Here is what I do for steelheading off the beach. This is not the only set up to do, but it seems to be a very successfull way to set up for catching those steelhead. There must be quite a few beaches untapped for getting steelhead, and probably a few more ways to do it. The biggest thing that people do wrong is use tooooo long a leader or reel tooooo fast.

2/0 hooks with beads in - between, helps keep the hooks straight during the cast to prevent tangles, especially in windy days. This is a long set up so your hooks often tangle up on the spin-glo or line during the cast, but set up this way it hardly ever happens. I used to use 1/0, but you hardly ever lose a fish that hits it with bigger hooks, so why go smaller, as the fish don't nibble it, they grab, hold on, then turn all in one smooth motion.



The skirt



I put a decent sized bead, then corky, cheater, or whatever you have above the hooks and into the skirt, keeps the skirt from being pulled to low over the hooks, where the hooks are in this set up counts a lot.



Then two beads, first you have to look at the size of the hole on the skirt as this varies sometimes, use a bead just big enought to not slide through to top of the skirt, then a second bead, make sure it is smooth so the spin - n - glo will actually spin smoothly. Then on top of the spin n glo, another bead or small corkie. The bead or small corky on top is to keep seawead and sand from getting into the spin n glo and prevent it from spinning. Make sure to check for seaweed every cast because even the small stuff gets wedged down through the top corky or bead, then into the spin n glo and will keep it from spinning, and sometimes you don't notice it's on your line unless you look fairly closely.

This is what it looks like complete, notice the hooks do not go below the skirt, this again is to prevent them from tangling up during the cast, less tangles, more true fishing time.





The whole thing seperated so you can see it.



The weight set up, this is the least important, but too long of a slinky or lead again tangles up, catches more seaweed, and is a pain to cast, especially in a breeze. I started using these weight from 3/8 to 3/4 oz and have had more success, why, not totally sure, but it coincidence or not, I'm sticking with this weight set up. Then a 3 to 3.5 foot leader and your good, I use 20 pound or 15 pound as the fish are not leader shy and the heavier stuff leads to less line twists and tangles....see a theme here?



Then clip the barbs and off to the beach.

The only thing ya gotta remember is to check your hooks for sharpness and you knots at the swivel for wear as the sand and gravel erode it down, but if you are not draging it through the bottom, you are not fishing properly.


When I set my rod against the car and put my coat on, just looking at this set up gets me excited and warm all over. Kinda true actually.



By the way, didn't catch any today, oh well.

Nice post Addicted.
Let me know when it gets good up there and I'll make a run up....

nice set up.

has anyone tried tossing spoons off the beach? or running real squid under a mondo bobber out there?

Are those the go to colors Richard? or does it pay to experiment? What about pinks or blues?-TBJ

Very cool, I've always wanted to try it but didn't know where or when to do it.

Thanks Richard, it seems that most of us would like to do this sometime in the future. This gives us a good heads up from someone thats had success!

Steve

What kind of retrieve do you use with this setup?

I like the colors on that Hootch, reminds me of a sunrise.

I LIKE that rig. Much sexier than the generic orange spin-n-glo and pink hoochie setup considered the default Beach Steelheading rig. Yours screams ~Squid~.

As noted, the rule is the same as in rivers - Low and Slow. The times I've tried it, i've usually found I subconsciously fall into the "reeling too fast" mode because there's nothing distinctive (like fishing structure in rivers) to hold my attention.

I watched a couple taken, so I know this type of rig works. The only one I hooked (and it was a couple Novembers ago and could have been a late Silver) was right near the beach and I cracker'd it off with a Zen Hookset .

Brian

thanks much for the tutorial, I've never fished off the beach before and totally clueless as to bait/lures.. Now I'm one step closer to my first beach fish

Also do you use this same setup in the summer as well?

OP: Nobody really fishes for steelhead with spoons here on the beach, but a few are caught every year by accident late in the season for silvers, like late Oct. through November. This year two that I heard of were caught on buzz bombs and one on the Phish lure, which I have accidently caught them on in the past too. Now a squid under a float, never heard of that, seen that, or thought of that, but you just may be on to something, I can see myself trying that sometime in the future, but not until I get a few more this year before I try experimenting more. I always experiment more after I've gotten my satisfied fill of them.

