Salmon River Springers...
Skill, Technique & Luck

By: Richard Alves
July 19, 2004

Pautzke Bait Co., renowned for their jarred salmon eggs, has just introduced a liquid and gel krill bait. Casey Kelly, Pautzke's President, told me, "If I can get you up here for a couple days of salmon fishing, I'm sure you'll see the difference krill makes." Such a claim, along with the prospect of some great fishing, was enough to entice me into driving for nine hours to Riggins, Idaho.

At Riggins, the Salmon River cuts through steep arid mountains. The town is built on a wide spot, two city blocks, in the canyon. The mornings were cool enough to require wearing fleece but afternoon temperatures shot up to the nineties.

From the balcony of my motel room, overlooking the confluence of the Salmon and Little Salmon Rivers, I could see numerous flashlights slowly making their way across the old abandoned sawmill toward the water. The bank anglers were arriving early, an hour before dawn, to secure the best possible fishing locations.

Light was barely visible on the eastern horizon as the Pautzke "Balls O' Fire" special slid off the trailer into the River, the 8.1 liter V8 running at 2500 RPM just to hold position in the current. Being the first boat in the water allowed us to choose the hole we wanted to fish.

The river is big, the current fast and the holes deep. The speed difference between the fast channels and the slower moving water combined with numerous boulders create a boiling cauldron rendering standard river fishing techniques, such as side drifting and back-bouncing, useless. You just can't keep the boat steady enough long enough to make an effective presentation!

Larry Lathen, a Pautzke pro-staffer, carefully positioned the boat about 15 feet from the seam where the fast and slower currents meet. Casey dropped anchor. The current was swift enough, even in the slow water, to require two anchors to hold the boat in place!

We rigged our lines with a triple swivel, a 30" dropper for the sinker, and an 18" leader with a "rag" in front of the hook tied with an egg loop. The rag consists of a piece of foam with a couple of pieces of yarn threaded through. It is attached to the leader by using a darning needle to thread the line through the foam. In addition to being an attractor, the rag does a great job of holding krill paste.

By casting upstream, the 3-ounce sinkers would get the rig to the bottom as the current brought it even with the boat. We could bounce them along the bottom for about fifty yards before the rig would lift to the surface.

Larry had the hot hand early, boating a hatchery and a wild chinook the first hour. A short time later, Casey's rod doubled over as the salmon he hooked got into the fast water and took off downstream. Eventually he prevailed and the hatchery hen ended up in the cooler. Larry boated another, and I finally hooked one at 10 AM. At that point the bite shut down completely. The first hole produced five fish and we had a couple break us off. Not a bad start!

We had been eyeing a stretch of water where the river made a sharp turn and the fast water was within fifty feet of shore, a combination of cliffs and extremely steep hillsides. There was no way to safely tie off or anchor a boat. By mid-afternoon, without us hooking another fish, Larry decided to see if he could find a way to get to the spot. A short time later he was back with his third fish, limiting out.

The three of us made the trek around the cliff, dodging cactus on a deer trail, and down a rockpile to the water. We were rewarded with a salmon each and we lost three. We called it a day at 7 PM when Casey caught his third fish. Over 14 hours on the water! The day's total was 8 hatchery fish kept, 4 wild salmon released, 7 fish lost.

We were the only boat with a limit caught, and the approximately 50 bank anglers ended up with 30 fish. Was krill a factor in our success? I was certainly thinking it could be.

At first light we were back on the water making our way to the cliffs. It turned into a bizarre day on the river. Larry had nine fish break him off getting his limit! He had two caught and three lost before I even had a bite. Then lady luck smiled on me. Three consecutive casts, three fish caught! I had my limit in 45 minutes, done for the day before 11AM. Casey calmly went about getting his limit and we were off the water by 3PM.

The three hatchery Chinook I caught all took the bait deep, as if they were attempting to eat it. This is highly unusual due to the fact they can't eat once hitting fresh water because their esophagus closes. All the wild fish we caught were hooked in the jaw.

On day three it was just Casey and myself fishing. We both had to leave early afternoon. A howling wind made for tough boating and casting conditions. The wind disturbed the water surface changing the current in most of the holes. We found it took more weight to get the bait down!

It was my day to lose fish! I landed the first fish I hooked but the second wrapped the line around a rock...se la vie. I cast to the seam at the edge of the main channel and a huge back-eddy, a hole about thirty feet deep. The rig stopped moving meaning it was either a salmon or a snag. I set the hook; it was another spring king! The fish broke the surface and headed toward the fast water where the additional force of the current helped the fish make an impressive run. A small tree limb came floating downriver and lodged on the line. There was a cliff between Casey and myself. I was on my own fighting the river, a fish, and a tree! Eventually I managed to get the tree up to the rod tip. At the river's edge, I set to work untangling the line. Suddenly, there was no tension; the fish was gone.

Meanwhile Casey managed to limit out before noon, in addition to having an encounter with a rattlesnake.

Two and a half days, three anglers, twenty hatchery fish landed, six wild fish landed, eighteen fish lost. Impressive numbers for any river! I'm convinced Pautzke's Krill Paste played a significant role in our success. Then again it could have been our angler skill, fishing technique, and luck.

Krill is a food source for nearly all fresh and saltwater game fish. Pautzke's Krill Liquid and Krill Gel are natural products made without synthetic oil or chemicals. In addition to being a fish attractant, they also mask human scent and other fish deterrent odors and chemicals.

You can purchase Pautzke's Krill Liquid and Krill Gel on their website, www.Pautzke.com, or through Cabela's. It is slowly making its way onto tackle shop shelves.

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