Jig rod philosophy

Lower Yellowstone River sunset

Jigging on a river for trout, to me, is casting and retrieving, working the lure, and picking the water apart. It's being in tune with the bottom and the flow. It's like a combination of drifting a fly and plug fishing. It's part dead drift, part swing, and part mimicking life and action.

A good jig rod is lightweight and able to cast and feel tiny lures, but strong enough, stiff enough to be able to set the hook and fight. It needs to be limber, but not anywhere near floppy. It should be able to cast a 1/32nd ounce lure and fish about 2 to 6lb line. I want enough length for some reach, but not so long that its cumbersome to work the jig. Exact length is least important to me - but I want longer when wading big water and shorter when in a boat or on small water.

Long rod on a rainy Northwest steelhead stream

I love to fish one of my 9.5ft light action rods whenever reach is desirable. By 'reach' I mean lifting the line above the water to eliminate drag - same as when mending a fly line. The difference being that, unless the jig is smaller than about 1/16th ounce, your rod tip will be connected to the bait by a near weightless line - rather than a near weightless lure connected to the rod by a heavy line. The advantage of having reach with a long jig rod is like "high sticking" a dry fly in a small stream - where you float the fly in a small pocket while all the line, except perhaps a portion of the leader, is in the air. Without the drag of the fly line on the current, the fly can stay put nearly indefinitely. The longer the fly rod, the more stream you can high stick. In the case of a jig on a long rod,

small-stream, long rod steelhead

you aren't limited to only the reach of your rod. A cast can be made across current to reach a seam or pocket. Then the length of the rod bridges the line between tip and where the line enters the water. The higher the reach, the less drag.  Length, within reason, equals control. Without the drag, the jig stays put longer, much like the fly. This could be for the presentation itself, or it could be to achieve the depth needed before allowing the jig to swing downstream along the current seam.  A longer rod gives greater reach, and a steeper angle between rod tip and lure.  Again, length equals control. This is even more pronounced when fishing a jig float-n-fly method - where the jig is suspended under a float (similar to a nymph under an indicator). Often you can lift your line off the water entirely so that your rod tip is connected directly to the float, bridging all water, current, and obstacles between you and your lure.

Montana carp on a kiddie rod

A long, limber rod has other benefits as well, a primary one being the enhanced ability to use light line. After 'discovering' the long rod while fishing the streams of the Northwest I efficiently fought and landed numerous small-stream steelhead on four pound line.  Light line has many advantages – invisibility, castability, lure action and presentation, reaching bottom quickly, etc.  All of which benefit jigs greatly.  But it has obvious disadvantages too – breakage on the hookset, breakage during a strong run, abrasion on teeth or structure, too long of a fight prior to release, etc.  I’ve spoken with many anglers who contend that big fish can’t be landed - at least consistently - on light line.  But that doesn’t explain the countless heavy fish landed on tiny fly tippets every day.  It doesn’t explain the Northwest anglers netting salmon and steelhead in small streams every year.  Of course a 15-pound fish can be landed with 4-pound line on a 5-foot rod – it happens all the time.  My son and I landed a carp like that on his kiddie rod with two eyelets and a non-existent drag. But the angler with a long rod has a much greater degree of control during that fight, and his chances of landing the fish, in my opinion, are much greater.  And in a timely manner. I’ve caught steelhead and big trout on 5.5-t o 6-foot rods and light line, but, unless the lure presentation requires a short rod, I’d rather have a 9 or 10 footer in hand if given the option ahead of time.  

big-river, long rod rainbow on jig

Lighter lines aren’t fully capable handling the shock of a big fish on their own. This was demonstrated plainly and uniquely to me once in Florida during the after-midnight hours while tarpon “jumping” with a random angler I’d met earlier in the day when flipping plastic worms to lily pads for largemouth.  This guy would go out on bridges in the wee hours of the morning and swim large single-hooked, barbless jigs on heavy gear along the shadow line created by the bridge lights.  Maybe it is big sport down there, maybe he was alone in his pastime, I really don’t know.  The goal was to hook tarpon, let them go ballistic, and then shake the hook out without landing it.  He used a “shock” leader – a heavy piece of monofilament (as in maybe 100-150 lb test) for the first several feet, then something like 50 or 80-lb on the spool.  I’m sure this is common in salt water big game fish, but it was new to me.  To me a leader usually goes the other way – connecting a heavier line to a lure/fly via a lighter, less visible line.  That night only brought action from one tarpon, but I’ll never forget the refrigerator-sized fish that launched itself out of the black water into the glow of the street light to nail that lure as it was rising to meet the surface.  I could see how the sheer power of that hit would likely have blasted through that 80-lb line as if it were a strand of spider web.  The man I was fishing with explained how without the leader the line often breaks just from being battered by the powerful body during the fight - at least with his unforgiving style perched on a bridge with a stout rod. 

Missouri rainbow on a jig and Crossfire rod

Back in a trout stream or steelhead river my tarpon experience seems hardly applicable.  I suppose the lesson is simply in the shock a big fish can impart.  Lighter lines can benefit from some help when battling big fish.  Much of that help comes from an angler's skill and experience, as well as the quality of the reel's drag system, but also from other tools used.  For the tarpon, that was the buffer of a shock leader.  For salmonoids, I feel like a long rod is one of the best tools to make fishing a light line most feasible.  I have no measured statistics, but a long limber rod must absorb a great deal more shock than a shorter one.  Combine a long rod with a good drag, and a light line is practically unbreakable.  I even find myself palming my spool, same as I would a fly reel. With more control supplied by the rod, the drag can be set more loosely, and custom adjustments made with pressure from the hand in direct response to whatever the fish is doing.  Runs can be more quickly stifled and the fish more effectively turned or steered.

