Catching Great Lakes Pacific Salmon, with Trent Jackcon

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Bass, Fishing, Bonefish, Wilderness, Flyfishing, Trout, How To, Steelhead, Bluegill, Fly, Orvis, Sports, Salmon, Panfish, Education, Rosenbauer

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2020

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I get frequent questions on targeting introduced Pacific salmon in the Great Lakes region, so I invited an expert [interview starts at 33:13] to give us guidance on where and when to fish for them, tackle to use, and recommended flies. Trent Jackson, fishing manager of Orvis Grand Rapids, is a lifelong Michigan resident and has been fishing for Great Lakes salmon and steelhead his entire life. He gives us a great overview of this fishery, and is a great example of the rich talent we offer in our retail stores.

In the Fly Box this week, we have a number of perceptive questions and suggestions from listeners, including:

Why do I have trouble hooking trout with a 10-foot, 3-weight rod when using unweighted flies?

Can I use the Hydros Salmon/Steelhead line for tightline fishing with a 20-foot leader?

If I have both smallmouth and stocked trout in my river this fall, how can I fish for both of them?

A listener takes me to task for killing fish for the table by "bashing them in the head with a rock", and gives us the preferred way to kill fish for the table, using a Japanese method called ikejime.

If I have a limited budget, should I spend more money on my waders or wading shoes?

Why did brook trout inhale my streamer one day and only chase it the next?

Once a running fish is on the reel, should I take my fingers off the line?

When you talk about a 9-foot leader, is the tippet included in that length? And should I tie a new tippet directly to my leader without modification?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	And the Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. This is your host Tom
0:19.6	Rosenbower and lately I've gotten a number of questions about Pacific salmon fishing in the Great Lakes and otherwise.
0:30.0	And honestly, I don't chase Pacific salmon that often I've caught him.
0:35.0	I've chased him in the past, but I don't have a lot of answers to questions.
0:39.0	So I've asked Trent Jackson, the fishing manager at the Orvis store in Grand Rapids who's
0:48.1	done a lot of Pacific salmon fishing.
0:50.1	I've asked Trent to come on and answer some questions and give us some basics on Pacific
0:58.8	salmon fishing.
0:59.8	So anyway, later on we'll be talking to Trent. But first we're going to do the flybox and if you have a
1:08.0	question for the flybox, the best way to send me your question is to send me an email at podcast at Orvis.com.
1:19.7	You can just type your question in your email or you can attach a voice file if you want and if I
1:27.3	can answer your question I'll read it on the air.
1:32.1	So let's go to the flybox and the first question is from Jeff. It's an email from Jeff from Pennsylvania.
1:40.0	Hi Tom, I was recently fishing a stream here in Central PA with a healthy
1:46.8	population of brown trout with my Orvis Recon 10-foot three-weight with a
1:51.6	light line and a light leader.
1:53.2	I was using a cast of three unweighted wet flies
1:56.7	and a short line cast upstream and dead drifting them back and had good success.
2:01.6	However, I probably brought to hand less than half the takes
2:05.6	I got. I would see the take, set the hook, and a split second the fish was gone. It seemed like I wasn't
2:12.0	getting a solid hook set. I kept checking my
2:14.9	hooks for sharpness and they were fine. This got me to thinking, does the fact that I'm
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from James Hathaway, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of James Hathaway and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.