I have stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon while drifting the pink worm in clear water during the last couple of weeks. I had not been getting bit at all with anything during "the swing" while drift fishing this year; only at the top or mid drift. Three times recently I have used a slight 6" to 12" jigging motion during the end of the swing before reeling up, and have had the worm gobbled up. This morning I worked a fairly decent sized drift over for 30 minutes. Then I tried jigging once, and sure enough I caught a nice one.

Has anyone else had any luck trying this with the pink worm or any other drift gear?

Also, I have only caught bucks on the pink worm. Has anyone else seen this tendency, or is it just a coincidence?

Tight lines, and throw 'em back!

Always, always, always ... twitch your offering at the end of a swing. Fly, bait, worm, doesn't matter!

This is especially true when swinging into dead water seams.

You'll catch more fisheys!

Must just be coincence with the bucks. I've been leaning slightly toward the hen side with about a 70/30 split (percent not #'s taken). Would the twitching thing help much during the drift or would that seem a little unnatural and scare the fish?

Bob,

It's interesting that you mention the "dead water seam". The one I "jigged" this morning was sitting just on the dead side of the seam.

I must be holding my mouth wrong. I've done all these things and have yet to get any kind of a hit.I made up some jigs with Purple and pink Marabou And the pink is about as long as a 2" worm. Still no luck. I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time. Not the wrong place at the wrong time. Jim S.

Maybe I actually do know a thing or do ... J/K

Hey Jim-
Dont screw with fishing the worms on a jighead under a float...if you want to fish the worm under a float just thread it onto a single hook and fish it like you would bait under a float. Trust me...it works. Another thing I sometimes do, is run one of those bass/coneshaped lead sinkers on top of my worm when I am fishing them under a float.

It sinks the worm in faster water yet it still dances around to entice the fishies.

[ 01-15-2002: Message edited by: RPetzold ]

Hey, another analogy for masturbation, fishing style!

Jigging the Pink Worm

I have found over the last 2 seasons that working the pink worm with all kinds of presentation can bring on bites that seemingly nothing else will - mostly for summer/winter steelhead, but also silvers and ocassionally 'nooks. I have enticed srikes during every part of the drift by medium cadence small twitches under a float on a jighead, or drift fished with leader and lead. this right by your waded postion or driftboat and you will learn to get a good jiggin action. One significant advantage of fishing with the jighead is it removes all the slack between the worm/bait/feathered-jig and the float, or between it and your rodtip without using a float where appropriate, and that translates bites instantly.

A great presentation that I have come up with, that often works better than working it as described above, is to put a slight curve in the worm (lots of ways to do this, including on a jighead) so that during a slow to moderate retreive speed it spins/wiggles along, and you can add some twitching to that too. This is the method that has gotten me steelhead and coho in clear water when nobody else could get them to bite on eggs, shrimp tails, hardware, etc. There are all sorts of little intricacies you can learn for adding to worm presentations, that go beyond what you can do with feathered jigs - so much so that I have taken to using them twice as often as feathered jigs now. Also experiment with different colors!

RT,

Trying the curved worm has been something that I have tried to avoid. I was not sure that it would look natural enough, and I was afraid that the spinning might cause some line twist (even with a barrel swivel). I will give it a try anyway. Is the quickest way to make the "curve" to thread the worm so that the CURVE of the hook is what exits the worm versus the end of the SHANK of the hook exiting the worm?

As far as colors go, I have only tried pink so far. I just bought some natural, light brown worms today. Any other favorites for you? I read that others like Merthiolate.

I like the metholate (sp) ones quite a bit and since not to many people are throwing them they are a nice addition. I've used them in both clear and stained water with success but they perform best in the darker water. In real clear water I've used purple ones with a light pink edging on the tail and that has also worked. So far nothing will eat my green ones or white and red but I'm convinced something eventually will. My next plan is to take a 2 or 3 inch white one and place it on a hook below a single pink plastic egg (kinda like an egg-sucking leach). Hopefully this 3 day weekend will give me plenty of time to try all of them.

Good ideas rc'. Lots to experiment with on colors and action presentations. Of course for consistency the pink has been best. But I like the methiolate, purple, and black with chatreuse tail also. the best methiolate I've found is Zoom worms. They are just a great color for medium to off color water applications.

Steel', I like to exit the hook about and 1" to 1 1/2" from the tail of the worm with the mid-bend in the hook exiting the hole. This gives it the curve and wiggle spin. The amount of curve depends on the speed of the currents. You don';t want too fast of a spin - just a nice twirling action, along with intermittent twitches.

RT

RT,

Thanks for the curve tips. I will be twitchin'and spinnin' the worm in the current tomorrow AM ......

No one mentioned whether they had tried the worm in the natural light brown color. Anyone? Anyone?

Steel', since real nightcrawler worms work very well for summer steelhead and OK for winter steelhead, I would think the natural colored rubber worms would work in clearish water conditions. You could try Mike's brand Worm Oil on it and almost have the real thing. As many colors as I've tried I haven't tried the natural one yet on winters - and should. Let us kow how you do with it. Thanks

RT