9.5 foot G. Loomis Bronzeback. Notice the deep bend
and palming the spool.

And then in the other direction, when a fish jumps or turns and the line would normally go slack, the deep bend of the rod helps maintain tension as it begins to unload before your reel can catch back up.  The line is more gently loaded and unloaded, which translates into less shock.  Even the shock of the hookset is tempered a bit, which I think is more beneficial than not.  It reduces the chance of breaking off in that moment, and I don't find I that need to compensate for what seems like a softer hookset.  My theory is that because of the rod length, the tip travels a far greater distance with the same hookset motion made on a short rod, so despite the "softer" or less rigid hookset, it has still been done adequately, with all the same power, and perhaps even more evenly in that the rod has been well-loaded with a deep bend, alleviating the need to "catch up" and reel down to the a fighting position.  How often have you seen someone make a hookset and then lose the fish as they try to bring their rod back down out of the air, reeling wildly to gain back all the line their overzealous jerk created.  A long rod does this in one motion - the rod goes back for the set, bows deeply and stays arced, and then the fight can begin from that point as the blank unloads the tension.  

The longer length also allows for the fish to be landed and released more quickly than on a shorter rod.  The fight is more in the angler's court, where with the shorter rod the fisherman is much more dependent on the reel's drag alone, and will lose much more line and much more time to runs and surges.  This same advantage is well portrayed by tenkara fly rods (which is described well here by Gink and Gasoline).  Even if you've never used one, or never had the surprise of tying into a bass while fishing for bluegill with a cane pole, imagine trying to fight a sizeable fish with the line tied to your finger tip versus fighting that same fish on a line tied to the end of a long, limber rod.  Pretty easy to visualize which one is more in the fisherman's favor.

mature rainbow taken on a jig in tiny, clear water

Aside from its forgiving qualities, during the fight the long rod helps reach over logs and rocks your line might have been raked across with a shorter rod, and it helps you reach over streamside bushes when a jog downstream becomes necessary.  Fly fisherman already utilize all this, even if just by default of having a long rod in their hands already for the purpose of making more efficient casts.  As a fly fisherman, I love to fight fish on a longer rod.  I did right from the beginning, and I’ve been doing it most of my life.  But until I got the Northwest and was introduced to long spinning rods, it never occurred to me that the same advantages were available to spinning gear.  Before then, a long spinning rod to me was 7 feet.  And in my little world, they tended to get heavier as they got longer.  When I used spinning gear for trout before leaving the South, my rod was often only 5 feet long. Sometimes when I was fishing jigs I'd bring a 6-footer I might normally use for smallmouth bass jigs. 

Rod length is less important from a boat, where you are already elevated above the water and more likely to maneuver yourself closer to your target.  It is also less important on smaller streams where the scale of everything you are doing is simply smaller, coupled with the fact that you can often gain additional height from the bank or some obstacle in the stream.  The exception being when conditions are such that there is less of a cast and more of a "hold over and drop," like along extremely brushy streams, or when you are reaching horizontally over structure, such as a vertical stream bank.

My boat rods are 5.5 to 6.5 feet.  My small stream rods range on up to 7 (and occasionally up to 9.5).  Typically I outfit folks with the 5.5 or 6 foot rod lengths, although I do keep at least two "loaner" 9.5 foot rods in my tubes for those folks who'd like to give one a go.  I find generally that people fishing with me who aren't jig fisherman already have a better command of shorter rods, and it's just best to start with what you know. Especially in the confined space of a boat.  For myself, while in the boat, I'll fish plugs on the shorter rods (because my retrieve is mostly done with tip down) and toss jigs on the 6 and 6.5 foot rods - often my Crossfire. The Crossfire makes an excellent boat road for working jigs, and was developed especially for that purpose.  It is also often my second rod when walking along and wading big water - I generally keep one holstered behind me while using the other, each with a different purpose.

For travel, I use 7-foot four-piece rods.  Easily packable, and its length fills most situations - enough length to be serviceable on large water and short enough to handle small water.  I typically would prefer to err on the side of too long than too short anyway. I toss it both in a suitcase for car travel and

7-foot Diawa Spincast pack rod

in my backpack for hikes. Diawas's Spincast is under $50 and feels far more quality than that. It comes is lengths from 5.5ft to 7ft. For those a bit more performance driven, the Presso is just a step up and runs about $80. There's a lot of value and performance stuffed into those rods, and they are among very few spinning rods (particularly light spinning rods) that come in four sections. Many come in three, which to me, just isn't very handy in terms of packability.  I have multiple fly rods that come in four pieces. In fact, it is the norm these days for a fly rod to be offered in four sections. Maybe the rest of the industry will catch on. Fenwick has a 7-footer that comes in four pieces, and Okuma has one as well. I haven't tried either. 

