Santiam Herring Mooch

Funny title eh? Well thats just exactly what we did! My good friend Alan [Osmosis] and I drove down to the North Santiam river to hook up with Phil [Kodiak] and Eric [XtremeNW] from the forum for a meet up and fish out. I had often thought that herring was an under utilized bait in the upper river portions of many salmon streams since for many years anglers have relied on such baits as tuna balls, wrapped plugs and egg baits tipped with chunks of vaious bait fish. Phils offer was far to interesting to pass up considering I had never heard of anything as silly as mooching or jigging herring for salmon almost a hundred miles from the ocean.



Anyone who knows Phil would know that his main game is spinners but he has this herring gig down in both saltwater and in freshwater! His background in fisheries biology gives him an inside edge on how fish behave and react to various fishing methods. The idea behind freshwater herring jigging is pretty much as you might expect. All that is required is a deep salmon filled hole and a cliff to jig off. The fun part is learning to jig and control the herring rig while it swings through the middle and lower water columes. I am not really the teacher here or even an expert on the subject, so I will leave it up to Phil to sometime share his amazing knowledge of this method, the rigging and how fish react to the bait.

Eric showed up in the early evening to hang out with us and although he had seen this method fished in other parts of the Santiam drainage he had not tried it here with Phil. Eric had been delivering fresh nightcrawlers up at Detroit Lake and did not have his salmon pole with him. Phil suggested he had an extra rod ready to go with a herring rig so we all told Eric to get on the stix and git fishin! I think you can guess what happened next.....



Alan nets fish for Eric. It is not as dark as it look. The camera flash blacks out the background.

Eric hooks a dandy fish in what would be considered the peak bite time, during the last few minutes of daylight. Allen was on that net as fast as lighting as if second nature. Erics fish came to the net after a few minutes of forceful battle. A delighted drop in angler to say the least, and on a borrowed pole and bait! Santiam fish travel a great distance like any of the Willamette Valley salmon runs and by this time of year start to turn shades of bronze, gold or even a cherry red however unlike fall chinook bearing the same colors, the Santiam fish will cut very well with bright red meat. Eric noted they are also very hard fighters



Fishing with these 3 guys is like going to the sportsmans show for an evening. I can not remember a day when I learned so much about Oregon fishing. I am so glad to say we have such talented anglers here with us at SSSF to learn from. These guys mean business and even though I did not catch anything they tought me alot. I had never rigged a herring before in my life but after their fine coaching, it just might be possible that I got to rig the lucky herring!

Thanks for the learning and the great day out!