im in Puyallup, CT, ill probably just end up buying it if i can find it somewhere... thank you very much tho,very generous offer considering the circumstances...

It's the thump.
Maintain thump and keep it in his face. (don't cracker and let it turn over)

Pretty much it.

Edit:
When you learn how to milk the thump, then you're in.
If I tell any more I will be scalped and then staked to an ant hill.

Turn your rod 180* so the spinning reel is on the bottom... That way you can turn the handle foreward. If you have a baitcaster on those high frame guides, your doing it all wrong. You need to find faster and deeper water & wade up to your armpits.

i think its my rods DD, my spinning rod for right now is a 10-20, my Lamis are all 8-12s with the excteption of the RR86 MT 12-25... i cant feel the thump, but i get what your saying... i cant feel anything, except when it smacks the bottom on the swing... which in my mind tells me 2 things... the water isnt deep enough, and im using too big of a spoon... but without it smacking bottom, i will have no idea if im deep enough, untill i hook a fish... my first time really trying sppons was last year, and i was using a 1/3 ounce Little Cleo in gold...i covered about a 3-400 yard section of river, making a few casts, letting it swing, and sit there a second and retrieve, take 6 steps down and repeat... and, when i got to the end down in a tail out, sure as sh!t, i hooked a fish, after about 30 seconds, i lost it (barbless)... so i figured, i had it figured out, but yeah boy was i wrong lol....

my only 2 options as of now, is buy a lighter rod, or use my Lami S Glass as its Fiberglass and can feel everything, and you can see the action of the lure in the tip, i cant see that in my other rods, which is messing with me...

with that said, i dont see the point of bitching about using bait where there are potential ESA listed smolts that you could possibly kill, and then using a 4-8 pound rod with 6 pound test line, fighting the fish for 45 minutes just to find out its a native that will likely die....

ive never fought a fish for that long in any river, but ive heard the stories... dont know if its BS or not, but 45 minutes is a long time, especially bankin it on a river... i would much rather accidentally kill a smolt using eggs, that may never even leave, or make it back, then kill a 1 salt Native that is going to do its thing... i dont know if thats rational thinking or not, but its what i think now... i honestly would rather not kill anything that im not going to keep, which is why im trying other methods now....

the rod pictured is a G1306 T Lami Baitcaster rod... my spinning rods i use for bait, and my BC rods i use to chuck gear, when i try to cast bait on my BC rods, i end up getting the weight and the bait pulling on each other during the cast and it over spools my reel and i dont get the casts i want with it... spinning rod i can flip eggs right where i want them, and spoons, Okies, spinners or whatnot i could hit you in the eyeball with my BC rod...

im not one of those idots using an upside down spinning reel lol

matter of fact, now that you mention that, the fish i hooked last year, was on the spinning rod, now i remember what it felt like, thanks....

i need to get the one rod i have fixed, and buy a couple more spinning rods so i dont have to change gear constantly on just 1 spinning rod... i usually bring 1 or 2 BC rods and my spinning rod, but it should probably be the other way around...

Buy herzog's book. I read it and immediately started having success with spoons. also fish with someone in the know whenever you can. Summer runs are super aggressive. If you get a spoon near them they will destroy it. You just haven't put a spoon right in the face of a summer run yet. Keep trying and ditch the spinning rod ASAP. My spoon rod is a 1084c Loomis IMX. It is a bit short at 9' but I love it.

If you can't feel the thump then it's prolly turning over (spinning).
Not good...they'll hit it like that occasionally but not with the reckless abandon as when they attack the thump.

So there you have it.
Keep it thumping and keep it down.

thats where im getting confused DD, when it starts drifting, after the intial cast, i cant feel anything at all (litterally) then the line tightens up as much as it can, and i can start feeling it smacking the bottom... when i reel in, and it starts turning in the water, i can really feel the "womp womp womp womp womp, as its spinning in the water... i can see it in the tip... not while drifting tho...i made probably 10 casts today with the shrimp, 5 casts with the Rooster, and the other 100 plus, covering as far as i could with the spoon.. wait, i made 3 casts with a jig after the boat crossed in front of me and they didnt touch anything, and said screw it...

jig fishing is another thing i need to learn to do effectively, but im trying

Rh,

Did a boat pass by you while you were fishing that hole in your pic??

yeah, a beautiful brand new looking aluminum did.... a smaller Pontoon and Raft guys i talked to at the 18 take out are the ones that said they got fish yesterday... they were fly fishing tho, the guys in the aluminum were drifting... boat was sweeeeeet looking...

i also shouldnt probably be so hard on myself, if theres no fish around, whos to say im not doing it right? close to home, love the river (not the fee), so it still is nice to get out...

redhook,

Watch the tip. You should see a visible thump, thump, thump. If your rod loads during the swing this means your spoon is now spinning and is actually rising out of the strike zone. typically I'll dump some line once my spoon hits the water so it gets down in the zone as quick as possible. you have to use you're rod angle to get the spoon to rise and fall. during the meat of my swing my rod is almost horizontal and I usually have a slight belly in my line. I can actually see the action of the spoon in the main line itself.

You'll learn when to dump line during the swing to keep the spoon down and when to take up slack. usually i dump line in short bursts or slowly throughout my entire swing to keep my spoon down. Once my spoon is in the water my reel is always set to freespool until i hook a fish or reel up at the end of my swing. just remember to slamb your thumb down hard if you hookset on something. Haha Also, raise your rod tip when the spoon is below you at the end of the swing to keep it from snagging in the rocks downstream of you. some water is just not good spoon water. look at the water that successful Spey fisherman fish. Find water like that on your stream and pound it. Leave the other rods at home and dedicate a day or two to hardware. and read the damn book. You'll be glad you did.

we picked one out of there last saturday sidedrifting for a couple hours, 1 of the very few.

Indeed.

is it pretty hairy running sleds in that river?

can be and definetly not for ur average sled operator or most sleds.

derrick has ran his sled up that very skinny side channel below Ethel bar...that is the prerequisite for running a sled in the river being discussed. Haha.

You should probably give up spoons and stick to coloring books. Once you can stay inside the lines, you may be ready for something more advanced......

drift boat time, its just fun playin in the skinny water, redd u been getin a few?

deerlick running your sled in that area can be signifacantly more than slighty scetchy at times.

Ive gone all the way to flaming geyser with minimal water, just for fun during chum season. got some weird looks going through metzler, lol