I've been out of town for over a week and may have missed this type of discussion? But I'd like to have a topic with suggestions for getting fish to bite during gin clear low water that is part of this fall drought. If we come up with ideas together maybe we can catch some fish in rivers other than very big ones like the Cowlitz?

I've commonly found that when kegged up tidewater fish or ones in deep holes just above there will sometimes hit smaller lures when bait isn't working. I'm talking about spinners as small as size 3's and plugs as small as #30 Hot Shots. If you can find a good salmon hole to yourself (good luck), you can usually find enough room in bigger holes that have others fishing it too, and casting and slow retrieving size 3 Vibraxes several times can sometimes aggrivate the fish into striking it. And it's small enough not to spook them. If that doesn't work I next try rigging a small plug on a long leader with some weight at the end of the mainline, and cast and deep retrieve that thru schools of fish. To reduce snagging of fish I remove trebles on both the spinners and plugs and replace them with strong debarbed siwash hooks. I try different scents on them than the popular ones so the fish are smelling something different for a change.

Has anyone done much good in tidewater for salmon with steelhead jigs? There won't be as much action on them in that slow water but you can add some twitching, even under a float by slowly twitch retrieving the float. I sometimes cut most of the feathers off a steelhead jig and put a whole sandshrimp threaded onto the hook and float fish that thru schools of kegged up fish, and sometimes that will get you a bite in these tough conditions. Still a tough go though.

What other things are working out there? If we catch more fish legally than the snaggers maybe that will reduce the chances of WDFW closing rivers?