TBJ: My opinion, which of course is exactly that, just mine, is those are the go to colors as far as skirt goes, the other spin n glo I use a lot is the sparkley chartruse with pink on it too, but that and plain orange are the best skirts. I see people use the pink ones, I have too, and small skirts too and of course other colors, but this set up has really worked well the last 3 years and the last two I've been using that weight set up and my catch rate has gone way up. There are guys there that fish it every day for hours and use pink skirts, long leaders and such, but I have less hours to fish it than they and I personally believe that it has narrowed down the hours put in compared to fish caught. I have a friend who comes out every winter from Maryland, he uses this set up and always catches a fish or two in his 3 to 5 days of fishing the beach, which is pretty good actually, the catching is not as great as the pinks and silvers as I'm sure you can imagine. Ya gotta put your time in, this gives you as good of a shot as anything to get a fish or two.

Outdoor Hoosier: The retrieve is as absolutely slow as you can go and still have your spin n glo spinning with the leader from the swivel/weight fairly straight. This is one of the big advantages of the shorter, heavier leader, it allows for a slower retrieve without the set up floating up too far.

The same set up is used any time of the year. The set up seems really big when you first look at it, way bigger than anything you're using in the river, but it works. As far as hook sets go, that's another difference. When the fish hits it's like it feels like your rig just has a sturdy stop, almost like when you put the brakes on hard in your car, just hard enough that you don't skid, then the fish turns directly out usually. Just wait half a second or so then set it, and set it by pulling your rod sideways and slightly upwards, if you pull straight up you'll miss a few, even when hooked with the sideways motion, most the time the hook or hooks are buried in the front of the mouth.

This is not usually a fast and furious fishery. But it sure is awesome when you get them. I have caught two in two casts, for two days in a row, then not another fish for the next 7 tries. So patience is needed but there is something just totally cool about getting a steelhead, even if it's a 4 pounder in the salt. And there are many more places here on the island that we/you can get them that are not the two "famous" beaches you hear about. That's why I gotta believe there are some more beaches out there in the Puget Sound land the have the possibility of producing some fish.

Sweet, was just about to post a new thread asking about the basics of saltwater steelhead fishing..

Do you fish the incoming or outgoing tide???

Well Fish Hunter, the last time I provide the "timing" of fishing it on here, I got blasted for it by a couple people on the beach, even though it added absolutely no extra pressure on the beach. Actually two posts I've made about the beach fishing the last couple years pissed a couple people off. Even though there are less people fishing it now than when I moved here in the 80's. So I will say this, look up the previous posts, I think you can do that on here, or maybe they are too old. Pretty much the same tides work for steelhead as silvers, but for steelhead if you compared the amount of fish caught at the "premium time of the tides" to the fish caught randomly througout the day, that percentage of fish caught randomly at less than ideal tidal timing would be a lot higher than that of silvers or even humpys. Like if there are 5 silvers caught for 6 hours either side of the good tide at the beach, then 30 caught in one hour of the prime tide timing, a similar comparison to steelhead would be like 2 fish caught for 6 hours either side of the good tide timing, and 4 caught during the prime tide. Which would be a very good day by the way. So if you know or can figure out what the good tides were for silvers and humpys then you can figure out the steelhead easily.

I got that on lock. I spend a lot of time up on the island during summers and fall to fish for salmon and I do spend a bit of time fishing off of that certain beach (most people know it but I'm not going to name it) when I feel like just throwing buzz bombs from shore for silvers or humpies...

I'm in the process of stringing up some rigs right now that I bought all the components for this morning...

Thanks Addicted...

WOW! I just re-read my original post on this thread. Sorry about the spelling, pretty friggin' bad. I was in a hurry, I should have proof read it. Hope you can see through the crappy spelling errors. So many I don't even feel like going back and editing out the errors.

A great post as always Richard, Interesting how a steely will take the hootchie like that in the salt. I have wondered about sand shrimp under a float, similar to a herring float rig.

Sweet tutorial Addicted. I like the colors and the weight set up.

I do rig mine a bit different though.........

I use a single siwash attached to a #7 barrel swivel. Then a bead. Then a twinkle skirt (in place of the winner in your set up). The rest is pretty much the same. For some reason I just like the way a siwash dances inside the tenticles when attached to a barrel swivel. Although my hook up per day ration aint great my hook up to land ratio over the years has been pretty good. Probably get better now that I've procurred a handful of Sickle Siwash's.

There is just something about fishing off the beach. I can get bored pretty easy on a river (especially this time of year with no Nates around) but can cast all day at the beach. And the beach crowd is pretty much a jerk free zone unlike many other area's around here.

If you posted on Gamefishin where spelling errors are the norm, the spelling errors would have fit right in

Great post.

I have not caught a steelhead off the beach in about 5 years. With this weeks weather I may have to get my gear together and hit it for some x-mas chrome.