Steelhead Jigs

Kevin and I had the pleasure to fish with Gabe Hillebrand from HillBrand tackle and Matt Straw from In-Fisherman earlier this year for steelhead. Here is the small write up from the In-Fisherman blog for your enjoyment. Steel on hair

 and so it begins

Wind burnt

The past few days I have been on the water with the one and only Gabe Hillbrand from Hillbrand tackle, Swinging his custom designed jigs for steelhead. Thursday was windy, so after being punished for a few hour with Gale force wind we motor up river to find cover for awhile . As luck would have it we managed to find a couple fish that wanted to come out and play,catching one great looking buck and missing a few others.
  Saturday was a blue bird day. No wind, high sun and warm. motoring up into the same area as the day before proved to be a waist of time with only a couple northerns  that came to the boat, later in the day and downstream a few miles, we found another beautiful buck that smacked a blood leech pattern. with rain in the forecast I would expect good fishing today.

Swamp donkey

Fishing jigs for trout and steelhead isn't a new tactic,this style of fishing has been around for a long time.floating brightly colored jigs under floats or dead drifting thru runs is a deadly presentation.
  Gabe hillbrand from Hillbrand tackle has taken jigs to a new level and his creativity and design of these works of art shows with the results after a day of fishing them.. I have been fishing with Gabes jigs for awhile now for carp,smallmouth ,King salmon and steelhead.  For the next few weeks we will dive in to different styles and concepts of fishing these jigs.

the Swamp donkey is without a doubt one of my favorites,i have caught salmon,Steelhead,carp,smallmouth and northern pike on this pattern so far. fishing this jig with erratic motion has been my best technique to date for steelhead but i have been back bouncing this jig on a straight downstream presentation and have gotten bit. for carp and smallmouth-dragging this along the bottom mimicking a goby or crayfish has been deadly for my non-fly fishing clients on Beaver Island.