Now that said, I LOVE a one-piece rod. Many of my rods, including the Crossfire and an array of others, are single piece. You can't beat a continuous blank when it comes to sensitivity and power. And it's superior in terms of maintenance and durability - no ferrules to crack, no sockets to fill with dirt, no casted off rod tips, no eyelets out of alignment, no second thoughts on a powerful hookset or hang up. When possible, I use my one piece rods. The rest of the time, which is a considerable amount, I want my rod to be as packable as possible.

Any rod can be a jig rod, but like any fishing situation, you will get far more out of your gear and your day on the water if you match your gear to the presentation you are trying to make.  Far too many people try to match their gear to the fish they are hoping to catch, or load their spools with a heavy line because they don't want to break off.  Start with the lure you are going to toss and the presentation you are going to make, then work backwards from there, choosing the best line to match it, the best rod for that line, lure, and presentation, and then the most appropriate reel for that line weight.  The fish, regardless of size, can be landed on just about any set up - but you have to hook it first.  Fish the right gear and you will greatly increase your chances of that.

 22-inch brown taken on a jig and long rod

One shot at Fall Browns

the big October brown I was looking for

In the middle of hunting season, its hard to take days that could spent in the woods and head to the water.  I've missed the bulk of fall's fabulous fishing for too many years.  I swore this year would be different, but so far I was wrong.  I had two November days penciled in on the calendar for fishing, and those were at the request of a friend to float some out-of-state family members of theirs down the Missouri for a weekend.  I really enjoy taking folks, especially now that I have a highly functional river boat, but that still wasn't going to be my time for pursuing the lunkers of fall.  Although we did catch a few good ones those two days.

But, the need to travel for work came to my rescue.  Turns out I'd be crossing over one of my absolute favorite rivers for browns as I headed to a few job sites.  It's a somewhat obscure river in terms of Montana fame, although by no means unknown, but I still hesitate to mention its name.  I set out for my field work early in the day, preserving the afternoon hours for the water.  After all, this was very likely going to be my only day in all of October to fish, and October was nearly gone.  I arrived with a couple hours of daylight remaining.  I started probing the depths of a large hole that's treated me well in the past with an 1/8th-ounce jig .  Pretty quickly I landed a nice brown.  Last time I'd fished this river in the heat of summer it had taken me a lot of hard work to locate a fish as nice as this first one.  But as time wore on, I wasn't finding them as quickly as I'd hoped.  I figured pre-spawners would be stacked in this hole, with good spawning riffles both above and below.  It seemed a slow-rolled jig bounced in front of their noses would be the ticket.  But as I reflected back on all my casts so far, it seemed that the follows, swipes, and hookups I was getting were on the retrieve, not the "jigging."  I swapped out for a sinking plug and went to

work with cross-stream casts, swinging the plug in streamer fashion, but with much more action and covering much more of the river.  The difference was immediate.  These fish were on the chase, and hookups picked up.  By dark I'd landed four or five browns in the 20 inch range, among other solid ones, and several pesky little rainbows.  I'd covered several hundred yards of river, and I'd driven to a new section once.  As darkness fell, I went back to my original hole.  I dressed a little more warmly and strapped on a headlamp.  I still had faith that this is where the some big ones were likely staged, and they'd probably be much more likely to cruise at night.  I landed two more good ones in the dark.  The second of the two and final fish of the evening was my best brown of 2014.  There was no moon.  It was black as it gets.  Casting relied entirely on knowing what was in front of me beforehand.  Working a lure is tough to do blindly.  Even the tiniest sliver of moon would have made a world of difference for targeting seams and structure.  Without having fished this hole in the daylight, I could have done nothing with it.  As it was, the majority of my casts were likely ineffective and passing over water I wouldn't have casted to if I could have seen. But I'd done what I'd set out to do - I had squeezed in some fishing time into a day that wouldn't normally have found me on the water.  I'd tied into a number of quality fall browns, and one of them was very near a personal best.  Maybe it was.  And all of them are back out there to be caught again - hopefully on a moonlit night or on some foam hoppers next summer.

The hot days of winter

Lately my free time has been poured into hunting season. Elk, antelope, and deer called me away from water for most of three months.  During that time I think I fished only four times. For me that's not much, although one trip resulted in one of my biggest browns to date. A post-spawn bruiser hooked in moonless blackness.
November and hunting season wrapped up with temps around zero. But with the first week of December came a warm-up to near freezing. And field work was on my calendar.  Which means travel.  Which means passing water. And this time of year, it means water void of people. And I can't pass water without stopping....
I needed to head north along the Missouri for field meetings the following day. So, with half a work day behind me and four hours of driving time ahead, I hit the river while en-route for the last couple hours of ever-shortening daylight. The water was steely perfect, and no one was around. I couldn't quite tear my eyes off the hillsides since they'd been glued there for three months scanning for animals, so I wore my binos and checked out the deer as they appeared. After all, the rut was still peaked. And sometimes bighorn sheep show up.

The air temp was just high enough that ice on the line and in the eyelets was not a problem. I got to work swinging jigs and searching out the type of runs they were holding in. I was cutting the first tracks in snow that was days old and frozen to a hard crust.  I was on a stretch that would be crawling with folks in the summer months. The sub-aqueous grass that plagues fisherman summer and fall was all but gone. I slipped along ticking bottom and popping jigs till I found myself in a deeper run and setting into my first hookup. Doesn't matter the time of year, nice trout always enjoy a fat minnow. But now the water was cold enough that even these larger ones were feeding midday and the lethargy of summer was gone. Each fish of any size peeled drag and pumped the rod with spunk I hadn't felt since about March. Funny, everyone flocks

to the river as some of the best fishing is ending, and then go home again about the time it picks back up. Summer is convenient when it comes to hatching bugs and warm fingers, but it's kind of a bummer in terms of pursuing big fish and a heavy fight. At least during daylight hours.

