than having the right color.
 
Berkley trout worms and some of the newer small plastic/rubber nymphs also work quite well when fished this way, and have the added benefit of articulation (lacking in most flies and jigs).