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Drop bait, pull plugs for Drano Lake springers
Washington fishing map feature
By Joel Shangle
Fishing and Hunting News
OK, so maybe it's not quite that simple to find a two-fish limit at Drano, but the bottom line is that the very straightforward technique of trolling plugs accounts for the great majority of springers on this Columbia River tributary. 90 percent of the fish caught in Drano are caught on fluorescent red, orange or pink Magnum Wiggle Warts You might see plugs shaded with yellow or green, but usually it's just a Wiggle Wart in some shade of red. The standard Drano plug rigging and trolling routine are just as simple: Tie 16- to 20-pound mainline directly to the plug (via a duolock snap), keep the lead in the box (the plug will dive deep enough on its own), toss out an average cast behind the boat and join the cadre of other boats winding their way around and around and around the western fringe of the lake. Some guys will troll here and there scattered all over the lake, but most of the boats will go in a circle from the ramp to the bridge, trolling counterclockwise It's kind of an organized thing where you just get in line with all the other boats and troll at the same speed as the boat in front of you. You don't want to try to go clockwise
Trolling around in circles for hours on end might sound like sheer monotony, but the payoff is well worth it: Like nearby Wind River, Drano will be juiced with a significant run of springers this year, thanks to an aggressive hatchery program. A slightly rearranged tribal netting schedule on Drano should also benefit anglers come late May and early June, when the fishery has historically been shut off to sport fishermen. In previous years, (WDFW) would close it to sport fishermen the third week in May and the tribes went in after that and netted it every night. The way it's arranged now, we should be able to have it stay open until June. Those nets will affect it early in the season, because they take a lot of fish, but fishing should still be pretty consistent in May and June."
Where/When? For Drano newbies, finding where the fish run from the Columbia up to the Little White Salmon hatchery is a simple matter of getting in step with the rest of the troops as they make their way out of the ramp and head north toward the rocky point/island, west towards the Highway 14 bridge and back east towards the ramp. Prime time for fishing is in May, but you'll find fish washing into Drano in force by mid-April. The alternatives Salmon running into the Drano fishery will cruise from 8 to 18 feet, hence the use of the ubiquitous Magnum Wiggle Wart, which runs down to 15 feet. Go ahead and fish the regular plug, but put something different on one of your rods." Plugs, though, aren't the only way to catch Drano springers — matter of fact, learning and utilizing alternate techniques (and we've heard our share of 'em, trust us) can be the difference between a two-fish day and a four-fish day. If fish are running in 18 feet of water and you're pulling a plug at 15 feet, you're not even fishing. You have to adapt to different ways to get the bait to the bottom. If you see that fish are suspended, go ahead and run plugs or cut-plug herring with 2 ounces of lead." "But if they're deeper, you see guys scratching their heads because they're not catching anything, but it's because they're not diving deep enough to get to where the fish are." One proven alternative is to bounce dropper lead and cut-plug herring or a spinner, a la Tillamook Bay. Because of the traffic-jam nature of the fishery, though, running a dropper and bait setup correctly is absolutely crucial. Try to keep the rods real close to the boat — I run short Loomis 930s, just trying to keep everything as close to the boat as possible so I don't interfere with anybody else."
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Copyright 2007 Last Modified 03/19/2007
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