The fish were picking up the jig in subtle but solid unmistakable taps. I'd cast far enough upstream to gain the depth I needed by the time the jig was passing me. Then I'd swing it like a streamer, but also bounce bottom and sometimes feed it line to increase its travel time through the strike zone at depth.
It was hot! The only other guy I saw was a duck hunter. The biggest fish were rainbows. The browns seemed to be holding in swifter water today. At least the ones I hooked into. Ducks whizzed up and down the river, their wings screaming as they careened by. The occasional shotgun blast rolling through the canyon walls.  Geese honked as they passed overhead in stringy viceroys. Bald eagles circled and perched, eyeing equally the river and the cawing crows. And the deer on the ridges kept my binoculars busy. The draw of glassing for antlers doesn't diminish even after the tag is filled.
I could have just driven by like everyone else and camped out in my hotel room earlier, but packing a rod and a box of jigs was my ticket to a beautiful evening full of late fall/early winter action. And I don't just mean the fish.

As darkness fell the temperature started its dip to single digits for the night. Still, it was hard to leave.  Only nine months left to fish before next hunting season.

Looking back

Spring isn't technically over for a while yet, but I start thinking I'm fishing during spring long before it arrives. And now summer patterns are beginning to set in.  Spring 2014 has been a good one. Like last year about this time, I've hit 20 inches or better in four trout streams so far. Was awfully close in a fifth with a 19 incher, but can't claim it - yet. Also, folks who have joined me on excursions to rip

jigs or twitch plugs have collectively hit the 20 inch mark in that many streams as well - although I stand by myself in one river and have been bested in another, making the spread of streams that have produced big fish just a little wider than four.  Trout have made up the majority of my pursuit, but I've also connected with some nice northern pike in one river and some walleye on a couple streams. All that's really lacking in my river pursuits so far this spring by my usual standards is a good smallmouth trip.

Travel for work resulted in seeing new water, directly resulted in one of my 20-inchers, and indirectly resulted in one of my best browns of the year when making a subsequent return trip. A hefty 22 incher caught in a sudden thunderstorm. One of the keys this spring, like most any other spring in the West, has been finding fishable water. I played the weather right and hit a fabulous stretch of time in April when the weather was warming but stream flows were still at winter lows for just a couple days before discharge skyrocketed. I also leaned on tailwaters once the melt began to blow the freestone streams out, many of which remain unfishable. I've hit three primary tailwater streams so far (four if you count multiple dams on the same river), none of which have yet been the Bighorn.

Two rivers involved weekend or longer camping trips. One involved building a pickup rack to carry my jon boat and be able to tow the camper at the same time, which resulted in a couple days of floating productive water, holding and drifting under electric power rather than oars. Another river was fished just for the day, but involved 200 miles of one-way driving before and after. Left before dawn and got back after midnight. Such was the search for clear water. But each paid off big time in the scenery taken in, the family fun of camping, hanging out with friends, and the big fish that were encountered.

So far this spring I have fly fished very little. The focus of each of these trips has been probing the high water with jigs and using plugs as appropriate. I have fond memories of my dad sitting in his bass boat when I was a kid holding up some gargantuan lure on the end of his line that he had just tied on and predictably saying "only big fish need apply!" before tossing the offering out to whatever structure had prompted the switch. Jig and plug fishing is much the same - skip the fluff and go right to the big boys. And higher flows of spring beg for it. As I write this, flows are still mostly peaked, but the corner is turning, and already the hatches are thickening and trout are looking skyward. The surface feeding is picking up, wolf packs are forming on the Missouri, and my fingers are starting to itch for some fly line. Growing up a bass fisherman, there's nothing finer than the "toilet bowl flush" of a fish taking a surface bait. Trout tend to be a bit more dainty, but there's a piggishness in a hefty slurp that you can't deny.  Bring on hopper season!

I didn't always hit the weather right this spring - one wintertime trip found me in northern Montana on the water's edge in 6 degrees casting into a stiff wind. At least I can say I tried.... Another water on my list from that same trip was completely unfishable due to being frozen solid, except for where it plunged through the air and then disappeared under the shelf of ice covering the next pool. But another trip that started in the low teens turned out to be a day of bruiser trout. And other days went from sunburns to snow squalls. Spring is great - your wading boots might freeze to the rocks if you stand still too long, but you might also find yourself in a tee shirt soaking in the first warmth of the year.

