Steelheaders Seek Cool Water For Hot Fishing

Hot Shotting has become the method of choice for most anglers who fish from boats to catch steelhead.

Steelheaders call the method Hot Shotting because a highly effective lure called a Hot Shot was one of the first lures to be used by back trollers each fall along the Northwest’s rivers.

To Jason Schultz, boat captain and fishing guide for Cougar Country Lodge of Lewiston, Idaho, the Hot Shot is a good lure, but his favorites are Yakima Bait’s Hog Boss and Storm’s magnum Wiggle Wart.

“They dive to the bottom a lot quicker than most other lures,” he said, “They stay down near the rocks where the steelhead are and they’ve got good action.”

He should know. He’s a master fisherman, an expert on the most effective methods for catching steelhead, sturgeon, smallmouth bass, resident rainbows and channel catfish, the most popular game fish in the Snake and its tributaries.

At 22, Schultz is one of the youngest boat captains and fishing guides - if not, the youngest - on the Snake. He’s always ready to fish.

He recently took a small group of Northwest outdoor writers 90 miles up the Snake nearly to Granite Creek in Hells Canyon, baited 9/0 hooks with trout meat, continually manipulated the powerful jet boat around sturgeon holes and, for writers, repeatedly cast long, heavy rods and 14 ounces of lead 50 to 100 feet. He also fished for and caught numerous smallmouth bass and a few rainbows.

For 10 hours, he was a man in continuous motion, even when the sun over-heated Hells Canyon and broiled the writers. All the time, he was helpful, courteous and polite.

By the time he piloted the boat into a marina at Lewiston, the writers were dragging. One was so exhausted that he decided to stay in a Lewiston motel and drive home the next day.

But Schultz wasn’t ready to quit. He fished that night. One gets the feeling that Schultz, like all great fishermen, is as happy hooking crappies as sturgeon.

With more than 160,000 steelhead now over Bonneville Dam and moving steadily up the Columbia and Snake, Schultz is looking forward to seeing Cougar Country Lodge’s clients hook one steelhead after another. Those who know him best take it for granted that his dudes will go home singing his praises.

Schultz is a believer in how water temperatures affect steelhead movement.

Like most steelheaders, he’s aware that steelhead that climb the Lower Granite Dam fish ladders in August - even those destined for the Grande Ronde and Salmon rivers - go up the Clearwater a few miles. The reason: The Clearwater is several degrees cooler than the Snake and steelhead seek out the cool water.

Many steelhead wait in the lower Clearwater until the Snake’s temperature drops into the low 60s and high 50s before continuing migration up the Snake.

What most fishermen don’t realize is that steelhead destined for the Grande Ronde stack up across the Snake near the Ronde’s mouth for the winter, when the Ronde’s temperature nosedives. Schultz is also aware that thousands headed for the Salmon to spawn move up the Snake into Hells Canyon when the Salmon’s temperature drops into the low 40s.

“I do a lot of fishing near the mouth of the Grande Ronde, at the mouth of the Salmon, in the lower Salmon and, later in the season, in the Snake above the mouth of the salmon,” he said.

“Ninety percent of the steelhead that go up the Snake above the Ronde eventually go up the salmon. But a lot of them winter in the Snake above the Salmon. Temperatures there can be 15 degrees higher than the Salmon. Fishing can be excellent in the Snake above the Salmon in November and December.”

Although the magnum Wiggle Wart and the Hog Boss are his favorite steelhead lures, Schultz sometimes back trolls other plugs, including Luhr Jensen’s Hot Lips, another fat, long-billed plug that dives as deep as 20 feet. And he knows that other plugs, like Rapala’s Shad Rap and Storm’s Hot ‘N Tot, are also good steelhead lures. He has favorite colors, but believes that the color of a lure isn’t nearly as important as the lure itself and the way it’s fished.

Schultz fishes with lures early each season and then switches to bait when water temperatures drop into the 40s and 30s and steelhead settle down in holding spots. Shrimp and eggs are his favorite baits.

If you see a young boat captain this fall on the Snake or Salmon and fishermen in the boat are catching steelhead, you can be almost certain you are seeing a self-assured man who is making a name for himself in the tough world of guiding.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fenton Roskelley The Associated Press