XG....... IMO......Short floating works in certain situations. Particularly in the lower end of the river, where the fish are more aggressive, and the runs are softer. In the upper end of the river, or in generally faster water, pencil lead is the ticket. Rig your lead on a small piece of tubing, which is attached to a small (#12) snap swivel, that runs on your mainline. Make sure you use a small green bead as a bumper between your knot and your sliding piece of lead. This gives you the ultimate in sensitivity and the ability to get down fast. These fish will not move far to take an offering. So you want to be right on bottom, and put "it" right in front of their noses. Because you are fishing right on bottom, you may want to use a lure that is neutrally buoyant. Not a corky as they will ride to high up in the water Column. But say, wool and a jensen egg, plain wool with some scent, the deadly colorado blade,pink worms, or if using roe bags, tie in some foam so that they float off bottom a little better. But at this time of the year, nothing works as well as ghost shrimp. They just take some work to get.
These guys aren't snagging bottom because they are "tight lining". You will notice that they have constant tension on their gear throughout the entire drift. Your float will not go down when you have a strike, you will feel it in your rod. This is the direct opposite as short floating. In a sense this is a glorified version of bottom bouncing. You take the best of both worlds ( bottom bouncing / float fishing ) and combine them. Using this technique, your float acts as nothing more than an indicator as to where your line enters the water. It also helps keep your angle from bottom to surface closer to vertical. Where as bottom bouncing the angle of your line from bottom to surface is closer to 45 degrees. Fishing faster, pocket type water without a float is a recipe for disaster. You just don't have the control that you do with a float. Just remember......if you aren't touching bottom, you aren't where the fish are. If spring ever comes, and the water warms up, any technique will work, but for now, this is your best bet.
The heavy sink tip does work, in certain runs. We have been catching fish on the fly throughout the season. But it has been hit and miss because of water conditions. If you want to put fish on the beach........use the technique described, where you seen these fish caught. The upper river should be getting plugged full of steelhead over the course of the next few weeks. When we were gear fishing, we considered the upper river the "holy water".
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Topic: Mar. 1st Vedder report.. (Read 3441 times)