There have also been a few heartbreakers among the hook-ups as well. The most prominent in my mind was a brown that ranks among the best I have ever personally seen on the end of a line. I was working a bank known to me to hold good browns. I'd already coaxed a number of solid fish from the stretch over a period of three or four trips spanning the first month of very high releases from Canyon Ferry on the Missouri. While others were focusing on the rainbow spawn, I was keying in on the little gold mine of browns I'd located. I'd

landed at least one above 20 inches from this shoreline each time I'd fished it. The last time I passed over it I was purposely standing high on the bank above it, flipping an eighth-ounce soft jerkbait-style jig along the immediately deep shoreline. The fish have been holding a rod's length or less from the bank, and my high position on the bank, easily 15 feet above the water on a near-vertical slope, gave both stealth and visibility. A long rod is key. I rolled the jig up from the depths and was darting it along the transition from visible bottom to deep green when a huge brown moved to intercept it. My mind didn't react, I took it as a matter of course. My heart
didn't race yet, and I watched the fish take the lure, thrash it like a lion with a gazelle, and then turn to mosey back where it had come from. Mechanically I went to set the hook at just the right position in his turn, but my fingers had failed to take in the slack I'd given the fish to "make his kill". The mistake meant that the hookset was made on a slack line and when the line came tight on the fish the break was instant. The brown started doing somersaults trying to toss the lure. Even before I accepted that I had broken the line, I was watching the fish fight as if he were still attached and briefly tried to convince myself there might just be more slack to gain.

But I knew what I'd done and could only watch the show beneath me as the fish rolled around in the
shallow water against the bank. It even paused for a while and held in the current in plain sight, as if taking up a new feeding lane, before it slipped back to deeper water.  I even had plenty of time to call out to my partner and say "I wish you were over here to see this." What might be trout of the year was just dancing around, and I had the time to describe out loud what I was watching before the fish went out of sight. Wish I'd thought to pull out the camera and snap a picture....

The (mis) understanding

Apparently someone had stopped on the trail above me to watch me fight a fish. It was a gem of a warm winter day, a few weeks before the rainbow spawn would get underway. I got it to my feet, did a quick lift to the little tripod with my camera I'd set on the ledge behind me, and then slipped it back in the water.  I held its tail for a few seconds before it shot away, gliding over the sunlit gravel bar in full view for several yards till it reached the deep green of larger water.  As I stood to gather my things I hear "Nice fish!" from up on the bank. I look up to see a fisherman in full regalia, dressed to the nines carrying multiple fly rods with  a multitude of gadgets dangling from them and his various gear bags like Christmas ornaments.  He had so much gear I wondered if he'd camped streamside the previous night.  His posture said that he'd seen the entire show my fish and I had put on just then.  His face was of true, genuine interest and sincerity.  I thanked him heartily and waved as he moved on down the trail.  He had an air of disbelief about him, but I didn't really get the impression it had to do with the size of the rainbow he'd just witnessed me do battle with.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but I felt like it had to do more with me, or maybe the entire scene at large.  I chuckled to myself and wondered what was going on in his head.  I  absurdly imagined him being shaken by the experience and saying to himself: "I thought all spin fisherman were barbarians at the core. Surely I expected to watch him bite that fish's head off right there on the bank and gut it with his fingernails.  He didn't even bash it on a rock before lashing it to a stringer.  He let it go! And it lived!  Where was his net? Didn't know a guy could actually touch a trout. But wait, that rainbow wouldn't have even fit in the net on my back - maybe I should have sprung for a bigger one."

I think we regarded each other in equal bewilderment. I'm known to carry two rods and my share of tackle, but this guy truly looked like he'd just dropped out of the mountains after a couple weeks on the trail - except for his three rods and waders. And to him I kind of looked like one of his own - I was in waders, which very often spin fisherman are not, and my spinning rod was nine and a half feet long - likely longer than most of the rods he was carrying. I'm sure when he came around the bend to see me standing in the water with a deeply arced rod of that length, I very likely must have looked like a fly angler.  Thing is, I am a fly angler, but I very willingly blur the "lines" and fish what matches the situation best, or what suits me best, on a given water or day. This day, as is quite often the case for me on big water, I was tossing jigs on light line and reaching fish that hadn't seen any of the flies the dozen fisherman who passed by had drifted over them.  That fish had nailed my 3-inch minnow imitation with gusto as I hopped it among the rocks on the bottom 50 yards from wadable shoreline in several feet of water beneath a swift surface current.  Even the majority of the spin fisherman who may have passed by had probably just sailed a spinner over it.  Maybe some had drifted a bait rig through, which could have done the trick, but even then in my observations of the typical bait fisherman, I don't think they would have normally been out in the water picking the seams apart the way a jig can.  The bait rig may certainly have drifted through on the right path, but quite often that would have been incidental, a matter of statistics, after enough repeated casts had been made.  It's funny to me how much disdain spin fisherman and fly fisherman have for each other.  They both miss out on fabulous and very effective ways of catching fish - if they'd just trade gear for the day.  I shake my head at each camp - fly fisherman who are blinded by the pressures of maintaining eliteness and spin fisherman who are stuck in the rut of cast-and-crank. I'm sure there are plenty of folks like myself who simply love to employ the tactics they find most pleasing and most effective at the time, regardless of the gear variety, or are just up for all-out experimentation, but I don't bump into them often.

Still, I think its the "elitist" fly fishermen who give me the most entertainment, particularly those who aren't accomplished enough to be putting on airs.  They look down their nose at my spinning reel and have no idea I'd likely hold my own or outfish them with their own fly rod.  I chuckle at the 'groupie' fly fishermen every time I hit a favorite stretch of water where I often catch larger fish. It's big water, and deep. The banks are steep and fly casting is really tough. There are only a few decent spots to wade any distance from the bank, and then only if flows are low enough. Just a couple gravel bars. The fly fishermen congregate on these bars like Cubans on a raft (and I don't mind that comparison since both groups are in search of a better way of life). Then they all just stand there and beat the water to a froth, high-fiving each other whenever somebody manages to land one. It's like a prestigious men's club. All suited up in the latest gear, obligatory landing nets and purebred pooches standing by.

