I caught my very first steelhead on an orange Okie drifter with a piece of yarn and a cluster of boraxed eggs. In those neophyte years I thought steelhead were particular about what they would bite. They aren't, but that took a little while to learn.
Collectors want Okie drifters in their collections, not because they are better steelhead lures than others, but because of their place in the evolution of lures used for steelheading. I think Okie drifters were second after the original red Cherry Bobber that was developed specifically for steelhead fishing.
)
In the earlier days in steelhead camp up on one of the skeena rivers, Willy korf had a cabin next to our camp. Willie was the original Cherry bobber inventor which of course evolved into everything else we see today in the Bobber or corkie world. He used to have a ton of stories that would be great to listen to & when everybody else was using flies and spoons and eggs he just kept using the old Cherry bobber. The pictures of fish he caught were out of this world. He actually was from Southwest Washington I think he said but ended up moving up to the skeena region. He loved it up there so much he gave his wife an ultimatum that she could move up there with him or leave him. She left him and he grew old and that old cabin. I don't think he had fished for 20 years when we last spoke. He lived on one of the best rivers in the world to boot.
Previous Topic
Index
