Fishing the Wilson

[RW]

Heading out in the morning, wondering if anyone has had a sucess story they would like to share. Come on RT, where is your secret hole you got a ***** pot of fish out of????? Where are they, how do I get them and so forth. Fishing from Mills to Sollie. I plan on plugging and drift fishing, have you had sucess on a certain plug or bait??

Tight lines, RW

[Jennie@ifish]

Hi RW,
We fished from Donaldsons down and did pretty well, although I think we were just lucky.
People are stacked up at Donaldsons, and that kind of fishing is not any fun, I don't think.
The river was fairly full of leaves the day we fished, but may be cleared out by now? Anyone fish it today?
I'd just plug, plug, plug!
Oh! And drift drift drift too!
RT can help you better than this though.
RT?
Jen

Hi RW. The holes that Mark and I fished with success a couple weeks back aren't fishing as well now. There are a good numbers of fish in the upper Wilson, but it's a bank fishing situation except for a few stretches good for the cataraft. ... As for the lower end drifboating runs on the Wilson I am at a loss to explain why it was so lacking in fresh winter steelhead! The water was in excellant shape, other than for a few leaves the winds had blown in. Jen got a nice fresh winter fish and Bill got a very pretty late arriving summer steelhead (much nicer than it looked like in that picture). We only saw or heard about a trickle of other fish caught. Hopefully there is a new push in by tomorrow, because this is the time the first strong pushes of hatchery steelhead are due there and most rivers; and bio predictions are for good region wide runs. I suggest doing the Donaldson's drift down looking for new fish coming in; the leaves should have settled and with clearer water the metalic plugs such as green pirate 30 Hot Shots or Warts whould be a good bet. Try backtrolling Hot N Tot with 50" leader and sandshrimp, as well as floatfishing some jigs too. Of course you know all that. And if there aren't new fish then that stretch is short enough you can take out in time to do a run on the lower Trask or Nestucca rivers. I haven't heard about them today. I just got on here after getting home from the Duke vs UP B-ball game at the Rose Garden. Good luck on finding some fresh ones and let us know how things go. - Steve