Some of them are without a doubt outstanding fly fishermen who are probably in their groove and are just as amused as I am. Many are probably poor souls who know no better because they bought into the lore that fly fishing was the only true way to take a trout. That's fine by me.  I don't mind walking on around the bend, away from most everybody, and searching out five pounders all by my lonesome.  And I'm sure I won't bump into the majority of them next time I break out my fly rod and put it to work on a remote stream.  Maybe I'll see that same guy again.  But I doubt he'd recognize me with a fly rod in my hands.  Although he might - if the fish is of similar proportions.

Spring (crazy) fun

April in Montana.  Everybody gets excited when it hits 60 degrees, but nobody puts their jackets away.  Parts of the state saw 70 degrees last week, but Saturday on the river found me knee-deep in water squinting through the snowflakes stinging my eyes.  It was a brutal day weather-wise.  It was 40 at dawn, the high for the day.  Not bad really, but it was windy, rainy, and snowy all day.  By the time I got back to the truck ten hours later it was hovering just above 30. Most every part of me was numb, but well worth it (although a few folks have been known to call me crazy).  These can be the best days.  The action might not always be hot, but the fish are quality.  Big rainbows are stirring as spawning urges them out of the depths.  Higher water flows get the browns motivated to cruise the eddies and stake out ambush points.  Sometimes the action is only limited by the fisherman's ability to function in the frigid, ever-changing conditions.  I like days like Saturday.  Only the serious folks are out, but the fishing is unaffected by the time of day.  On the Missouri, if it weren't for the tailwater aspect, there'd be no fishing right now.  The upper river is blown out by snowmelt.  In response, the lower river is flowing at rates double its typical stage, but the water remains clear.  Streamside trails and access points are drowned under a couple feet of water.  Wading remains essential for getting around obstacles and stepping out onto the occasional strategic boulder, although wade-fishing is mostly not an option.

I tackled Saturday's conditions with two spinning rods, each spooled with 4lb line.  I keep one holstered behind my back in my Badlands Black Jack waist pack while fishing the other. The pack is not built as a fishing pack, but I find it to be nearly perfectly suited to it.  My 9.5ft G. Loomis Bronzeback was rigged all day with various jigs.  I will always fish the lightest jig I can get away with, and on Saturday this was no less than an 1/8th ounce.  My 6.5ft Crossfire was rigged with various plugs and crankbaits, although I did take a few fish on Zig Jigs with it as well.  I switched between rods as the water dictated.  Big sweeping holes and runs found a #7 or #9 Rapala Countdown swinging through them.  Boulder pockets and distinct seams found jigs bouncing their way along their boundaries.  For the first half of the day I caught only rainbows.  The very first fish turned out to the biggest - a beautiful rainbow exceeding 26 inches that was around 8 pounds, although I'll admit I forgot to weigh it.  I

caught several other solid rainbows throughout the morning and into the afternoon.  Many on plugs, but most on jigs.

By about 2 o'clock I came to a particularly rocky shoreline framed by high bluffs.  Anyone who knows browns knows that they are likely to be caught anywhere, but they also know that quite often browns orient off a particular structure or stretch of water.  Especially if their population isn't the dominant fish in the stream - then they really tend to just occupy whatever their favorite parts of water are, much like a bass.  When you find these spots, you can often return to them time and again and expect the same results.  The same is true of smallmouth bass in rivers -once you've identified a piece of water that holds them, you can almost always find them there.

This rocky stretch was on the outside of a bend, and the swollen river was slamming into this bank.  An astute observer of my photos once pointed out to me that I often fish steep rocky edges.  It's true, even in smaller streams.  Often at the point where a fisherman typically crosses over to fish from the inside of the bend, I stay on the outside, and precariously pick my way along the edges, thoroughly working the deep pockets that are nearly impossible to keep a lure or fly in from the other side.  I do the same thing when steelhead fishing.  Poise yourself over the water in the best way possible for keeping your lure or bait in place the longest.  Casting over the current from the "convenient" side often means that your presentation will fall out of the productive holding water sooner than it should have.  Once you've hooked up, finding a place to land your catch can be the real adventure - but at least you hooked up!  My big rainbow to start the day was in just such a spot.  I descended steep rocks just to reach one eddy.  The result was a photo op that looked more like I was posing with a Coho salmon than a Montana rainbow.

My first brown was laughable.  I was tending to a nest in my reel (something not all that unusual when winding on near-tensionless jig retrieves cast after cast). My jig dangled on a rod's length of line in a few feet of water, just off the bank.  The nest of line was pulled from my fingers and up to the first eyelet as a nice little brown grabbed the jig that I must have been dangling on his nose.  I stripped it back in like a fly line and fought the fish for only a few seconds before it flopped off.  Funny, but it got me thinking as I entered that stretch of rocky bank. Turns out the browns were all holding tight to the bank on the outside of this bend.  Some were sitting on what would normally be dry ground, others were deep against the sides of vertical rock faces, but each one was an arm's length off the bank.  The second was a small one.  The third was a savage individual that slashed my jig as I raised it from the water, like a largemouth inhaling a Zara Spook.  He was a girthy fish with a lot of length, and was sitting in very shallow water over rocks that would normally be a part of the trail.  I could see the crooked lower jaw clearly on each of the next two attempts to take a bait.  I

switched lures between each cast, always giving him something different to look at.  I don't know why I was unable to connect with such an aggressive fish, but it wasn't to be, and I moved on.  I had a few chasers and a few followers, each one a brown.  By the end of the rocky stretch I'd landed only half a dozen, but two were fish exceeding 20 inches.  Both nailed a Zoom Tiny Fluke in Arkansas Shiner fished on an 1/8th ounce jig head.  A couple other smaller ones came on 1/8th ounce Glass Minnows from Kit's Tackle, also sporting a Tiny Fluke on the shank.  Unfortunately my camera batteries, including my spares, died.  I guess they'd been through too many freezings and thawings on my recent trips to the river.  I took a couple mediocre cell phone shots on an outstretched arm and one segment of video.  Normally I reach back behind me and set up a camera attached to a small tripod to capture a self portrait as I raise the fish out of the water for a pic.  It still pains me to think of the fish I released that afternoon without a decent picture.  By the time I reached the end of the rocky stretch and the river was straightening out again, I knew I was nearing the time to hike out.  But, still casting the Tiny Fluke up against the bank on a straight downstream presentation, the river had one more pig to part with before I left.  My last fish of the day was a beast of a rainbow that went 6.5 pounds on my pocket scale.  Both my first and last fish of the day were trophy rainbows.  I'll take that.  And I was more than happy to start walking the distance back to where I'd parked to try and get my body temperature back up to human levels.  My wife and I went to dinner with some friends that evening.  After hearing a few details of my long cold day in the pursuit of fish, the lady of the couple across the table quite witfully said, "This isn't the dinner date you think it its, this is an intervention."

Before work

I'm a big proponent of doing whatever your passion is during whatever moments you can squeeze it into your day.  Its what makes you you.  Fishing is no different for me.  Some of my best fish have come on those summer mornings when its light enough to see by 4:30 and 4am finds me slipping through the brush streamside.  There's enough time, and its prime time, to work some water before you head off to work.  This past week produced such an opportunity, despite the fact that early summer light is not here yet, and I grabbed it.

During the years I lived in Washington, I caught several steelhead before work.  There might be time to fish only a hole or two, but you could choose the cream of the stream and make casts to fish that had been unmolested all night before the day began with whatever it would bring.  What better way to start the day.  I'd snicker as I thought of folks busting a gut in a gym while I was peering through morning mist after breaking a sweat to get to the place of my choice.  And then, if it was a lucky day, oh the battle that would ensue.

I did the same thing while I lived in Texas and would be conducting my research work on the coastal marshes.  Before the work day began, I'd slip out knee-deep on a salt flat, shuffle for stingrays and watch for gators, and do battle with steelhead-sized redfish on topwater baits.

Before that I did the same thing on the Tuckaseegee River before class at Western Carolina University.  Where there's a will there's a way.  I'd dress for school, put the waders on over top, and time my extraction from the water so that I could peel the waders, fire up the truck, and make it to my desk - just in time.  Best way I could possibly prepare for an exam....

This particular morning found me slipping down below one of the handful of dams on the Missouri that is more or less on my way to town.  I didn't have much time, so I wouldn't be traveling any amount of river, just focusing on the plunge pool under the dam.  The water was high from recent snow melt.  The entire pool was an explosion of current and not its usual swirling 3-acre eddy.  I casted jigs to foam lines and behind current breaks, looking for fish to be holding up.  Early on I connected with one that took me for a short run and popped off.  Later I hooked a real drag-screamer that wound up sawing me off on some metal debris below the dam before I ever saw what it was.

I found one area that was fairly dead, basically the eye of the storm.  I thought forage of all sorts must be piling up in there and started flipping plastic jigs in hopes of maybe tagging an early morning walleye.  I started catching small trout. Several 8 to 10 inch fish.  Action, but not what I'd hoped.  Maybe I was catching the "forage."  Time was just about up now and I was trying to talk myself into leaving. There was a slab of ice that was creeping down the dam and growing out over the water in a slight overhang.  Water from above was running over it and dropping into the foam underneath.  The "eye of the storm" I'd been casting to had migrated toward this spot, as a swirling plunge pool will do, and I started launching jigs into a nice seam and foam line that had started to form between the two.  A cast or two in a nice solid fish slammed the jig on the first rip I'd given it as it started to sink, and off we went.  A little while later I brought it to the bank, raised it to my camera I'd set up behind me during the fight, and then slipped it back into the roaring river.  Time to go work, and the day was already an accomplishment.

Crossfire Rods and Zig Jigs

Montana had a record-breaking February in many areas - lots of snow, plenty of cold.  In my spring fever, as I shoveled drifts off my driveway more often than not and used four-wheel drive most days, I perused some jig fishing websites. There are very few articles and dedicated sites out there when it comes to jig fishing for trout, particularly in moving water.  There are a few.  Helena is fortunate enough to have Kit's Tackle in town, and they've been hard at it in my area much longer than I have.  Two generations of jiggers. I'm looking forward to making their acquaintance sometime, and test driving some of their creations.  I found an article by a man named Cal Kellogg who focuses his jigging efforts on tube jigs, a tactic I also recommend and found myself pioneering on larger trout streams in the late 1990s after taking incidental trout on Appalachian smallmouth water with tubes.  That's the thing about jigs - soft plastics, tubes, bucktails, silicone, maribou - they are versatile, and often applicable to situations far beyond the maker's initial intent.

One evening I came across a website of a guy in Arkansas on the White River. A place that lives in trout legend. I've known about it since I was a kid reading fishing magazines while waiting my turn in a Canton, North Carolina barber shop. One day I will fish it. I found the website because the guy produces jigs specifically for trout fishing. Not many people do. I'm talking about Richard Cross and his Zig Jigs.  After stumbling into his website and checking things out, I shot Mr. Cross an email. I could tell from his website that we spoke the same language. We corresponded via email for a few days discussing things.  In his jig fishing quest, he could never find that "perfect" rod to suit the style of fishing. So he designed one. He has a line of rods called Crossfire rods. The "line" consists of two models - a two piece and a one piece. Talk about a niche. He said he doesn't personally prefer the two piece, but there were enough traveling clients asking for one that he added it to the line up (I may become one of them).  So its really a rod company that (presently) produces only one specialized rod for exactly what I've been honing in my own fishing pursuits lately. I've been on a rod quest myself as I develop my own jig fishing niche, so I was pretty excited to find his. I ordered one, and several jigs to go with it. He emailed me later and said he'd stuffed a few more jigs in the box too for me to try out. He'd fished my stretch of the Missouri River for a few days a couple years earlier and was familiar with where they were headed.

Some snowy afternoon it made it to my doorstep as FedEx busted a drift and spun to stop in the driveway.  I happened to be home and popped the tube open right away.  Six and a half feet of ultra light American-made goodness slid out. Its kind of pretty - deep burgundy color with nice cork grips and quality hardware. Its a foot and half longer than nearly any ultralight rod you'll find in a store and with a lot more backbone.  The handle is also shorter than a lot of my other rods, so there's that much more blank length inherent above the reel seat. It is meant for casting lures as small as 1/32nd of an ounce on up to 5/16ths on 1 to 6lb line.  Perfect.  It has a very fast action - with the majority of the bend in the tip - plenty of flex for absorbing the shock of a sudden run but with all the backbone needed to stay in control.  And just as importantly, that fast tip loads quick in a cast for a zippy toss and brings a jig to life on the retrieve.

I had to wait an extra weekend to get to introduce it to some water as a weather system blew through.  Finally on the water, I quickly learned that it fires and works a jig quite well, maintaining the constant contact that is so necessary to ticking bottom and pinging sonar back to your fingers as you map the water in front of you.  I've never shaken a rod off a rack in a retail store quite like it. In some ways it seems too stiff.  In others it seems too light.  But in all ways just right for some of my favorite approaches to fishing a river.

The jigs are also nicely built and available in a wide array of colors and sizes.  Mostly they are a basic maribou jig, but the head is almost pill-shaped, tapered to the edges, and slightly offset.  It swims well, slicing current rather than plowing it, and flutters on the fall. Its design makes it ideal for a cross-current cast and a downstream swing, working the lure back against the current.  This is a retrieve I prefer when casting minnow imitating baits on large water, and the head is a similar design to those I choose to use in soft plastics.

Its not as inclined to rise toward the surface as quickly at the tail of the drift as a standard jig is. Maintaining depth for those final seconds of swinging a jig through a nice run can be crucial.  I ordered "safe" colors - sticking with dark greens, browns, blacks - things I knew would work for an initial test drive.  I caught fish on each jig I tried while also mixing in some time with other favorite jigs and plugs.  I should mention that the rod rockets a Rapala Countdown quite nicely, and the fast tip snaps the retrieve to life.

I was wade-fishing on the Missouri, and spent about seven hours working along two and half miles of bank, giving the rod a solid run. Trying to get decent photos of myself featuring the rod and jigs in action was the hardest part. I very typically fish a 1/16th-ounce jig, but I found myself tending more towards the 1/8th, and probably even more toward the 3/16ths in the Zig Jig.  The heavier jigs were better suited to being fished from the bank than the lighter ones,mostly in their ability to reach holding water further from the bank and drop into the strike zone quicker.  It had been a while since I last fished a maribou jig, and I had forgotten that they cast a lot like a badminton shuttlecock, compared with denser material, even when wet.  I think I would likely have spent more time fishing a 1/16th-ounce Zig Jig had I been floating instead of stationary, and the effect of the moving water reduced accordingly.

I definitely appreciate the zippy fast action of the rod while it maintains backbone all the way down.  I hit 20 inches enough times on its first day out to give it a pretty good run and plenty of drag peeling.  I do like the jigs, particularly the head shape.  They cut through the current nicely and flutter well.  I'm glad Mr. Cross stuffed in those extra jigs, because among them were the heavierjigs I find myself preferring. When I alternated to some of my regular baits, I still stayed lighter with them - so it was the Zig Jig itself - its castability and behavior in the water - that made me prefer the weight.  I liked it because it added a whole new weapon to the line up when it comes to getting deep fast in places most people won't cast to from shore.